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Hi Marto,
Thanks for the question.
Sites and languages are like fads, they come and go.
They become popular and then they go out of fashion. Think of all the sites that were there even five years ago, like Orkut or your favourite search engine. And this is mostly good. Survival of the fittest keeps Moore's law working in many areas, other than just processor speed.
However, sometimes useful tools, like PerlMonks, appear not to want to compete.
I think PerlMonks is an invaluable specialist Perl site. I know I can come here with some obscure question and someone will have the answer. But it hasn't changed in all the time I have used it. StackExchange, for example, is eating our lunch. I prefer PerlMonks, but the stackexchange interface is more attractive. PerlMonks is like keeping fixed fonts to the rest of the world's proportional fonts.
I would like to see us competing more seriously. I'd like to see us have a step-by-step roadmap for the site, where we can help out on an element of the road map, when we have an hour or two to spare.
The monks here are mostly very loyal to PerlMonks and to Perl. I believe we would help out given the opportunity.
We have all invested a lot of time and effort in learning Perl, but I regularly see and hear of people who find it hard to get jobs in Perl. Having made this investment, we should at least mow the front lawn occasionally.
Then we can have something we can start spreading the word about. That is where we would need a marketing plan,
Regards
Steve.
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While thanking marto for his question, you have neglected to answer it.
Why do you feel we need a "marketing plan"? So that we can be like stackexchange? What would that accomplish? In what way would it benefit us? What makes it important?
You are correct that the monastery does not wish to compete with other sites.
If you wish to change that, you must give us a reason to compete, not simply say, "You're losing the competition that you choose not to participate in!"
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