Module-Authors? Really?

I see here a chance to acquire a startling lack of interest, along with, likely, a handful of idle downvotes ... just because the thread's already so long and "done". So I'll go for it (as is my style) with one final observation:

I disagree with the characterization of Module-Authors as an automatic resource guaranteed to give quality or authoritative guidance. My experience with it was that it simply wasn't. Nobody with any real wisdom was paying any attention, maybe, that week. Or who knows. For whatever reason, when I asked about a namespace for a CPAN module I was preparing, I got mostly the flakiest kind of bandwidth and time -wasting idiocy from the kind of compulsive person who doesn't yet know what they are talking about (and may never) but cannot restrain themselves from making an appearence anyway. A real flame-bait-resisting waste of time, all in all. I doubt that I'll ever seek guidance there again.

In my opinion, which is based on my direct experience with it (not hearsay, not theory, not wishful thinking, not an assumption), you'll get good advice from the Module-Authors List if you are both lucky and, likely, persistent. If you are neither, you won't.

There's a larger issue here. I would be far more hesitant than I see many Monks being here, about advocating in answer to queries like this one, the use of external (to Perlmonks) resources whether they are Web-based community sites, Mailing lists or newsgroups, or whatever newer kind of forum appears next. I humbly suggest that: If you aren't actively involved in that site or forum on a continuing basis and not taking responsibility for some degree for how well it is fulfilling its charter, then: think twice before recommending it to a fellow Monk! Just the fact that you know that something exists that the asker seems not to, is not sufficient grounds to endorse it to them. And furthermore, jusy because something emanates from a particular domain, e.g. perl.org, this also (sad tho it may be to say) does not make it valid to assume that it is a really helpful resource at the current time.

Of course there are people here at Perlmonks, like everywhere, that just like to see their own name on a node, and whether others take them seriously, or whether they have a reputation for being astute or sensible, doesn't seem to concern them. Thus the old expression "consider the source."