kwaping wrote in Re^2: Want a million dollars? on 03 Oct 2006:

Do you really think I'm the type of person that would fool a bunch of people into doing the work for me so I could get a cut of the money? Doesn't my mere presence on PM (and rank obtained) suggest that isn't the case? I would agree with your cynicism if I had just joined and had zero posts previous to this. But I think you're really reaching in this case.

I've got some reactions to this exchange and some strong responses to the above statements in particular. I have no grudge against the OP. But I am not "neutral" in opinion on the concept invoked by kwaping: that his mere presence on PMo (and rank -- please) means anything in providing a clue for any other individual to assess the likelihood of him being competent at anything (except, perhaps, how to point and click with a mouse).

Stepping back a second and being reasonable and generous, it's only human IF kwaping felt a bit attacked and abraded by tilly's words. (IF: I am not claiming to know that his mind was in that state; I am saying that it looks like that to me). When one is reacting to being attacked, one reaches sometimes for the first thing that comes to hand. Very understandable.

Nonetheless I'm going to say for the record, as someone who's been around at PMo longer than almost any all-y'all (all-y'uns :-) that this particular bottle o' sarsparilla ain't the thing you want to reach for either in anger / defensiveness or in a cool head. Because it is bogus and pathetic. tilly is absolutely right (in his reply which predated this one) about both duration of presence and rank at PMo: they mean nothing that's useful or admirable at all.

edit: 07 Oct 2006; break the following into smaller paragraphs for better readability.

I'd go even further. Based on my experience at PMo, I'd be somewhat disinclined to prefer to look for programming team members from PMo, or to hire someone who has had heavy involvement here. Because this "community" supports a negative culture of self-absorbed ego-feeding and group covering-of-backs (which are not, paradoxically, mutually exclusive phenomena); it supports group-think in a big way, and it supports cowardly evasion of responsibility when it comes to dealing with any sort of interpersonal issues.

IOW, there's a slight balance IMHO of greater probability that someone who's been a fixture at PMo is notably handicapped in the interpersonal relations dept. Human-interaction-challenged.

Edit: added paragraphs until -----
09 Oct 2006

This is not only true of Perlmonks, however. In general it is possible to discern that people who live much of their lives doing online communications may (or may not) be human-interaction-challenged. I've stated that "fixtures" and perennial presences at Perlmonks might be suspect, but so are a large body of people with very thin involvement (but with accounts) at Perlmonks.

It's something that I've just become aware of: some of these people apparently mistake Perlmonks for the programming Mailing Lists or other media on which they've participated in the past, and bring their preconceptions and frustrations here to Perlmonks; and apparently mistake individuals they encounter here for individuals in those contexts who have irritated them. In particular such persons seem prone to drive-by flaming and reckless belligerence towards people they've never interacted with before, whereas a lot of Monks who are more regular and dedicated in their participation either brought or have learned greater restraint and better, wiser judgement.

It's not all bad, here at Perlmonks, and I offer my sincere apologies to anyone who may have felt very bad about reading the words I wrote earlier.

It's not fair to draw a broad brush across a whole spectrum of individuals, and PMo is diverse and large. But it's also not supportive of truth to put the idea, or propaganda, out there, that "membership" in PMo is some kind of accomplishment. I'd have preferred it to be, and have made myself really unpopular with some old hands by suggesting that the bar for recognition for real participation at PMo be set a little higher than "nada". But very strongly the people on PMo I've encountered have shown that they choose to have a place where they can feel free to trot out their childish personality aspects, be irresponsible and lazy when it comes to listening with real care and effort to what others have to say, generally "B-S around".

The cold water that's been thrown by tilly on your optimism and generosity might have felt bad, kwaping. But nowhere do I see that tilly claimed he believed that you would exploit other team members for monetary profit (without doing "your fair share" of the work). I think your reading of what tilly was saying was too simple-minded. He wrote "I see what is in it for you". That could be interpreted in a number of different ways.

My 24 cents.

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