Re: (Homenodes and) where to post OT stuff?

[Perl Mouse]

I think a lot of people visit Perlmonks because it's about Perl, and not because it's a group of people more or less connected to Perl discussing stuff. If you want that, go to #perl on IRC, or the NY or London Perlmongers mailinglists.

The internet is a big place. Perlmonks is interesting because it specializes. And there aren't rules saying that if you join one club on the internet, you can't join any others.

I'd say that if you want to discuss flower arrangements, or motorcycle maintainance, you should be doing that elsewhere than Perlmonks. Not only because the majority of the people on Perlmonks won't be interested in whatever non-Perl topic that will be raised here, but also because there will be other forums with lots of people interested in whatever non-Perl topic you want to discuss. Discussing it elsewhere is a "win-win" IMO.

[blazar]

I perfectly agree with you. Specialization, like so many other things, however is or can be a blurred concept. And it would be interesting or even desirable to have discussions with monks who share with you other interests besides Perl.

And, of course, discussing flower arrangements, would be pointless here. I was rather focusing on subjects that may end up being related, if possibly loosely, with Perl itself.

To reason on your same example, I think it would not be totally pointless to discuss flower arrangements and analogies of the latter with perl programming with some other monk sharing with you the same interest.

Off topic discussions already arise here and I think you cannot avoid it: most importantly I'm sure that this doesn't lower in any way the quality of communication here, nor does it increase the noise/ratio signal, whereas the typical "specialized" questions a' la "esteemed monks, is it possible to do X in PERL?" do!

In this vein, I was not searching a means to increase this kind of OT posts, but seeking advice wrt how to do what is "unavoidable" (in an obviously weak acceptation of the term) in the less invasive and most appropriate way...