I see your point now, thanks for elucidating.
Well, I see at least 2 differences between plain replies and my idea, which are pretty much the basis for the suggestion.
First, replies don't get you any kind of moderation of references provided. Anyone (including anonymonks) can reply and say 'see this node', whether it's really helpful in understanding the current node or not. "Exegetical" nodes would be more canonical, because they'd be selected by consensus or by the very learned.
Second, all sorts of links can be interspersed through a thread. Exegetical nodes would centralize references to other nodes which specifically help in understanding the current node. This is the core of the idea, which I think you've missed. I've never seen anyone reply saying 'newbies, see node X if you don't quite get this'. I've seen lots of people reply saying 'perhaps this node solves your problem', but that's completely different.
I'm not talking about questions. I agree replies are adequate for those. I'm talking more about the tutorials section, for instance, or the code catacombs, or snippets, or obfu - anything where someone hasn't posed a question, but would like help (in the form of references to other nodes) understanding what they're reading when browsing the monastery.
email: perl -e 'print reverse map { chr( ord($_)-1 ) } split //, "\x0bufo/hojsfufqAofc";'
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It looks like we may have an XY Problem here. ;-) You don't really want an exegesis for posted nodes as much as you want a "Road Map" to the Tutorials (and maybe some other sections of PM as well).
The road map idea (if that's what you really mean) seems good to me (but even that might be handled better by listing the tutorials for a given topic in progression from most basic to most advanced). An "exegetical guide" to (possibly) every posted node will inevitably lead to might encourage lazy behavior on the part of posters. (i.e., the OP thinking I don't really need to explain myself or provide references/links, because someone else will do it for me.) And that is something I think we don't want to do.
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As a man, I take exception to your insistence that XY is a problem. ;-)
I think the real real/perceived issue here is the use of the Monastery. Yes, people do come here to solve specific problems. No, that's not the entirety of the site. The sections which get the most traffic are not "Seekers of Perl Knowledge" and "Cogitations". They are "Seekers of Perl Wisdom" and "Meditations".
missingthepoint is suggesting we quickly shuffle people off to preordained existing nodes without intervention from the monks. The problems with that go deeper than your suggest. That could not just cut down on the discussion or let it get more sloppy, but could kill the discussion in many cases. It could also diminish the chance that a specific caveat or consideration would be delivered from a wise and knowledgeable monk to the person asking the question.
Let's have an example. If I'm using two modules that are known not to play well together, I don't want a tutorial on each. I want to know why and what specific workarounds the monks suggest from their varied experiences. toolic, tye, tilly, planetscape, merlyn, DigitalKitty, BrowserUK, Moriarty, kyle or many other monks might know something quite specific that will help me that's not mentioned in the officially sponsored link.
One of my favorite quotes in any context is from nobull.
Get real! This is a discussion group, not a helpdesk.
You post something, we discuss its implications. If the discussion hap
+pens to answer a question you've asked, that's incidental.
It wasn't said on PM, but on the comp.lang.perl.misc Usenet group. It's a little harsh. PM is traditionally more friendly and more eager to help than c.l.p.misc is. Yet the spirit of the statement is golden. It's great to help answer a specific question, but we're not tutors or consultants in our time here. This is a community site for the benefit of the entire community, and to cut down on the discussion and the depth of the resource in order to quickly answer single specific questions of superficial importance to anyone besides the person asking just seems wrong.
It would be nice to cut down on questions answered well in the manuals, but having clear links to the manuals and site-specific shortcuts to the proper sections of them repeated helps that already. The Tutorials section isn't as well reviewed as we might like, and many of the Tutorials aren't exactly recent. A monk with a high XP level isn't necessarily going to answer a question properly, so giving that person official endorsement of their answer automatically in software seems a little silly.
Update: I fixed a typo in a username and added kyle to my list of helpful monks. Thanks for spotting that, kyle! | [reply]
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