Personally, I think this information is already readily available simply by clicking on the poster's name - There is little practical worth, short of encouraging "level envy" or personality voting, in this notion.

Just my random thoughts on the matter.

perl -e 's&&rob@cowsnet.com.au&&&split/[@.]/&&s&.com.&_&&&print'

Ah, but part of the fun of having to go looking is discovering neat stuff on monks' homepages!

I would be concerned that this might lead to otherwise good posts by lower-ranking monks being ignored or downplayed. XP doesn't necessary equate to anything except longevity here. There are experienced, capable, and erudite monks at all levels.

On the other hand, it might help those who like to try and dole out votes to the lower level breathren when earned/ appropriate; say over those that are already saints.

Finally, I think the community does a pretty good job of judging the value of posts as it is with regular voting.

--
perl -pe "s/\b;([st])/'\1/mg"

I have the opposite fear, since, though through diligence and asking a lot of dim questions with unimpeachable grammar I stand now on the vertiginous brink of sainthood, I shouldn't like anyone to mistake me for an authority. I sometimes write stuff that makes sense; occasionally I write what I think is very sensible and then some other monk corrects me, so that I and the person who asked the question both learn something. What this leads me to is the view that it's the *thread* that's interesting, not just the individual post. I find the dialectic as educational as the steps. There *are* some monks whose individual posts I read with special attention, but that's not because of their XP, but because I've learnt over time that they make sense.

§ George Sherston

I'm going to agree with most of the comments already made by rob_au and dws.

Most of the online groups I'm part of track postings in some way, and from that you can see how long a particular member has been part of the community.
More importantly it's possible to see the track record of a particular poster.
That's about all it allows.

I wouldn't say that XP is a clear cut way of figuring out how much a user knows.

• Does the post make any sense?
• Does the post answer the question?
• And possibly, does it raise any more interesting points?
• (add a stack of things I've skipped for simplicity)

If you've the points above, then reading the post is worth your time and your votes - regardless of the poster's XP.

There are monks out there that joined about the same time as me. They obviously know a lot more about Perl than I do, but at one point I had a couple of levels over them - not any more, now that they've been able to post, but I'd hate to think that my input would be seen as worth more than someone more capable.

The opposite is true as well - I wouldn't like to think that a post that I've submitted (provided it's right, of course :-) would be seen as less worthy than a post by one of the higher level monks.

Cheers.

Baz

many new monks confuse xp with experience. i, and many others that have been community members for a length of time, see it differently.

if the community at large was actually voting on perl knowledge/skill/ability, i fear there would be much more bickering and personal attacks based on downvoting. now, downvoting is rarely done, and usually explained. no one wants to offend, no one wants to be themselves downvoted.

a long time ago i updated wording in this post to avoid downvoting. that was back when i was newer to the community, and somewhat naive. i felt offended that my wording was mistaken as a personal attack. a added a winking smiley to the end of the first line, and it completely changed the context of the message.

last summer, i took a solo road trip across the country, which offered me a great deal of perspective on many aspects of my life and work. since i've returned, i've been less active as a member of this community. firstly, the knowledge contained on this site is now so great that ten minutes of SuperSearch usually gets me the answer to any nagging question i may have. secondly, it's faster for me to search the site than to wait for a well-crafted response i expect from a poster. thirdly, i vote positively only when i've learned something, and the post is well-crafted. i vote in the negative on extremely rare occasions, and always post a list of reasons. lastly, and importantly, i upvote more often for low-xp posters, to encourage them to be active in the community. this community is no more than the sum of its members. i have learned a great deal here, and if i can encourage more activity, i think it can only benefit perlmonks.

i've learned a few things since my trip. forget about xp. i will probably shake my head at the amount of xp i gain from this one post. it's not perl related. it shows nothing of my knowledge of perl. but it does show my knowledge and commitment to this perl community.

as i've said before, i say again. forget the xp, remember the experience.

~Particle

I would agree with you, if - and only if - one's XP rating translated to an estimation of their skill. Then it would be easier for someone like me to focus on the questions from the beginners (so I can help) and the answers from the experts (so I can learn). I agree it would be cool if there was something like that.

But I don't think skill would be as easy to track as XP is...

eXPerience !~ /sKIll/vALue/;

In my browser, holding down the shift key and clicking on a link (say, a Perl Monk's handle) pops up another browser window with the contents of the linked page. I can quickly peruse it and kill the window or flip it to the background for later examination.

There's no need to bounce around between posts and home pages using a single window and the Back button. For the most part, I generally have up to three or four windows open at any given time on PerlMonks.

<DISCLAIMER> I'm not in any way connected with the people who make Opera; in fact, I tried it in an earlier incarnation many months ago and found it very limited. Perhaps I am all the more impressed now that they're up to par with IE and Netscape. </DISCLAIMER>

dmm

By distinguishing "longevity" through xp by any means either colored dots or numbers, is wrong. Regardless of its intended use, users will glance at the "xp level" and figure "Oh, he/she's smart, this must be right, which, I believe will lead to "cargo crate" thinking.

Also, by easily distinguishing experience, those lower on the experience scale might not attempt "questioning authority".

I don't have a lot of experience here, or with Perl itself, but I ask questions, even if it draws fire from a higher up.

seems like fascism to me...

After almost a month on PerlMonks (what fun!) I think I recognize many of the posters and I have to say that the quality of responses remains very high, due most likely to the carrot/stick that is XP. I know that as I rise in XP I have more votes to cast, and it's getting harder to use them all up, because I want to reward good answers. If I could change anything, I might add a ++ ++ selection for when an answer is not only complete but goes above and beyond the call of duty by also explaining the background of why Perl does things that way.

Think of it another way: Would you have discounted merlyn's posts during his first week on PerlMonks when his XP was in the double digits? I sure hope not. :)

--t. alex

"Excellent. Release the hounds." -- Monty Burns.

p.s. Hey, no offense to the bass players out there -- I play an Ibanez bass through my Roland 60, that's when it's not running my Fender 54.