Confessional

[chromatic]

Confession is good for the soul. If you have anything you would like to confess, feel free to reply. You may do so anonymously. In fact, if you want to say, "I've been downvoting posts by that one monk because I think he misses the point", you're probably better off being anonymous.

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It's been quite a while since my last confession, especially since this isn't a regular monastery of the confessional variety.

Here is a list of my trespasses:

• I withheld positive votes from worthy posts by fellow monks when we were competing for top honors.
• I teased another monk in the chatterbox.
• I secretly considered adding a backdoor to give me more XP.
• I upvoted a monk based on his username, though he did make good posts.
• I used up all of my votes to gain XP rather than to promote good posts.
• I have not been going through Worst Nodes to rescue unfairly-downvoted posts recently.
• I criticized an article about Perl for perceived wrongs instead of reading the rest in context.
• I posted about the snake language to see if people would upvote it. Only a couple of people fell for it.
• I had a chatterbox submit form on my home node for a while, and I also played with layers to get an extra image.

For penance, I will figure something out. Maybe I'll write 'Hail, Kudra' ten times.

Seriously, if you have something to admit, something you've done that wasn't good for PM in general, this is the place. No grudges here.

[Ovid]

Deep Breath

Okay, here goes:

• I have posted anonymously when I expected to be downvoted.
• I enjoy the fact that some of my posts have an unwarranted high reputation due to personality upvoting (though I have reason to believe that there are some downvoters for me, too -- does that mean I've hit the big time?)
• I have advocated Perl to a former employer who I knew hated the language.
• Yes, mom, those magazines really were mine.
• I should have taken the blue pill.
• In high school, I deliberately passed notes written in Tengwar so that teachers couldn't read them.
• I took Spanish in my senior year of high school because the freshman girls were in that class.
• I have telnetted to port 25 and sent email from "God".
• I didn't ask him what was in the box before I disposed of it.
• No, Susan, I wasn't responsible for the small, furry animal, but I know who was.

Cheers,
Ovid :)

Join the Perlmonks Setiathome Group or just click on the the link and check out our stats.

[phaylon]

I confess() having upvoted Ovid's post for this:
• In high school, I deliberately passed notes written in Tengwar so that teachers couldn't read them.

[mirod]

OK, so I admit:

• to posting way too much in the week before would jump a level in order to get there faster ,
• to have gone through periods where I looked at the stats page 10 times a day
• to have snuk into the computer room on Sundays while my wife was asleep just to cast as many of my votes as possible, just to get the xp's before making breakfast,
• to have archived my first home node as a saint (except I missed the moment and it shows 3001 xp and a comment by arhuman in the CB saying "LOL, you missed it!"...)
• to have posted much less since then,
• to have rationalized this behaviour by pretending (to myself!) that this way other monks have their chances,
• to have registered a second, stoopid, handle, because I thought it would be a clever joke (it wasn't...) (although I never used it to vote I wrote a couple of posts under that name),
• to have been thouroughly p****d off by seing the rep of a post my merlyn go up while my follow-up showing that he had made a mistake was stuck at rep 2, talk about personnality voting, pffuh!
• to have promoted some of my old nodes by linking them from new ones,
• to looking at the list of my posts by rep and to be really sad at how little technical content my best posts have (and no, I won't link to them!)
• to thinking that I am not the only one to have sinned and that the voting/xp system makes PM partly a game and that it is part of its addictive power, so at the end of the day those sins are part of enjoying the site. Amen!

[dws]

• I often finish editing my posts long after I've posted them.
• I have downvoted several high-ranking monks when I thought they were being snooty, but seldom /msg them with an explanation.
• When I fall behind, I tend to read posts from certain high ranking monks first, thus generating more "personality" votes for them.
• Much of my personal work doesn't use POD.
• I committed many grievous sins before aligning myself with CGI.pm, yet have failed to clean up all of those sins.
• I have given out many easy answers to Seekers of Perl Wisdom, rather than providing them hints so that they can earn the answer themselves.
• I have used objects for the sake of using objects, when a procedural approach would have solved the problem just fine.
• I have a junior high library book that is now way overdue.
and
• I've gotten out of bed after my wife is asleep to hack Perl, visit the Monastery, surf, ...

[dws]

and
• I just lost several weeks worth of personal scripts because I (hanging head in shame) didn't have them backed up.

[kudra]

I ++ed the root node because of the penance suggestion...

(Real things now)

• edited this post after it had already been voted on to add this list
• put hidden content in a lot of my posts
• have not requested that vroom remove some of my posts which show clear evidence of personality upvoting, nor have I firmly requested that people not upvote me for that reason
• asked questions privately rather than revealing ignorance in SoPW (thus not giving others the opportunity to learn from the discussion that might have resulted)
• used all my votes for the three days before I reached level 8 in an attempt to get xp (and mentioned in the chatterbox that I was near level yesterday when I was 7 points away from 9)
• have gained most of my xp through non-perl posts
• am so tired of mentions of a certain module that I sometimes downvote posts that mention it regardless of other content (although I mostly try to avoid posts I think will mention it)
• once messaged someone I knew about changing a node rather than just downvoting it as I would have for someone else
• been bothered about some of the 'cabals' for the simple reason that I haven't been invited to join
• gossiped about people at perlmonks both in person and through chatterbox messages
• intentionally omitted the point that probably most deserves to be on this list

[larsen]

intentionally omitted the point that probably most deserves to be on this list

Wow! I ++ed this node for being Meta-confessional :)

[Macphisto]

>>gossiped about people at perlmonks both in person and through chatterbox messages

• /me admits to knowing hoping kudra was gossiping about him

Macphisto the I.T. Ninja

Everyone has their demons....

[MeowChow]

For great justice, here goes:
• Upvoted nodes to find out their rating
• Upvoted monks' best nodes to find out their node XP range
• Never explained a downvote
• Timed top-level posts for maximum XPosure
• Posted AYBABTU jokes.
• Been upset that nodes I posted were not frontpaged
• Frontpaged two of my own nodes
• Downvoted nodes I thought were overrated, but not bad
• Engaged in monastic politicking and demagoguery
• Ignored newest nodes by monks I'm unfamiliar with
• Finished editing nodes after posting them
You know what you doing.

   MeowChow                                   
               s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print

[jeffa]

• consistantly reply to nodes long after the hubub dies down
• shamelessly edit my posts if i make mistakes
• create other users from time to time
• i've submitted JavaScript code fer chrisake
• owe certain monks a bit of money
• plant HTML comments in various nodes of interest
• create more other users once twice
• have not finished reading NPwP yet
• upvoted the top 100 user's highest node =)
• thought about downvoting the top 100 user's lowest nodes >:)
• create still more other users
• have been known to leave out the </ul> tag
• have been known to lie about leaving out the </ul> tag
• am really an evil minion of Zoltar, Overload of Cheese Sandwich
For penance I shall write^Wprint 'use strict' 1000 times:

print "use strict\n" x 1000;

[Dominus]

• I posted the Impress Women node with a specific intention of pandering.
--
Mark Dominus
Perl Paraphernalia

[boo_radley]

so you were hoping to... impress women with that node?
at least you were honest.

[Dominus]

Says boo_radley:

so you were hoping to... impress women with that node?

No, I was hoping to impress Perl monks. As I posted it, I muttered to myself "If this doesn't get me in the best nodes of all time, nothing will."

It was horribly cynical, I must admit.

--
Mark Dominus
Perl Paraphernalia

[arhuman]

Saint Larry forgive me for I'm a sinner :


• I've done almost EVERYTHING to climb up the XP ladder faster. (and I've tryed to rationalize this behaviour)
• I felt (almost) no guilt for being ranked higher than other more worthy monks (BooK, OeufMayo, Petruchio, boo_radley, epoptai, damian1301...Oh my god there are too many too mention them all !!!) ad I've tryed to rationalize this behaviour too
• I UPVOTED people's by PERSONALITY.
• I Sometimes think I'm quite good at Perl.
• I sometimes want to be Merlyn (just for the salary the knowledge and the fame (Not for the law problems))
• I sometimes forget the 'kind tone' I always advocate.
• I often say 'just five minutes' to my wife HOURS before eventually joining her.
• I don't contribute as much as I receive.

"Only Bad Coders Badly Code In Perl" (OBC2IP)

[Elgon]

Forgive me father Larry for I have sinned many times in the past month and greivous is the burden.

• I did fail in my promise to log into perlmonks once a day. Indeed I have only logged in three times in the past month.
• I did knowingly downvote a post because I didn't like the poster's name.
• I did write today in my Matlab exam some of the most heinous cruft ever to have graced paper. I only thank Larry that it will hopefully never get near a networked computer and risk escaping into the wide beyond. It would have worked though. In this sin is included the crime of cargo-cult code, direct translation from perl to matlab where possible and not using matlab's nice functions instead.

• I have not booted up my laptop or programmed Perl in over a month.

In my defence I can only say that I've been busy having exams, shooting competitions and that most distracting of posessions Elgon ducks a girlfriend. I also wrote on my exam paper that the last question (basically a regexp exercise in a language without regexps) that it could be solved with a Perl one liner as opposed to about ten lines of matlab and then proceeded to play Perl golf, albeit badly, with the possibilities.

Elgon

[Anonymous Monk]

In this sin is included the crime of cargo-cult code, direct translation from perl to matlab where possible and not using matlab's nice functions instead.

Isn't it ironic to sin while using Matlab?

[buckaduck]

• I have posted example code without testing it first, to try to get my answer out there first. Never again.
• Until recently, I had not used the -T flag to enable taint checking on all of my CGI scripts. And now I have a disgraceful number of security holes.
• I used Perl for over two years before I discovered the perldoc command. Believe it or not.
• My modules shamelessly @EXPORT their subroutines and variables, rather than making them @EXPORT_OK.
• I have kept my wife waiting for me at home, with dinner getting cold, while I lost track of time here at PerlMonks. In fact, I'm doing it now! Must dash...
buckaduck

[scain]

I used Perl for over two years before I discovered the perldoc command. Believe it or not.

My god! How?

[footpad]

A better penance might be to rewrite MW's formmail.pl so that it's secure.

Alternatively, write a tutorial showing how to convert a script based on formmail to one using CGI.pm, MIME::Lite, and other appropriate modules.

As far as the rest of it goes, I'd rather we focused on moving forward and doing better in the future. We've all made mistakes.

--f

[tomhukins]

A better penance might be to rewrite MW's formmail.pl so that it's secure.

Like Not Matt's Scripts?

[belg4mit]

• I unwittingly created an account, and only activated it a year later.
• I have been envious of the rate at which some brethren, whom arrived after I became activated, have risen.
• I have at times been an XP whore, most notably in striving to reach monkdom. I justified this by convincing myself it would go no further once I reached level 5. This has been mostly true though I have fallen off the wagon once or twice.
• I have often submitted after several previews, and continue to submit afterwards. I console myself with the fact that I mark with UPDATE. This is not a race.
• I have been dismayed at the vote distribution of my nodes, and doubted.
• I have been guilty of excess virtue: impatience, laziness and hubris.
• I have filled up the chatterbox.
• I have been frugal with my votes, the more I have the less I seem to spend. (It may be relative, and the spending is a constant rate)
• I have spoken too soon.
• I have not always practiced as I preached. And other double standards.
• I have taken some things personally.

--
perl -pe "s/\b;([mnst])/'\1/mg"

[Limbic~Region]

All,
My list of confessions probably is incomplete and will probably continue to grow. These are my Monastery related transgressions that I can remember:
• I have cast votes just to gain XP
• I have cast votes (up & down) based on author not content
• I have updated my own nodes without annotation when I realized they were wrong
• I have unfairly judged others based on influence from others rather than direct interaction
• I have regretted posting a node I knew would get a lot of XP on days with low activity on the site
• I have downvoted posts by an author based on things said in the CB and not based on content
• I have monitored Saints in our Book to see how well I stacked up
• I have only skim read posts when I assumed the author was wrong instead of giving the benefit of the doubt
• I have recorded my XP achievements on my homenode
• Lately I only give time to fun, interesting, or challenging posts and ignore others
• Once, early on, I posted anonymous intentionally because I didn't want the downvotes I was sure it would get (it didn't)
• I have been extremely frustrated by lack of attention to a reply because of where or when in the thread it appeared
• As a result, I have intentionally replied to a node near the top of the thread so it would be seen
• Also as a result, I have mentioned the node in the CB to draw attention to it
• I have enjoyed getting upvotes based on the fact that "I posted it" rather than on content
• I have kept a running count of how many posts of mine have > 100 XP
• I have inconsistently been hard on authors for not doing more themselves
• I have neglected family while I worked on something here
• I have neglected work while I worked on something here
• Voted on nodes to find out their reputation
• Voted on author's highest rank node to see if it was higher than my own
• I have been upset when a node of mine I felt should be frontpaged wasn't
• I have refused to become a devil
• I have sometimes assumed I was more adept at Perl based off relative XP
• I have withheld some info when posting because I believed I wouldn't be helped otherwise
• I have been a jerk for reasons unrelated to matters being discussed in the CB
• I have tried to be the first to reply to a node I knew was going to get good XP
• I have replied to nodes without fully reading them and complained when others have done the same to my own
• I have assumed my code was better than someone else's without having tested it
• I have voted on a node referenced in the CB without considering the context of the entire thread
• To be continued...

[jotti]

Forgive me for using Perl only for CGI projects and prefering C++ for anything else.
Forgive me for uploading my picture even if I'm not allowed yet to do it.

jotti

[mpeg4codec]

This area seems far underused, but I need to cleanse my sins, really. My faults:
• I have been an XP whore
• I make sure to post detailed information that I may not completely understand
• I've used up all my votes in order to gain experience, although I voted on worthy posts
• I posted a reply to a CUFP that showed a faster, simpler, untested method of doing the same thing, with the simple comment "Untested."
• I was trying to show off my skill, when I realised that hundreds of monks knew the same thing better than I; it was humbling
• This one has been on my conscience for a few days
• I have been neglecting reading the site, and have been unable to make valid contributions to help better my fellow monks

I feel better, having got that out. I'm sorry, all! Please forgive.

Who will not mercie unto others show, How can he mercie ever hope to have?
~Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene (bk. VI, canto I, st. 42)

[suaveant]

I 8 the sandbox... :(
                - Ant

[talexb]

• Verily, I admit to XP whoring (and almost begging for votes in the CB, how embarrassing) on approaching one of the levels a few months back. Since then I've kept my mouth shut as I apprach a new level. Even though there seems to be an amazing drought right before a level change. Those final few points take F-O-R-E-V-E-R!!
  Now that I've attained Sainthood I don't care about XP any more. Really.
• I have posted partial answers in the past, and have been burned. Never again.
• I admit to cruising the Newest Nodes list for some easy XP -- once in a while. I will turn over a new leaf and limit my visits to a few choice nodes. No cruising. There is work to be done.
• I confess to the sin of pride a few months back when one of my nodes, that I thought was of some academic interest, soared into the stratosphere and was front-paged.
• I confess to using /ignore when some lunatic started spewing on the CB.
• I confess to being a little freaked out by some monks .. my propensity to consider a node has dropped by about 2/3 based on his/her flaming comments.
• I confess to being addicted to PerlMonks.

--t. alex
but my friends call me T.

[gregor42]

Forgive me Vroom-sama for I have sinned...

deep breath....exhale...nervous pause...another...

• I did knowingly Personality vote ++ another monk to apologize to them for trollish/abusive behavior in the CB...

• and... Oh yeah.. I was trollish & abusive in the CB...

• and... Having been offended on other occasions by two monks, I did obessively read all of their postings & become very critical in terms of my voting... (hand held over heart & head bowed in shame) In truth, borderline personality voting.. Perhaps the worst kind of personality voting there is I suppose. Deceiving myself into thinking that wasn't the reason for the votes. Oh they maybe weren't nodes that deserved my ++ but they also didn't deserve --'s... Oh guilty.. guilty am I...

• and... I am guilty of not posting enough code.

• and... I pontificate/rant far too much.

• and... I use smiley's far too much.

• and... I suck at OOPERL even though I'm fluent in Java...

• and... I use perlmonks to procrastinate at my job & look very busy

• and... My production code has huge amounts of comments in it.

As pennance I shall restrict myself to only posting code for the next 10 nodes, and I shall only lurk in the CB during that time...



Wait! This isn't a Parachute, this is a Backpack!

[Johnny Golden]

We have all sinned within the confines of this place. By recognizing your sins, ye shall be set free by the Gods of Perl. Knowledge is the forbidden fruit and yet we all like apple pie.

[imp]

Forgive me, for I have sinned.
I have:
• Read perlmonks while camping, on my cellphone
• Read perlmonks during a lunchbreak on my cellphone
• Stayed awake hours after my girlfriend fell asleep, to answer a few questions.
• Written a node on a sunday, but waited until monday to post - because sunday posts always get lower XP
• Felt dissapointment when a node that I thought was reasonably well written received 0-1 XP
• Wrote a perl daemon to track my XP in a local database, and used a mozilla plugin to display current XP in the status bar
• Have not explained many of my downvotes (though I am doing it more often now)
• Looked for other good nodes by someone who helped me, and upvoted a few. The nodes genuinely deserved the vote, but..

[arkturuz]

Among few not worth mentioning mistakes, I have one that is really funny to me now: few years ago when I became regular visitor on perlmonks.org (but not registered yet) I thought that an Anonymous Monk was the real user, and I thought: 'What a cool and imaginative name'.
Later I noticed some obvious contradictions in several of his/her posts, so I did some research (read help docs, etc), and when the truth came to me I just couldn't believe it :-)

[Anonymous Monk]

Heh, no need to mock about my split personality :(

[arkturuz]

So, you do exist? What a relief! After all this years of fear, uncertainty and doubt :-)

[arturo]

I

• persist in maintaining my perfection, even though I've committed several of the sins outlined above

perl -e 'print "How sweet does a rose smell? "; chomp ($n = <STDIN>); 
+$rose = "smells sweet to degree $n"; *other_name = *rose; print "$oth
+er_name\n"'

[hv]

Reading Re: Style geekcode (80 columns?) reminds me that I have:

• changed variable names, made error messages more cryptic, and broken otherwise inviolable formatting rules to make the line fit in 80 columns
Hugo

[SilasTheMonk]

I confess to voting on nodes just so I can see how much XP the node got.

[monkfan]

Monks forgive me for I have 'sinned':

1. I blindly spend my votes at the earlier stage of my 
   membership in monastery, just to reach monkhood faster.

2. I sometimes nag to the expert monks (saints), asking
   unnecessary silly questions, be it through CB or msg-ing them.

3. I did post anonymously, when knowing I will get --

4. I did frontpage the node which I answered, so I will get ++

More to come ... on the way to my sainthood (hopefully):


"SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited."- Ambrose Bierce
"Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner." -Eric Hoffer

[BubbaMonk]

I think I can code better if I am listening to Vanilla Ice.

Every now and then I like to watch chick flicks. It has nothing to do with Perl, but I need to let the world know. Dirty Dancing, 13 Going on 30, and First Wives Club.

Sometimes my definition of RTFM is "Ask someone how to do this".

I really, really hate Dan Rather.

[chaoticset]

It has been a long time since my last confession -- nearly a year.
1. I avoid the Monastery, out of a sense of inadequacy. I am working to resolve this.
2. I come to the Monastery to read the controversial readings of unpopular monks, when it only feeds my anger.
I will write ten source filters as penance.