This can be used for good at, say, an industry convention to find out what the other guys are working on (or just to be socially engaging)

What works well to start a real-life conversation does not necessarily make for good practice on an asynchronous forum like PerlMonks. Short, rapid, back-and-forth questions are fine when responses come in seconds, but On The Internet (tm), responses can take minutes, hours, or days. It's unrealistic to expect the same sorts of social conventions to work equally well.