Re^2: Monastery Gates Suggestion for Improvement

[Perlbotics]

Good analysis. From my point of view, this calls for a little more guidance for first time visitors (customers). Not to patronise, but to give the SoPW more orientation. It should be possible to properly express the problem without knowing a markup language.

I think the SoPW textarea and the small-print deserve its own page/node. Personally, I would remove the textarea and the small-print from the SoPW pages and replace them by two prominent links at the top and the bottom of the SoPW (Now: Add your question). The same link could be used at the Monastery Gates.
An unregistered user would be led to a more structured page allowing him/her to enter (draft):

• the question title
• (opt) category/tag
• a problem description
• the question (re-think the problem)
• (opt) a code fragment to demonstrate the problem (what have you done so far?)
• (opt) current/desired output of the program

As a quick hack, these inputs could be decorated with a little bit of HTML and provided as a preformatted preview textarea (Your "PerlMonks-approved HTML"-formatted text) as it is now.
E.g., the code fragment is wrapped into <code>...</code> tags, paragraphs are detected and marked up, spoilers and output is wrapped, very long text is folded (see more), Perl keywords become links to the [doc://keywords] ;-) etc.

A not so quick-hack would provide feedback (preview) with the same form and more guidance. Experienced users might chose to (personal settings or simple link) continue to use the textarea with it's full markup-power as it is now. If Javascript is not condemned, a SoPW-question-WYSIWYG-editor can be conceived...

Just some thoughts... I wonder if it is worth the effort? After all, some gentle rebuke by the Monks as well as exercising the virtues of tolerance and helpfulness is part of the whole experience.