I was going to post something about the responces to the post but Moonie beat me to it.

How is the question idiotic? Not all people are computer literate and not all people program. Should we turn away people that decide they want to try Perl and are not sure what to do with it?

And for that matter, the question of homework problems. There are good questions as well as bad. Just because somebody is doing homework, is it wrong they come here and ask for help because their hash is not working? This is different from somebody asking us to do their work for them. It would seem people forget they were Noobs at one point as well.

People did get rather nasty about How do I use Perl in fact my responce was at -5 at one point. But overall other Monks did offer help to the person.

As to the question of him being a Troll? He didn't follow through like a troll so it is a good bet it was an honest question.

Maybe I missed the rule about asking dumb questions. But I for one will continue to advise as I see fit.

As to Moonies original question. If the question has merit, it should be upfront. Other monks complain about the anons comming here and posting repeated or ignorant questions; A noob question is frontpaged which could point other Noobs in the right direction and they complain about that. I guess some people will never be satisified.

Okay you can start -- me.