The minimum XP to get listed in the Saints in our Book page is 3000, and has been 3000 for many years. Just because there are individuals who have contributed thousands of posts over well past a decade doesn't mean your contributions are not worthwhile, nor are you excluded from the silly Saints list, when you attain the same number of XP that 700 other people attained to get listed there. The list grows on demand, whenever someone reaches 3000.

Please take into consideration that:

• the longer you participate the more xp you're able to aquire
• the number of participating monks declined over the years
• in the early years it might have been easier for good posts to attract more votes (because the electorate was bigger)

updates

• some old posts are somehow often referenced classics and keep attracting votes
• voting gets rewarded, and some (silent) monks came back every day to cast all their votes

XP was easier to come by back in the early days. Site was busier, content was jumping, gurus did abound. Saying XP CONSIDERED DISCRIMINATORY and that it should be fixed is a bit like saying one should be allowed to buy Google at $50 a share because it used to sell for it and it's not fair to newcomers. The thinking is divorced from reality; a regressive, strange kind of conservatism.

You say you're being screwed. There is a monk in this thread who has been here 4 months who already has more experience than you; another whose first monkday is tomorrow. Taking XP as a measure of accomplishment, you are, so far, the least accomplished monk in this thread; a veritable Perl toddler is ahead. Taking number of posts as the bar, you are second to last. Taking your five years into account... The monks in the top 100 on the Saints page represent a huge amount of CPAN, Perl publishing, and core Perl code. Some of them have six-figure XP on StackOverflow too. Where is your CPAN dir? When are you presenting at a Perl conference? Where is your github repo for sharing the tools you've written? Where are your tutorials? Where is your free Perl book's PDF online?

The only thing that seems to be screwing you is your attitude. PM is, ostensibly at least, a meritocracy, not an equal opportunity grievance board. It's also got its own culture and generally that culture looks on XP complaints unfavorably.

Update: bumped SO XP number to unambiguous level I intended.

I said I'm PROBABLY being screwed. Being screwed is a certainty, PROBABLY deserves careful study. Only wise monks like you are certain that two monks indicate central tendency

Ray: "E-excuse me ... uh, I don't think there's anything wrong with the action in this piano."

Trust me, it's quite possible to have one's name recorded in The Book with some alacrity.

But, as the 'Ranking the Saints by XP Efficiency' script shows, many of the greybeards continue to visit the monastery, which not only places them in the top 25 ("by efficiency") even when it is limited to those here in the last week (-r 1), but also continues to extend their total XP simply thanks to attendance, and possibly, extend it more by voting.

perl XP_efficiency.pl -r 1 -s age -o desc -l 25
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+-----------------+
| Pos | St. | Monk name    |  XP  |     Level      |  Age  | XP/Age | 
+Posts | XP/Posts |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+-----------------+
|    1     2 BrowserUk     167,270        Pope (28)   5,399  35.2752  
+23,348    7.0486 |
|    2     4 ikegami       128,977        Pope (28)   4,601  31.8605  
+19,892    6.3682 |
|    3     3 Corion        134,154        Pope (28)   6,211  24.4172  
+11,147   11.7564 |
|    4     8 moritz         65,986    Cardinal (24)   3,587  20.7075  
+ 6,425    9.9911 |
|    5    36 Athanasius     32,618  Chancellor (21)   1,780  20.6191  
+ 1,724   18.4037 |
|    6     5 GrandFather    75,136        Sage (25)   4,308  19.6062  
+ 6,740   10.8282 |
|    7    26 choroba        36,924  Chancellor (21)   2,540  16.2414  
+ 4,411    8.0830 |
|    8    19 toolic         44,862      Bishop (22)   3,558  14.0118  
+ 3,704   11.6315 |
|    9    43 kcott          29,742       Canon (20)   2,367  13.9612  
+ 2,743   10.4114 |
|   10    79 Laurent_R      19,631       Abbot (19)   1,650  13.1911  
+ 2,444    7.6948 |
|   11    11 davido         58,411  Archbishop (23)   4,972  13.0169  
+ 4,885   11.4483 |
|   12    28 LanX           36,491  Chancellor (21)   3,116  12.9717  
+ 5,531    6.3159 |
|   13     7 merlyn         71,195        Sage (25)   6,169  12.7776  
+ 6,323   10.7719 |
|   14    16 ww             49,909      Bishop (22)   4,693  11.7279  
+ 3,726   12.7650 |
|   15   288 1nickt          6,612       Vicar (15)     643  11.3203  
+   790    7.9627 |
|   16    10 dragonchild    58,467  Archbishop (23)   5,764  11.1605  
+ 5,989    9.2812 |
|   17    18 marto          45,357      Bishop (22)   4,796  10.3659  
+ 4,764    9.0174 |
|   18    31 Gavin          35,545  Chancellor (21)   4,027   9.6351  
+   600   55.8858 |
|   19    20 CountZero      44,803      Bishop (22)   5,296   9.2123  
+ 4,382    9.6200 |
|   20    45 Perlbotics     29,213       Canon (20)   3,484   9.1244  
+   387   70.9845 |
|   21    33 syphilis       34,020  Chancellor (21)   4,075   9.0836  
+ 2,955   10.8232 |
|   22    48 AnomalousMonk  28,424       Canon (20)   3,495   8.8338  
+ 3,559    7.4955 |
|   23   147 hdb            11,895       Prior (17)   1,472   8.7685  
+ 1,534    7.2744 |
|   24    51 FunkyMonk      27,156       Canon (20)   3,615   8.1141  
+ 1,024   24.7544 |
|   25   154 soonix         11,097       Prior (17)   1,511   7.9186  
+   508   20.3573 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+-----------------+
[download]

Hope this amuses!

YES ... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT

We have three popes already? Should I be worried?

Three is no reason to worry yet. In the Vatican, they have 4.5 (per square kilometer).

Four. The script skips vroom ...



The way forward always starts with a minimal test.

Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.

What results do you get if you also include the number of posts into your statistical analysis?

That it will take me 64 years to overtake browseruk

And I should be complaining that while you and I are PMs for about the same time that I only got 7.5 times the XP with 10 times as many posts.

it will take me 64 years to overtake BrowserUk

How long will it take BrowserUk to overtake vroom? Will he live long enough? Does he need to switch to a low cholesterol diet?

trippledubs,

It has been far too long since I sat in a statistics class, and thus I remember too little to comment on your theory from that perspective. I can, however, comment on my time here.

As others have stated above, PM is primarily a meritocracy. As one participates (in discussions and threads), one is judged by their peers (the body monktorate), who may decide that their contribution is worthy of reward, or requiring of penance, or neither. There is no requirement that a monk view the site with a particular frequency, nor that they view any particular thread. As a result, neither reward or penance is a requirement, nor a guarantee. To expect that posting "requires" a reward of XP will (and should) result in disappointment. Instead, you should consider doing "the work" for its own sake.

I will admit that when I wore a younger monk's robes (boy, were they mad when they found out), there were times when there was a bit of excitement as I noticed the approach of a level's threshold, and that it sometimes encouraged me to look for ways to participate more. Having been helped by so many so often (that I cannot recall them all, but hope I remembered to thank them at the time), I have found that I want to pay that debt forward by offering assistance when my (limited) experience could add to the quality of the site, not just the quantity. I still find myself learning something new quite often when I visit the site (even after almost 16 years). When I can craft a answer of (at least some) quality to the assistance of a fellow monk, that has become its own reward. If an answer I post receives positive feedback, it is nice, but not a requirement; if negative feedback, I do not take it personally but try to learn from any comments that are made about it so I can improve my abilities-both on and off the site.

Marcus Aurelius reminded himself that "[a]mbition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do", while "[s]anity means tying it to your own actions." You cannot control the environment, only your response to it. Strive for your own improvement, let doing good work be enough, and I suspect you will find the time much more enjoyable.

Hope that helps.

(Disclaimer: As I posted this, I found (to my surprise) I was currently 105th on the list in question. Learning that did not change any of the thoughts above.)

It doesn't actually take that long to become a Curate (not a Saint, that's level 26; and yes, "Saints in our Book" is misleading in that regard).

I signed up on April 27 2014 and became a Curate on September 4 2014; that's barely more than 4 months. (I've since largely abandoned PM, but that's a different story.)

So being a recent user doesn't really hurt much. And 'sides, what does becoming a Curate really give you, other than an extra daily vote or two? PM has its flaws, but those are social in nature and unrelated to levels, XP, votes, Curates, and Saints.

And curiously, the SioB list does not (at this moment) include any of rank Saint!

I reckon we are the only monastery ever to have a dungeon stuffed with 16,000 zombies.

heh, so who ever did "spill punch cards". Raises hand. But never the two boxes that had Adventure translated from dec to ibm fortran! I made sure they were serialized anyway

"If I remember correctly from the stats class I took twice"

Did taking it a second time help?

Once we can export XP for BTC you will have a valid point. I can only assume from the terms and arguments used in your responses that this is satire.

Else where in this thread you said:

the longer you've been ABLE to participate is a distinct and obvious advantage

I hard-coded your data for you into the Ranking the Saints by XP Efficiency script since you have not yet been inscribed in The Book.

The data appear not to support your proposition, I am afraid. Quite a number of the Saints are around your age, or younger. (limiting to top 25 + trippledubs)

perl XP_efficiency.pl -r 1 -s age -f trippledubs -o desc -l 25
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+-----------------+
| Pos | St. | Monk name    |  XP  |     Level      |  Age  | XP/Age | 
+Posts | XP/Posts |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+-----------------+
...
|    5    36 Athanasius     32,619  Chancellor (21)   1,781  20.6159  
+ 1,724   18.4040 |
...
|   10    79 Laurent_R      19,635       Abbot (19)   1,650  13.1914  
+ 2,444    7.6964 |
...
|   15   287 1nickt          6,626       Vicar (15)     643  11.3401  
+   793    7.9502 |
...
|   23   147 hdb            11,898       Prior (17)   1,473   8.7686  
+ 1,535    7.2713 |
...
|   25   154 soonix         11,097       Prior (17)   1,511   7.9170  
+   508   20.3573 |
...
|  n/a   n/a trippledubs     1,585           Hermit   1,717   0.4897  
+   164    4.4299 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+-----------------+
[download]

Now I am no statistician, as I mentioned earlier, but it does seem to me that the number of posts made has something to do with the game.

This indicates a central tendency and predominance of Saints that locked eyes on their future spouse over spilled punch cards...

That sounds very romantic, I've never watched the show but maybe it would have made a great episode of How I Met Your Mother. :-)

Seriously though, what you are describing did sort of irk me when I started using this site more heavily. If I recall my exact thoughts on the topic were, "I swear some Monks could just post a reply that says '*cough*' or '*sneeze*' and get more upvotes than a less known/newer Monk who posts a well thought out and helpful reply." And yes that is an invitation for some of the senior Monks to reply to this with "*cough*" or "*sneeze*", I always prefer humor than a lack of it.

I got over it pretty quick based on the fact that a lot of those monks have contributed so much, not even just in terms of helpful nodes, but in terms of being janitors, pmdevs, etc., that they deserve 10 times the fake internet points than they already get anyway. There are times where I think a node (Monk) deserves several upvotes, so I'll pretty much upvote anything they say (within reason and good conduct) in the thread to compensate for the limitation of one per node.

As far as attracting new members, I'm not sure how much the XP game plays in to that, I don't think it's a forgone conclusion that it's a primary or even determining factor for most users... and that's coming from a self professed XP Whore and younger youngish late arriving Monk. :-)

I believe that ensuring COUGH xor SNEEZE would be safer, since I/O deadlocking is a known risk on most compatible hardware.

Did you try turning it off and resuscitating it?

Thank you for the laugh SuicideJunkie, exactly the sort of humor I was hoping for. I bestow the title of "Winner of the Internet" on you... for today... well, so far, maybe someone can still top that.

Heaven help us if people start deciding to throw in other semi-voluntary bodily functions and given-when if they want to get 'experimental' and risk possible bodily decompression of some sort. :-)

Just another Perl hooker - And definitely not the kind with any $class whatsoever.

haha. It irked me too so I acted. People use the word terrorist and 5 year old but I like to think about what people say. I have been to places where thinking does not matter. In these places might makes right and they affect my world view. This is probably true for many millenials. I see the Marine Corps cannablizing its female recruits in the news and I will not even silently sanction such behavior. Maybe no one will ever care that I don't, but I will speak nonetheless. A little tricky marketing to MAYBE get people to read what I say and get my message out is only because I care about these issues. I will get over my negative XP, in this social media age, we cannot let a little embarrassment let us become jaded or lazy. Thanks for participating in my XP whoring thread :) negative xp get links too hahaha. I've been here for five years, I wonder how many READUPS I have and if this compares to the saints

I was already an older monk when I first got here. But it took me only 1639 days.

Well, there has been at least one benefit to this thread: when I looked to see how far I'd progressed -- almost 59% of the way to being in the Book -- I discovered that tomorrow is my first monkiversary. I'm about to turn 1! Yay! I feel young again. :)

For hysterical porpoises: 556d to #709.

trippledubs, I would appreciate it if you read through these two nodes:

• Becoming a Friar on PerlMonks
• My appreciation for PerlMonksMy appreciation for PerlMonks]

The latter was written ~5 years ago, the former, fall, 2016.

I had a hard time, it really really really itched me, but I resisted to downvoting almost every post of yours in this thread. I managed. One moment... lemmie check trippledubs->"Your votes"...

"Total of 11 ++ and 0 -- votes = 11"

All positive *phew*

But... why didn't I upvote all other posts of you (total 179 at the time of writing) not belonging to this thread which I didn't upvote?

Negligence, I reckon. So unfair.

My response was reaped to this, I'm not sure why. I take this as an ad hominem attack and annihilated it with prejudice. I must not understand, what does this mean? If this is ad hominem attack as well, it was reaped too low and this should be reaped as well or explained.

My response was reaped to this, I'm not sure why.

Ok, I see you say M-A-T-H, B-I-T-C-H!

I imagine that got reaped because its short/loud/cursing,

but reaping has been overused lately

I find that quip funny even if non-responsive,

but also kind of disappointing considering your admirable and amzing willingness to respond in this thread ; its like you're here to discuss for really real

I take this as an ad hominem attack and annihilated it with prejudice. I must not understand, what does this mean? If this is ad hominem attack as well, it was reaped too low and this should be reaped as well or explained.

Hmm, ad-hominem, is that pre-figurative? musy generation?

I take mine with ausy and a donut.

 

Do you see ?

 

"Once again in English please?" sounds funny to me

Better may have been  Once again in simple English please? or  please explain it to me like I'm a two year old? Can you dumb that down any?

But its not exactly as flippant

Hehe, this response his taking some half hour to compose, "How do you like them apples?"

See I watch movies too

 

If PM is to survive, if Perl is dying ... if I'm having strong feelings , have to save the universe, have to full fill the prophecy, You ruined the prophecy....I made it up.

 

nawmean?

 

 

Now don't feel bad, you care, you want stuff to happen....

Look at this post from the year 2000 Parallels Between Perlmonks.ORG and Religious Cults

Interesting huh?

I always liked that guy even if he took perlmonks a little too seriously or just let loose sometimes

 

I feel for you buddy

Things are

And I'm like

Right there with you

And then you lost me

And I'm like

Where am I?

Oh OK

Naah

 

nawmean?

nawmean