http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=105260

Hi everyone!

Background
I have noticed recently that many past Perl Monks Discussion Topics have been about many items to add to the already (at least according to urban legends,) gargantuan list of things to do on the Official Perl Monks To Do or To Add List. The problem I see about this is, how does the general public know what items are currently being worked on, on the Official List?


Thesis
My Proposal is basically this: Why isn’t there a public to do (or to add,) list of items currently being programmed for the Monastery? Read on, if you would like to see my reasoning to see why this should happen, and reasons why this shouldn’t happen, as well as the ever present apathetic humor (which happens sometimes when I write.)


Pro Thesis
  1. If there was a public list such as this, it would help the other monks in the Monastery figure out what was currently happening, which would somewhat help the problem of trying to come up with new helpful ideas that could be tried to improve the living conditions here at the Monastery. There is a powerful argument against this reason in the antithesis paragraph, if you choose to continue reading this discussion topic.

  2. Another good point is, it would let the general monk knowledge about what is being configured or added in the Monastery be more than myth, or urban legends about what *might* be actually happening, and would let them know exactly what to expect to be added next. That reason goes down to the underlying issue of accountability, are we supposed to take for granted that Vroom and anyone else working on the Monastery is actually doing all of what they are commissioned to do? My answer is no. Although Vroom has created the Monastery, the people like you or I that visit and help each other learn more about the mastery of Perl, are the ones who have really built what we now know as the Perl Monks Monastery. Without we, the people, Vroom might be hosting only a couple of people, which isn’t entirely exciting as having many good users worldwide. Before you login to Perl Monks next time, make sure to remember this key idea, because when you are logging in, you are helping to strengthen Perl Monks, due to it not only being a website online, but an entire online community. It is true that we are under a dictatorship of sorts, but we still have our rights as users, make sure to exercise them once in a while, when the time is correct, because timing is everything. When used incorrectly, this type of idea could lead to an incorrect idea of corruption, and the idea of overthrowing existing power, which is NOT what I am suggesting, or even attempting to suggest. Well, I shall get back to the main point now.

  3. Apart from having a simple official “to do” or “to add” or even “currently adding” list, I suggest that it should be something where it would have the current items listed in a such of way where users could vote on the importance of what item should be added/fixed next, and that would mean it would be up to the users to decide this. By having this control, it might indeed satisfy the hunger of different users for what they want added, so that it can happen sooner rather than a long time later. Although, this might be an option that would be only readily available to a certain status or rank of users in the Monastery, so that just an every day Joe couldn’t constantly vote up a certain item that is definently not needed at the moment, if ever. I don’t believe that this type of extra voting item would be hard to concoct, on the contrary, it would not take very long to construct, and once constructed, it would be there to have new suggestions added by mature monks to help brainstorm what could be done better or what could be added/built into the Monastery. When you have a growing population in a monastery, you know what has to happen, and that is you have to allow a greater growth, of ideas and knowledge; since knowledge is power, this would greatly increase the knowledge of users in this Monastery. Going back to who would be allowed to add ideas and vote on these different ideas of items to add or edit, I would like to mention that anyone should be allowed to see this board, just that not everyone should be allowed to add or vote on ideas. Possibly anyone could add ideas to be considered, like there are for other sections in the Monastery.


Anti Thesis
  1. Although this may be a reasonable idea, some may argue that those who want to add new ideas to what could be added to the Monastery should just use super search and check to see if anyone has posted what they are about to suggest, and then post it in the Perl Monks Discussion section. It does arise a potential problem with this idea.

  2. If a page like this were created, would it even be used by enough people to be viable as a new page in the Monastery or section? As it is already, I have noticed a posting decrease in the amount of posts in the Perl Monks Discussion section. True, there are still many posts, even daily, but are there enough that there would still be many good posts in the Perl Monks Discussion section and still have enough people to add ideas to this new potential page?

  3. Another problem can surface as well: Does Vroom and other behind the scenes workers here in the Monastery really want other people to know what exactly is being worked on in the present? Or is it kept a secret on purpose? Perhaps this type of information should not be shown to the general public, lest their secrets of “hard work” sound more like the qualities of a Perl programmer. It is hard to say.


Conclusion
After weighing both sides of the idea, one can assume that even though this is a viable idea, is it really worth taking the time to create a page such as this? I would say yes, for a few reasons:
  1. It doesn’t take long to create a small voting system for items to add or edit in the Monastery.
  2. It would increase public awareness in the Monastery showing what is currently being built, or refined.


Final Comment
Many monks out there may have many different, yet still reasonable, opinions on this topic, or idea. Please write your feedback or ideas on this topic as it relates directly to the refining and betterment of the Monastery society. Thank you for reading this article, and hopefully many worthy ideas will possibly spawn from this idea.

Andy Summers