Since I'm just an opionated bastard, my Writeups/Experience ratio (signal to noise?) hovers around 0.5. I certainly don't belong above some (most?) of my monkish siblings.

Perhaps a solution to this conundrum is a sort order based upon signal/noise ratio?

I've been doing some thinking (uh-oh)...

Although there is a considerable amount of effort put into an answer, good questions should always deserve a fair ammount of XPs. If there were no clue-less monks in search of wisdom (such as myself), there would be no use for this site. Come to think of it, the term monk presupposes that one is in search of higher enlightenment.

Rating based on signal/noise (as you put it) might discourage the ardent to pursue knowledge monks. I suppose only the higher saints should be listed in a signal/noise ratio, while the rest of us mortals be listed by XPs...

You make a good point.

Of course, if we are thinking in terms of Monks, then we should not be concerned with the chart-o-saints. Sadly, we are but mortals (except two Monks whose XP demonstrates otherwise) and we have this obsessive flaw. Fine. In that case, I like the idea of some formula that takes into account our XP and our number of posts. Maybe (warning... introducing work) there could be a way to differentiate questions from answers from comments. Questions would be worth a certain amount, Answers with a good reputation would be worth some other formulaic amount, and comments would be worthless (or worth less, depending on how you want to read that.)

I'm not sure of a good formula yet... but the algorithm is begining to take shape in my head.

Yeah divide the XP with the number of writeups, that way a person with a lot of good writeups will get a higher ranking. Even a person with few writeups ( and a relative low ranking) can get listed. It woud be a measure of quality on the writeups.

Merlyn and vroom shoud like it, that way they will always get on top, in that order : )

JAPN

/wonko

This is just a guess, but it looks as if they both started off with a fixed million each, and the (as of this writing) 55 and 33 extra XPs were actually voted! I'm telling ya man, we gotta go negative on these guys, they are making us look bad. :o)

Yes, you are right, they both had 1 million added. :)

I briefly brought this up in the chatter box the other day, but this seems an appropriate node to put my comments for all to see (which could, of course, be bad :).

The problem I had with Saints in our Book, and indeed the whole XP system in general I suppose, is that you can gain XP and potentially become a saint simply by voting - you don't necessarily need to write anything.

IMHO (which may be wrong, but it's mine so I'm keeping hold of it :) once you get to a certain level within Perl Monks, your XP should depend more on your write-ups than on your voting. In fact, it should depend on answers, meditations, code, craft, cool uses, etc, but not on questions. This way, to become a saint (or some lower but still knowlegdeable(?) level) you would have to know your stuff rather than simply being able to use all your votes.

I mean no disrepect to the current members of Saints in our Book and I'm not wanting to come across as anti-Perl Monks. From what I see, nearly all current members of Saints in our Book would not be effected by my suggestion - it just seems to me that if you're going to have levels of users implying levels of skill that you should go some way to relating the two.

Thus ends this rant.

This depends on your notion of what XP is. To me (and from what I can tell, a number of others), it is a measure of one's contribution to the site. Under this definition, you would be wrong; voting is as valuable as is posing thoughtful questions.

Makeshifts last the longest.