FYI.. most get kick/banned from #perl because a) they don't read the rules of the channel (summarized in the channel topic), and b) get nasty when someone points them to docs instead of writing things for them.

I can speak from firsthand experience and say that this simply isn't true. Some of the ops (but I certainly won't categorize and say all) have power trips and look for ways to kick people.

For example, the other day an op "informed" me that Linux was only a kernel. I sarcastically replied with "Um, can you state something slightly more obvious? :)" (with the happy face in there too I believe, but either way, my intent was clearly being sarcastic, not offensive, even though I felt it almost offensive that I was being talked down as if I had never used a computer before. I'm QUITE aware that Linux is a kernel, thank you :).

But anyways, as a reply, this op responded with (something "more obvious" I guess) "Unix is more capable than Linux". An op...in #perl...saying that!? There's enough I-want-to-start-a-holy-war in there to light up a small town.

Shortly thereafter, other ops "joined into this discussion" (in quotes because, they didn't exactly "join in" but rather "pushed their way in", and it was more of an annoying "arugment" than a discussion). Before long one particular op (who is ALWAYS the one that k/b's me, the only op I have real problems with, every time) was essentially name-calling and telling me to leave saying that I never contribute anything useful, and how much of an idiot I was for trying to start a flamewar (Um, I wasn't the one making the blanket statements and giving zero proof of why anyone should think I'm right).

Within minutes said op k/b'd me. That was about 3 days ago and I'm still banned because of it. Now, again, I'm not using Perl Monks as a voice for flaming any other forum, but does this seem like appropriate op behaviour? Even if it's "just a hangout for Perl programmers", do you honestly (not that you were an op involved) treat your friends like this when you hang out in real life?

And again, to revisit my original post in this thread, the point is that I'm starting to feel like there's too much of this crap going around in -- for some reason mostly Perl -- forums it seems. I honestly believe that places like #perl and clpmisc have driven some from using Perl to switching to the "more friendly" communties like Python's. In fact, I occasionally hear this sentiment reflected in IRC and on the web.