Just a couple of weeks ago I was in the CB discussing the same issues, and I was uncomfortable that my Monk level was not reflective of my (low) Perl skillset. Like any computer game it was fairly simple to see how to go up levels with only minimal growth in Perl. After serious meditation the way to fix my discomfort was to spend more time improving my Perl skills (the silly Dice::Die project) then I spent contributing to the monastery. My daily XP's definately reflects this change of approach, and in it's way the site is challeging me to improve in Perl. I still spend my votes everyday so I continue to move slowly up the ladder but I'm gaining real life XP by working to get my skills where I think they should be for my level.

That being said a couple of perlmonk thoughts have crossed my mind as I've studied.

Saints (or above:) should have access to a second voting system that reflects there opinion of the Perl skill level expressed by any given post. This vote would be unrelated to XP's and would be reflected on a persons home node.

It would also be nice to 'pay' for opinions with XP's. Consider my Dice::Die work. From the point of view of garnishing attention or XP's, this node sucks. tilly took real time away from more 'poplular' nodes to help me out, and I've gained immeasurably from it. It seems to me that if there was a way to offer say 50 of my XP for any Saints response it would provide several interesting side effects:


A vehicle for keeping XP's more in line with a monks Perl skillset


An incentive for Saints to take on more 'droll' nodes


Gives a monk more incentive to keep involved in the Monastery activities so as to be able to afford advice.

coreolyn -Two cents is worth at the least two cents.