http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=1028753

After the recent heated discussion below How many man-hours would you estimate you have invested in learning Perl?, some suggestions were made with the aim to improve how people could voice their concerns with postings here. Additionally, there was a request from TPF to clarify the relationship between Perlmonks.org and positions and statements of TPF.

I see some need to discuss the potential changes, as I do not want the actions of a few vocal voices to negatively impact the majority of the community here.

Relation to The Perl Foundation (TPF)

The relationship between Perlmonks.org and TPF was so far only displayed on every page as a link, but there was no description of what the relationship actually is. I would like to clarify the relationship with text in the Perlmonks FAQ like the following

Perlmonks.org is loosely related to TPF. TPF provides the legal entity representing Perlmonks.org in the real world. The postings on Perlmonks.org represent exclusively the positions of their respective authors and not the positions and opinions of TPF (nor of the site administrators, hosting providers, or anyone else).

This should be fairly obvious to the long-time users of this site, but not everybody is aware of the history of Perlmonks.org and its relationship to TPF.

The official way to contact the Perlmonks.org administators, /msg'ing gods, will also be linked from that FAQ page. As this feature is also available to Anonymous Monk, this provides a reasonable venue to get in contact should one feel the need to do so.

Some people have voiced the idea that anonymous contribution here is detrimental to the level of discussion. The recent discussions at 1024035 have not shown a wide desire or support to enforce accounts for contributing.

Community statement

This statement should be obvious, but it seems that it bears repeating:

While the community of this site welcomes people from all walks of life, we do not welcome postings outside the scope of programming in general. The specific focus of this site lies on the Perl programming language.

We have established methods for determining whether a posting on this site does not belong here, or does belong to a special section. Please review "What is consideration?", "How do I use the power of consideration responsibly?", "Where should I post X?", and "PerlMonks Sections". Please do use the consideration feature if you feel that a posting on this site does not belong here. If you feel in doubt as to whether a posting is within the community guidelines, please contact the administrators before posting.

We appreciate a civil tone here. The self-regulating mechanisms of this site tend to work very well, but when posting or replying to a post, you should respect the other person. Personal attacks are not welcome here. If you think you need to reply to a personal attack in public, consider sleeping over it or otherwise delaying such a missive. Also consider asking other site members to review a draft of your text as to whether it is appropriate before posting.

The following should also go into the Site FAQ:

Advice for long threads

"A discussion has been going on but somebody replies to me every time. How can I close a thread?"

If you get into a prolonged discussion with an individual on this site, please consider whether your discussion actually positively contributes to the topic. After ten or more replies, such a thread rarely brings some technical result and likely has devolved into an emotional battle. As it takes at least two participants in such a thread, consider agreeing to disagree and stop posting to that thread, no matter how good you think your cause is, and no matter how wrong you think the other side is.