I'm more of a lurker than a poster (I'm a lover, not a fighter, baby), but I've learned quite a bit from this site. Often I pop onto here when I have a question about something rather than hitting my favorite tool (The Perl CD Bookshelf), because I'll find discussions about different approaches to the same problems littered all over the monastery. I've noticed a few things about experience. You can vote all of your points and log in each day to gain some, and make your way up a few levels, but the novelty wears off long before the point of diminishing returns. You can put up a few posts, and you might find that something you thought was worthwhile got you 8 points, and something that was trivial got you 180 points. You never know when people are going to just drop some clicks on you, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter.

One day I'll go back to the fourth grade, and I'll write an essay where the first line begins with "In the Perlmonks.org voting system, as in life.." Every system is broken, and every system is accurate as a guideline, as long as you understand how the system works. Having loads of experience only means that you have loads of experience. You'll find that as a guideline, that xp lets you assume the person is knowledgeable and experienced with Perl. But if you're going to go so far as to read this persons post, you'll be hard pressed to not notice if there were 20 corrective or damning replies to that erroneous post. There are definitely some brilliant individuals on this site, and they make it a point to correct mistakes, regardless of who posted them.

When I find a post interesting, I might click on the posters name. Then I'll see what rank and outfit the monk is in - but also the number of posts they've put up. I think between the quality of the post that made you look at the poster, the experience they have, and the number of posts they've posted, you can get a good enough estimate of the monks Perl Prowess. If you're still uncertain, read a few of their threads. But 917 times out of 928, it's the post that makes me look at the name, not the name that makes me look at the post.

Pardon my chaotic gibberish - thoughts are scattered tea leaves, and you, poor monk, who have read this far, must divine meaning from my meanderings. But I have one last thing to say: I'm neither ++ or --ing Sigmund's node, because it is blissful torture to not know how many points he's gotten for this post. I can feel about 180 points worth of irony drawing me closer to the ++, but the actual realization of that self-referential post might be too much for me to handle. =)

Always merely an egg,
-=rev=-

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