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User since: |
Mar 24, 2000 at 10:26 UTC
(25 years ago) |
Last here: |
Apr 21, 2009 at 22:48 UTC
(16 years ago) |
Experience: |
8391
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Level: | Parson (16) |
Writeups: |
769
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Location: | -0500: but you knew that from the line below, right? |
User's localtime: |
Dec 02, 2024 at 11:35 -05
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Scratchpad: |
View
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For this user: | Search nodes |
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Semi-retired!
This homenode is severly outdated, as I rarely have
time to visit here anymore. Consider me on an extended
sabbatical to Strange Lands.
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8
Hrmm...this node is getting a bit messy. Here's a
quick and dirty list of the stuff here:
Here are some things that may help you enjoy perlmonks.
Some are elsewhere on the site, some (as of this
writing anyways) are not.
- Is the Newest Nodes page so big it won't even
load? Try using the button at the very bottom of
your home node, under "User settings"
- Check out the new Chatterbox FAQ++ for all your chatterbox questions!
- Surround all your code with <CODE> tags. Inside
these tags, everything (especially newlines and the
< > characters) appear exactly as you
type them)
- Outside of the CODE tags, make sure that you use
< and > to make the < and >
characters. Use [ and ] to make
the [ and ] symbols.
- To refer to a node by it's id number in a post,
use this format:
[id://12345]
- To refer to books on fatbrain, use an isbn code. This
also adds in a code so that Perl Monks gets credit for
any books linked to that way. Example:
[isbn://8675309|Perl for Gurus]
- To refer to a CPAN module, use the cpan code:
[cpan://DBI|The DBI Module]
- In the chatterbox, using the talk button without putting
in any text will not show anything, and will process
any checkboxes you have. This is also a good way
to refresh the screen to see more conversations.
- You can /msg yourself in the chatterbox - this is a good way to remind yourself of things, and a good alternative to your "personal nodelet"
- When you make a significant change to one of your notes,
the convention is to make a new paragraph and start it
with the word "Update:" bolded, like this example:
<P> <STRONG>Update:</STRONG> I
changed the sort routine in my code above thanks to
the excellent suggestion by kudra.</P>
- Please, please use a descriptive Title when posting
things. "Need help with this script" is not
a good title!
- Get familiar with the Newest Nodes page. It will
soon become your favorite. :)
- Anonymous monks cannot vote.
- Changing your theme is highly recommended as it becomes
very easy to tell whether you are logged in or not.
The "dark theme" is my favorite.
- After gaining some XP, you have the ability to vote.
Once your votes are used up for the day, the voting
radio buttons, the "Vote" button, and your XP/voting
nodelet will not appear until the next day.
- Your XP nodelet only appears if:
- You recently gained or lost XP or
- You have votes left for the day
Use your home node (your username at the top of the
page) to view your XP at other times.
- Some nodes are created right away after you reply,
even if you leave it blank and never hit the submit
button afterwards. It will appear as a blank post.
You can edit this, but not delete it. (yet)
- Some people prefer to prepend their names to the
titles of nodes. This is not a feature of PerlMonks -
you must do it automatically. I personally don't see
the need for it because a) the name of who wrote it
is now shown everywhere, especially in Newest Nodes
and b) people tend to reply to your notes without
editing the title, so that they have "your" name in
the title. kudra started all this: see
these two nodes.
- Be very careful with what you post. Sometimes
you cannot go back and edit your post: in general,
top level nodes cannot be changed (there are some
exceptions such as Obfuscated Code)
- Hang out for a while, participate in the chatterbox,
watch and learn. Most of the monks are very friendly
and willing (nay, eager) to help you out, no matter
how simple (or complex) your question may be.
- Your post may get voted down. If this
happens, DON'T PANIC! It happens to us all. Make the
most of it by learning why it was voted down, and
strive for a better post the next time.
- Some common reasons posts are voted down (in rough
order):
- Empty post
- Repeated post
- Completely off-topic post of gibberish
- Flame or insult
- Mostly off-topic
- Question is so badly phrased an answer cannot be given
- Question is not formatted, especially hundreds of lines of code without the <CODE> tags
- Question is very, very obvious (to some)
- Answer is wrong
- Unnecessary profanity/vulgarity/etc. in the post
- Dislike the whole thread, and your post got caught in the fire.
- Random vote. It happens.
- Personal grudge/"voting war"/etc.
Keep in mind that everyone votes on each posts for different reasons, and may have reasons not listed above. Most people do not vote for all of the reasons above either, but a subset of them. I myself only use the first four, and sometimes the next to last, as a general rule. Users may vary.
Here is a quick guide to some of the more interesting,
popular, or esoteric nooks and crannies of our cloister:
- Watch out for the Node Reaper, the only user's whose number of posts goes *down*.
- Check out the new list of Most Often Mentioned Modules
- Visit a random node and see where it takes you...
- Support Perlmonks through the wonders of capitalism
- Put yourself on the Monk Map
- View the Outside Links page for a list of perl resources outside the monastery walls.
- If you have a long post, please learn about and use the readmore tag.
- Join the Perl Monks SETI@home team!
- Add a Perl Monks bookmarklet
- Perl Monks Approved HTML tags
- Chatterbox Clients - user-supplied clients if you need more power than a browser page refresh can give.
- The Mule - What monastery would be complete without one?
- Monk pictures - all the ones that appear at that top of the page
- Meet Frank, Bob, and Joe.
- Newest Nodes - Got nodes?
- Best Nodes - The best, by reputation
- Worst Nodes - The worst, by reputation
- Here is the highest content-less node I could find. (We monks sometimes misplace things, you see. We've got the original content around here somewhere, really...)
- assume all vroom's godly powers - Go there if you dare...
- Super Search - 50% more cleaning power than a regular search
- Buy Stuff - The Monastery's own little gift shop!
- past polls - Vote early, vote often
- The very first node - Watch out for the T.B.
- Number of Monks by Level
- jcwren's Pm stats page - very nice
- Voting/Experience System - The latest version, featuring Norm!
- noisy sunset mmmm....Easter Eggs....
- Editor Requests - Go here if you need one of your nodes erased or edited.
Drop me a /msg if you know of somethingthat should be added.
Some of the things that have been discussed about the monastery. If you have additions or corrections, let me know.
VotingVoting is a very controversial topic here at the Monastery. Learn about voting at the Voting/Experience System node, then take a look at the Faqlet on Voting Guidelines. The following are some of the voting issues that have arisen:
- Posts by cciulla, corion, and corion ask why people vote nodes down.
- In a similar vein, the question of "why do you vote like you do?" and similar discsions are asked by buzzcutbuddha, bigjoe, ybiC, footpad, Fastolfe, Zo, and PipTigger.
- ybiC and lzcd ask us to reconsider the policy of voting on works by the Anonymous Monk.
- Negative posting is brought up by curtisb and mr_leisure, while a discussion on limiting the votes on one person by tye started a big discussion.
- Apertigo and Blue ask about tracking who you've voted for, and vroom speaks about the voting question.
- Many people, Kozz, cbraga, and PipTigger among them, have expressed the wish to see the reputation of a node before you vote on it. Many people oppose this idea as well.
- The creation of a "non-votable" post was argued for by gaggio, and categorized voting and a general voting discussion was initiated by ivory.
- Not voting on older nodes has been discussed earlier, but the only link I could find was a recent one by seeker.
ExperienceThe experience system correlates closely with voting, as casting votes on a node, or receiving votes from others on your nodes, are the primary means of receiving XP. (Yes, there are other ways, such as winning a quest, but these are the exception). Some of the issues encountered so far:
- The growth of the monastery has led to two excellent questions about the scaling of our present system - Ovid asks about the scaling of the XP system, while httptech asks about the scaling of votes.
- You gained 3 points since yesterday - but was it 6 up and 3 down? 1 down and 4 up? ahunter and KM argue for a breakdown.
- cciulla suggests an XP reward for the number of replies a post generates.
- Could someone troll to "raise" their own post, asks d4vis?
- Ovid and qi3ber suggest being able to see the average repuation of your posts.
- Many have suggested higher levels above Saint. See the nodes by MF, damian1301, and jptxs.
SearchingSearching, and it's gigantic, pumped-up cousin Super Search, are a welcome addition to the monastery. Still, there are two big things that are very commonly requested. The rest of the list is mostly variations on those themes:
- The number one request is to have some sort of result ordering when doing a search. This has been brought up by athomason, swiftone, extremely, footpad, footpad (again), and probably many others. Ordering can be done by creation date, section, or other criteria - see the nodes for more.
- The number two most common request is to make Super Search more visible - be it a link after a failed normal search, a link from the main page, or somewhere else, as asked by kudra, swiftone, and zigster.
- ZydecoSue has asked about excluding terms while searching, footpad has asked about excluding users, gaggio asked about using regular expressions, and brainpan has requested the familiar boolean logic be added to the search requests.
- Limiting within a reputation range has been suggested by footpad, but this has the unfortunate side effect of revealing indirectly the reputation of a node prior to voting on it. Besides which, the quality of a node does not *always* correlate with it's reputation. But I digress... :)
- lemming made a point that limiting the search to only root nodes would be nice. There is a hack, but clicking all the checkboxes except the one for "Notes" in Super Search can be a bit tedious. Surely a single button would be better?
- The format of the search results could be improved: damian would like to see the dates the nodes were posted, and footpad would like to see the results numbered with the owner's name next to it.
- Finally, footpad asks about showing the number of replies when doing a search of a user's writeups.
Chatterbox
Ah, the chatterbox, that wonderful, aggravating, ephemeral, ever-changing, very often fantastically off-topic glimpse into the heart of the Monastery! Learn more about it at the Chatterbox FAQ, then try out the
fullscreen version. If that still is not enough, check out the list of Chatterbox Clients, written by various monks, to further enhance your um...chatting experience. :) If you get too many messages, you can view them at the Message Inbox node.
- The number one suggestion for the chatterbox is the trapping of "slash typos", notably the infamous "/msh" insted of "/msg". So you type in
/msh jcwren Actually, I *like* Windows! and the whole world sees it (or at least that part of it reading the chatterbox at the time) Funny thing is, jcwren might not even see it. Handling these cases has been brought up by swiftone, turnstep, brainpan, and alakaboo.
- On a similar note, lzcd suggested trapping things such as
/turnstep I like your home node as an alternative to /msg turnstep I like your home node.
- Logging of the chatterbox is another often discussed topic. The general consensus is that this is a bad idea: see the nodes by jjhorner, Macphisto,
jcwren,
geektron, kudra, and jptxs.
- Changing the size of the area to type in has been suggested by Q*bert and epoptai. Allowing larger messages has been suggeted by turnstep.
- Showing what time a /msg was sent is a request of buzzcutbuddha, mischief, and zdog.
- The possibility of banning abusive people was mentioned by vroom a while back.
- Having a local "time" macro is jrsmith's idea.
- Being able to /msg more than one person at once was a request by mirod.
- Some improvements to the fullscreen chatterbox were suggested by epoptai, as well as some of the replies.
ModerationModeration is a feature that allows higher level monks to help make the Monastery a little less chaotic. Read about it here. Both Corion and footpad have nodes dicussing the nuances of moderating.
PostingPosting - the heart of the system. Probably no other part of the Monastery has undergone so many changes. It has come a long way. Beyond the basics, make sure you know about the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags as well as the proper way to create shortcuts to all sorts of things. Some other suggestions:
- Posting can often be confusing for new people (See the "Users" section for nodes about Anonymous Monk posting). Some recommend forcing new users to receive a message (jptxs, damian1301, and AgentM), others have suggested ways to force a new user to use CODE tags (young_perlhopper and Guildenstern. Perhaps detecting nodes that contain code without a CODE tag is the answer? (odud, swiftone, and footpad)
- A new tag that causes line numbering was ar0n idea.
- Changing the wrapping of the TEXTAREAs to "soft"
or "virtual" would help Netscape users, says tilly
- Some sections do not have a PREVIEW option - Abigail, Ovid, jynx, and bigjoe think they should.
- A way to handle duplicate posts was suggested by turnstep.
- Making sure that HTML tags are properly closed would be a nice feature, points out stwfan.
- Showing similar posts when attempting to post yours is a rough description of what boo_radley has suggested.
- Some sort of language filter was discussed by punkkid, mostly in response to a keyword submission.
- mirod asks that the "thanks" posts be kept to a minimum to decrease our signal to noise ratio.
UsersNot too many issues here - most are regarding the behavior of the many-faced Anonymous Monk:
- Discussions about Anonymous Monks, incuding showing the IP of AM posts, abuse by AMs, and the right for AMs to post: developers, muppetBoy, princepawn.
- belize asks about problem members.
- Some Anonymous Monk wants to know if old, unused users can be deleted, freeing up the namespace.
KeywordsKeywords are a feature that has not really come into its own yet. I'd like to see HTML filtered out, and there are some good discussions about them by nuance and again by nuance.
Look and FeelSuggestions on how the site appears and how it acts are gathered here. Most are probably very easy to implement. (hint, hint) :)
- The Dark Theme (the best, IMHO) has a contrast problem when viewing certain areas in the Monastery, as pointed out by me and other Dark Theme lovers: j.a.p.h, TQuid, and PipTigger.
- mdillon has asked about having variables for the colors to make your own theme.
- Good ideas about some sort of announcement when you gain a new level can be found in nodes by mt2k and lzcd.
- Showing the total of number replies (mischief and PsychoSpunk) would be a nice option.
- Displaying only the first paragraph of posts, like Slashdot does, might make The Monastery Gates more readable to BBQ and others.
- Abigail asks about showing the number of replies to posts on the user writeups pages.
- Should QA answers have timestamps? turnstep, footpad, and others want to know
- Kozz had an idea about posting code using a TEXTAREA, but it didn't go over well.
- When you view a QA question with all the replies threaded, you can see who posted them. The name disappears if you click on an answer, however.
- Amaya browsing is not possible: according to neophyte, the HTML is missing the required "action" attribute.
- princepawn asks about too many "Re:" levels.
- It would be nice to how what section a post is in, points out amelinda.
- Are the voting buttons spaced properly? (I think so, but sierrathedog04 wonders.
Things to Update/FixThese are some small problems need fixing in the Monastery:
- The St. Larry Wall shrine needs updating, as pointed out by Adam and coreolyn.
- Code vs. Craft - better labels are needed, points out vroom, swiftone, and damian1501.
- This node has a bad link that should be changed to "http://www.activestate.com/support/faqs/win32", as pointed out by john-paul a long time ago.
- The perlman nodes need to have version numbers, points out mdillon and knight.
- On a similar note, knight points out that the perldoc pages need to be updated.
- The order of the Best and Worst nodes should be changed to day, week, and then "all time" (johannz).
- When making a reply at the voting booth, the title sometimes changes to "Comment on" says dmckee.
- jcwren pointed out that there is a small typo in the source code of the Site How To page.
- The "user since" phrase on a user's home node does not show the year (xeh007 and petruchio).
- I'd like to have a way to put the pipe character inside perlmonks links. Anyone know how?
Newest NodesThe Newest Nodes is a great feature at the Monastery - most monks who have been here a while visit that and not the main page. Lots of people have made suggestions about how to improve this area:
(note: check out the Perl/Tk Newest Nodes Client which may be just what you were looking for)
- Threading the newest nodes somehow is an oft-requested feature: some nodes by japhy, mirod, and tye illustrate this.
- Show the number of replies to a node (httptech, dempa, athomason, and steveaz98)
- Not showing replies that are already at the top was requested by swiftone.
- The "all or nothing" nature of the Newest Nodes page has been addressed many times. Some solutions include checking nodes off selectively (athomason and japhy), marking entire sections as complete (nuance and kudra), choosing which categories to display (zdog, changing the order of the categories displayed (Adam), and a "clear flag proofing" method (alakaboo).
- Showing not just new nodes, but modified ones, is discussed by mt2k, mdillon, and KM.
- Another popular request is to have a link to the root node when showing notes, so you can read the whole thread at once. Among the people suggesting this are ZZamboni, nuance, Cirollo, and amelinda. (The last of these has a good example in the replies.
- Notifications of new quests (and perhaps other news) could be posted to the Newest Nodes page (Ovid)
Navigation
Making your way around the monastery can be tricky, especially for beginners. Check out the What section should I post this in page for a good description of the various parts of the Monastery. Some thoughts on navigation:
- Storing the "nextpage" information in a hidden input tag would prevent you from going to the top of a section when voting/chatting/etc. See the nodes by russ and turnstep for more information.
- Showing the node_id somewhere else besides in the link itself (i.e. by doing a "mouseover") could be helpful, thinks Adam, mdillon, and msichief.
- The distinction between answers and replies for Q&A questions causes inconsistent threading. (ybiC)
- A better link/explanation of where and how to get the PM code (Everything code that is) should be made (ybiC)
- neshura asks that a user's writeups be organized by section.
- Sometimes when you click on a node, there is no way to tell what section it is in (ummm...just me, probably mentioned elsewhere).
- Moving within sections, points out footpad, would be easier if we could view more than 15 posts per page.
CustomizationOnce you have created a PerlMonks account, there are a lot of customization options you can use to make your time here easier. This has come a long way, but there are still some things to consider:
- The ability to edit/delete your own top level nodes, or to simply delete your own regular nodes, is restricted for a good reason: see discussions about it at these nodes by jbert, cciulla, mikfire, princepawn, kozz, spectre, merlyn, ZydecoSue, and mischief.
- Having a "remove" link similar to the "add" link for your personal nodelet would be nice, as mentioned by tye and mischief.
- When you log in from the Monastery Gates, you get back a message asking whether to go back to the Monastery Gates, or to the Monastery Gates. This was pointed out by sean.
- A way to email threads was suggested by ZZamboni.
- zigster advocates being able to ignore nodes by certain users.
- The ability to customize themes was asked about by RuffRichie.
- The use of style sheets for the monastery was brought up by mdillon and Petruchio.
- Being able to follow threads with a /msg link (and not just your own) was suggested by mikfire.
- Sometimes the behavior of the automatically added signature acts odd, points out ZZamboni. This may be fixed: if it is, somebody please let me know!
- nuance would like to see a quick link to your own writeups.
- Being able to move a nodelet to the top of your list with one action would be nice, thinks Falkkin.
- The ability to move the approval nodelet up and down is what footpad and others would like to have.
- lemming has asked about ordering items in your personal node.
- Having screenshots of the various themes was suggested by mischief.
New ThingsMany new sections and things have been suggested to enhance the monastery:
- A gathering/events section has been suggested (by KM as well as others) Some of the many nodes that might go in such as place: many many nodes by our fearless leader vroom, also by ZZamboni, KM, ZZamboni, Q*bert, davorg, AM, ctweten, mrmick, boo_radley, and jeffa.
- A special "off-topic" section has been proposed by jcwren.
- The prospect of some sort of job/project board has been brought up many times. See the nodes by httptech, muppetBoy, jjhorner, lindex, jptxs, and fastolfe.
- A site map, suggested by Ozzy Osbourne.
- A separate JAPH section - cciulla and book.
- Having a random user node - mt2k.
- Removing the Worst Nodes page - Petruchio.
- Suggested reading list - jjhorner.
- High level monk test - jjhorner and mothra.
- Perl golf contest - johannz.
- Whiteboard nodes - corion.
- Newbie area - azatoth.
- Workshop area - arhuman.
- Illusion of Maya section - allogenes.
- Perl application review - gt8073a and damian1301.
- Monk quest - zigster and marvell.
- Custom perlmonks subdomain - BigJoe
- Monk project - jptxs.
- Add a name when downloading code - Albannach
- Tip of the day - little
- Most popular nodes from user's personal nodelets - Adam.
- Code review section - merlyn.
- Perlguts section - dgoddard.
- Advice and optimization section - Buckaroo_Buddha.
- Monkmail by AgentM.
- Zip together all the tutorials for easy downloading - dmckee.
What is the Chatterbox?
A:
The Chatterbox is a nodelet that appears on the right-hand side of
your screen and allows you to "talk" publicly with other users in the
monastery. It also allows you to exchange private messages to/from
other users. It is the best place to go if you have a quick perl
question that needs answering.
Who can use it?
A:
Viewing the Chatterbox is available to anyone, even Anonymous Monks,
but you must be logged in to perlmonks.org to say anything.
How do I refresh the screen without posting
something again?
A:
Hit the talk button again. Remember that the
talk button in the Chatterbox submits a form
via POST, so refreshing your browser will post the same information
again. To refresh, simply hit the talk button without
typing any message. Nothing will appear, and the page will be updated.
This is also a good trick for any page on which you have just
POSTed something and want to refresh it.
How do I use it?
A:
Just type in the textbox at the bottom of the Chatterbox, and everything
you type will appear after your name. There are also some special
commands you can use, all of which start with a slash.
Warning: Typos, such as the infamous "/msh" will
appear as if it was a normal string. The following commands must
be types exactly as they appear (but they are case-insensitive):
- /me <text>
Used as an action verb for the Chatterbox. Your name will appear,
then the text you type afterwards, and the entire thing will be
wrapped in <I> tags and italisized. For example, if I typed:
/me larts another spammer.
it would appear inside the Chatterbox as:
- /msg <username> <text>
This is used to send a private message to someone. Be very careful
when typing this! At some point in your travels here, you will probably
type "/msh" or forget the "/msg" altogether and the whole world will
see your message. The correct format is to put the the "/msg" followed by the
username of the person to send the message to, and then the message.
The person will receive it at the top of their Chatterbox
with a checkbox next to it. You can send yourself a message to try it
out. As an example, if I were type in:
/msg kudra Our operatives in Australia are in place!
it would appear in kudra's Chatterbox as:
- /tell <username> <text>
Same as /msg
- /ignore <username>
Use this to ignore a user's public messages. Anything that user says
will no longer appear in your Chatterbox. However, you will still receive
be able to receive private messages from them.
- /unignore <username>
Used to remove somebody from your ignore list. Just put their name
after the "/unignore".
- /chatteroff
Used to turn off all public chat from your Chatterbox. The only thing
you will see are private messages (using /msg) sent to you. This is the equivalent of
an "/ignore everyone"
- /chatteron
Used to turn the viewing of public messages back on after a
"/chatteroff" command has been issued.
What sort of things are discussed in the Chatterbox?
Everyting and anything!! Topics tend to lean towards perl (naturally).
Unix and current events pop up often too, but in general, anything
goes.
I can say anything? Is it moderated in any way?
Only insofar that you may be /ignore'd by other people if you are
really bothersome. The Perlmonks community is generally a very friendly,
open place, and the Chatterbox is one of the strongest indications
of this.
How do send a message to somebody with a space in
their username?
s/ /_/g; (in other words, just replace any spaces
with an underscore.)
I came in late to a conversation. Is there anyway to see
older messages?
No. The Chatterbox is meant as a very temporary place to post
things. Some of the other Chatterbox clients may have some sort
limited scrolling. Also see the next question.
Are the messages logged anywhere? I don't want my conversations
being recorded!
The Chatterbox is traditionally not logged, but anyone is free to do so.
Search engines like Google have been
known to "Capture" a moment in time from the Chatterbox as they
cache a copy of a page from PerlMonks. To be safe, never say anything in the
Chatterbox that you would not say in any other public forum.
How many private messages (via /msg) can appear in the
Chatterbox at one time?
Ten. Once you receive more than that, a small message will appear
after your tenth message suggesting that you go to the
Message Inbox page to see the rest of them.
Are there other ways to view the Chatterbox?
Of course! In addition to the Message Inbox which allows you to
view all your private messages at once, other monks have written
various clients to access the Chatterbox. Most use
ZZamboni's PerlMonksChat.pm module: see
his home node for a list of current clients
you can try.
What is the maximum length of a message?
A:
The maximum limit is 255 characters. If you really have the need to
say more, you will have to break it up into multiple messages.
What happens if I send a message to a user who does not
exist?
A:
This usually happens when you forget to put in the
<username> before your private message. Unless the first
word in your message happens to be a current user, you will get a message
back from root. For example, if I was trying to ask
jcwren about the eating habits of geckos, and mistyped:
/msg How fast can a gecko eat a cricket?
then the user "How" would receive the strange message
"fast can a gecko eat a cricket?" Otherise, I will receive this
message in my inbox:
How long do public messages stay in the Chatterbox?
A:
Messages stay about five minutes, or sooner if they are "pushed off the top"
because the chatterbox is busy. The Chatterbox will generally hold
about 10 messages before the oldest one (at the top) gets pushed
off to make room for new messages.
How can I tell who I have already ignored?
A:
Unfortunately, you cannot. Once you have ignored somebody with the
/ignore command, you must remember that they are ignored.
Can I tell who is listening when I talk?
A:
You can look at the list of names in the Other Users
nodelet for a general idea, but not all of the people listed there
are reading the Chatterbox, and not all of the people reading the
Chatterbox are listed in Other Users. There is a very high correlation, however,
as most monks read the Chatterbox.
How can I move the Chatterbox higher up on my screen?
A:
You can change the position of the Chatterbox and all other
nodelets by going to your home node and selecting the
user settings link at the bottom of the page.
Note that there are two nodelet ordering
sections, one for the frontpage and one for non-frontpage
nodelets.
This is kind of like irc!! Is there a perlmonks irc
channel?
A:
The channel #perlmonks exists on irc via irc.slashnet.org.
I could have sworn I just saw the
NodeReaper in the chatterbox!
A:
No area of the monastery is safe from the NodeReaper!
Why FAQ++?
A:
We already have a Chatterbox FAQ. Consider this
the upgraded version. :)
What is posting?
A:
Posting is the process of creating or editing a node on the PerlMonks site.
Usually this is done to ask or to answer a question. PerlMonks is made up of
a large number of interconnected nodes, and uses the
Everything Engine.
How do I post?
A:
It is highly recommended, but not necessary, that you get a
PerlMonks account before posting. Once you
have something to say, just type type your text into the
TEXTAREA box on the screen and hit the preview or the
submit button. Keep in mind that everything you type will be
treated as HTML (with some exceptions, see below), so things will
not necessarily appear the same as how you typed them. The
preview button is highly recommended for this reason!
How is text posted to PerlMonks different from normal HTML?
A:
There are three major differences between "normal" HTML and text typed
into PerlMonks:
- Special linking of text enclosed by left and right brackets (
[ and
] )
If you put brackets around your text, PerlMonks
will turn that text into a special hyperlink. (However, this does not happen
within CODE tags). There are many different kind of links, but
the most common is a simple named link to another node on the
PerlMonks site. For example, if you type in:
My favorite function is [seek].
it will appear as:
My favorite function is seek.
Notice how the word seek has been turned into a hyperlink to
the PerlMonks node of the same name.
See the
"How do I link" question for other
types of links.
- Special formatting of text within CODE tags.
The CODE tags allow you to get around the problem
that the left and the right bracket are commonly used within perl scripts.
Any time you post a snippet of code, you should wrap it in CODE
tags, which does three things for you:
- Suppresses the automatic linking of things in left and right brackets.
- Preserves all whitespace, e.g. newlines, spaces, and tabs. (with a PRE tag)
- Makes the type appear different so that it stands out from the rest (with a TT tag)
- Filtering of non-approved HTML tags
Tags will be silently discarded if they do not appear in the
list of approved HTML tags.
How do I make the [
and ] symbols?
A:
Use &091; and &093;
The left bracket
[ and right bracket
]
have special meaning within PerlMonks nodes, so they must be
escaped if you really want to use them. Note that
you do not need to escape brackets within
text surrounded by CODE tags, as this special
PerlMonks linking feature is turned off within those tags.
How do I make the
<
and > symbols?
A:
Use < and >
The "less-than"
< and greater-than
>
are used to create HTML tags. Therefore, if you really
want to make them, you must use the special HTML code.
Text surrounded by PRE tags do not need
this escaping. In a PerlMonks node, text inside
CODE tags is automatically wrapped in
PRE tags, so you do not need to escape these
characters within CODE tags either.
How do I link to something on PerlMonks?
A:
Linking is done by enclosing text in between a left bracket and a
right bracket. A link will be created that tries to link to
a node by that name. You can also change the name of what appears
as the text of the hyperlink by putting a left bracket, the name to
link to, a "pipe" character ( | ), the text to show, and then a
right bracket. Some examples:
If you type in... |
It will appear as... |
They [seek] him here. |
They seek him here. |
The NodeReaper has a cool [NodeReaper|home node]! |
The NodeReaper has a cool home node! |
Have you seen the [Newest Nodes] page? |
Have you seen the Newest Nodes page? |
Have you seen the [Newest Nodes|Newest Nodes page]? |
Have you seen the Newest Nodes page? |
What other type of special links are there?
A:
Here is the complete list of links you can make within
PerlMonks:
Type of link |
Description |
Example |
Normal link:
[foo] |
Link to a PerlMonks node named "foo" |
Have you tried using [unpack]?
becomes
Have you tried using unpack?
|
Named link:
[foo|bar] |
Link to a PerlMonks node named "foo",
and make it appear as "bar" |
Here is some [Perl Racer|obfuscated code]!
becomes
Here is some obfuscated code!
|
Offsite link:
[http://foo|bar] |
Link to another site ("foo") with an HREF tag,
and make it appear as "bar". |
Why not visit [http://www.slashdot.org|Slashdot]?
becomes
Why not visit Slashdot?
|
Node_id link:
[id://foo|bar] |
Link to a specific node by the node_id number "foo",
and make it appear as "bar"
|
[id://58373|Perl Love] conquers all.
becomes
Perl Love conquers all.
|
CPAN module link:
[cpan://foo|bar] |
Link to something on CPAN with the name "foo",
and make it appear as "bar". |
Try using [cpan://Benchmark|Benchmark.pm]
becomes
Try using Benchmark.pm
|
Book link:
[isbn://foo|bar] |
Link to a book at fatbrain.com by ISBN # "foo",
and make it appear as "bar". |
The [isbn://1565922573|"owl book"] covers regular expressions.
becomes
The "owl book" covers regular expressions.
|
How do find out the node_id of a certain page?
A:
If you are on the page itself, just look at the URLS of any of the links on
the page that end in lastnode_id=xxxxx and
xxxxx will be the node_id of the page you are on.
Try finding the node_id of this very page with this link to
the Newest Nodes page. This should show
that you are on currently on node 6041. (unless this
FAQ has moved!!)
On most browsers, the URL information shows in the browser's status bar
when you hold the mouse pointer over the link, but, if you are desperate,
you could always view the source of the page directly.
Why do some of the Submit buttons say "Stumbit"?
A:
Just a little bit of humor, it does the same thing. Who says monks
don't have any fun? :)
Why can't I edit some of my nodes anymore?
A:
Most top-level nodes are not editable once you submit them. That's why
there is a "Preview" button. Go over your post very well, for you
will not be able to change it once you select "Submit".
What is a "top-level" node?
A:
A top-level node is any node that is not a reply to someone else's
node. This is usually starting a new discussion, asking a new question,
posting a new piece of code, etc.
Which top-level nodes *are* editable?
A:
First, here is everything that is not editable.
Once you create these, you cannot change them:
Here is a list of things that can be changed once
you create them:
How can I delete one of my nodes?
A:
The best you can do is to make an Editor Requests petition.
If the node is a part of Q&A,
you can also send a /msg to a Q&A Editor.
Who is the NodeReaper? How can he have negative writeups?
A:
The NodeReaper's main job is to "harvest" posts that the community
feels is of no value. These can be duplicate posts, off-topic posts,
trolls, or anything else. All monks at level 6 or higher can nominate
a post to the Nodes to Consider page. Once it has been moved there,
all level 6 or higher monks can vote to delete it, keep it, or edit it.
Once a post has a certain number of "delete" votes (currently 5) without
having reached a certain number of "keep" votes (currently 2), the
NodeReaper will swoop in and claim the node. Once he does, ownership of
the node is transferred from the original owner to the NodeReaper. The
node's content is replaced with a short message containing a link to the
original text. The reason for the node's deletion (as entered by the
level 6+ monk who nominated the node) is shown at the top of the
node. Any future votes on the node will go towards the NodeReaper, and
not the original poster of the node. The negative writeups is because
NodeReaper has no need to obey the normal laws of physics in the
Monastery - you'll have to ask *him* what the number means. :)
Why not the Posting FAQ++
A:
Because the "Posting FAQ" was free! :)
Questions and comments welcome!
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