Where should I post X?
(Note: This page is "superseded", more or less, by PerlMonks Sections, which pulls in the actual doclets associated with each section. Those are what are displayed at the top of each section, and they are authoritative. Content on this page could be out of date or out of sync with reality.)
This FAQlet should help you decide where to submit your post.
Posts submitted to the wrong section run the risk of being moved, down-voted, edited, or even deleted.
If you see a node posted in an inappropriate section, please alert the janitors,
or consider it to have it moved to the correct section.
Read this page carefully before you post to make sure you do it right.
If what you want to post is employment related — i.e. if you're trying to hire or be hired —
you should post on jobs.perl.org, not here. (See FAQ: May I post a job ad?)
Sections
- Seekers of Perl Wisdom (SoPW)
This is the most frequented section of PerlMonks.
If you have a question on how to do something in Perl, or you need a Perl
solution to a real-life problem, or you're unsure why something
you've tried isn't working, then SoPW is the place to ask,
especially if you've got more than a single line of code to show
with your question.
However, you might consider asking in the Chatterbox first
(if you're a registered user). The response time tends to be quicker,
and if it turns out that the problem/solutions are too much for the cb to
handle, the kind monks will be sure to direct you to SoPW (or wherever
the correct place might be).
- Meditations
This is the place to share your thoughts on Perl (the language or the
community), information technology, life as a programmer, or other related topics.
This section is for non-question discussions.
(However, discussions about PerlMonks belong in Perl Monks Discussion.)
One more thing: Meditations is sometimes used as a sounding-board —
a place to post initial drafts of Perl tutorials, code modules, book reviews,
articles, quizzes, etc. — so that the author can benefit from the
collective insight of the Perl monks before publishing the finished item to
its proper place (be it Tutorials, Code Catacombs, Reviews, or whatever).
If you do this, it is generally considered appropriate to prefix your node
title with "RFC:" (for "Request For Comments").
- Perl Monks Discussion
This area is for discussing issues pertaining to the PerlMonks site.
You can ask about how things work, or offer ideas on how the site could be improved, for example.
Unless the topic pertains to the PerlMonks web site, it does not belong in this section.
For additional guidance, try Understanding and Using PerlMonks, or ask in the chatterbox.
- Cool Uses for Perl
This is the best place for general Perl code offerings — anything from one-liners to full-blown applications and frameworks.
(For specialized posting types, see the next two sections.)
- Obfuscated code
- Code whose function is not immediately apparent to anyone
- Make your code as compact as possible, get rid of that needless
whitespace, make things as confusing as possible.
- Don't be too cocky with your post. You'll (almost) always get a
reply which does the exact same thing in even less characters
- Perl Poetry
- Poetry written in perl
- Using Perl to write Poetry
- Using Perl to (imaginatively) output a poem
- Poetry about Perl and/or programming
- Perl News
If you have a legitimate news item for the whole Perl community, you should probably post it on
Perl Weekly,
blogs.perl.org,
Perl.com,
or other suitable resource.
However, if you really believe your news item is especially relevant to the PerlMonks community, you may post it here.
If you're trying to get word out to your local Perl Mongers group, this is probably not the best channel for that.
You should have a mailing list for such communications.
- Reviews
- Perl-related book reviews
- Module reviews
- Tutorials
This section is an ever-growing online textbook from which you can
learn everything from Perl basics to advanced algorithmic techniques.
Ideally, the Tutorials section has a high value-to-noise ratio.
Tutorial articles should be written so as to invite as little discussion as possible.
Therefore, we recommend that, while you can post directly to the Tutorials section,
it's generally better to follow this procedure:
- Write up your draft tutorial and put it in your scratchpad; broadcast requests for comments in the chatterbox and elsewhere.
After revising,
- Post it as a new Meditation, with "RFC" in the title.
Later, if it is generally acclaimed to be worthy of Tutorials, but needs more work first, then make the necessary revisions and
- Post the final version as a Tutorials node.
Also of interest: How does editing work in the Tutorials section?
(This FAQlet supercedes vroom's original document, (OBE) What section should I put this in?)
Another view of the same info (more or less) is The Perl Monks Guide to the Monastery.
Back to the PerlMonks FAQ
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