Re^3: Status of Recent User Information Leak

This place still is the core of the Perl community and therein lies your anger. You expected more. You got less.

Your anger at wasted time is legitimate. But the blame is not on "the gods", but on all of us - me included, you included. Perhaps you may not have noticed but the number of monks actively involved in patching and enhancing this site can be counted on less than one hand. This is a large complex site with +80 database tables, 100 different node types, and 50-100K^* lines of code - managed day to day by less than 5 people. With so few volunteers managing so many resources, it is almost guaranteed that even very important things will fall through the cracks or get pushed back onto the round tuit table.

Did you volunteer for pmdev? If you did, when did you last contribute? If not, did you seek out ways to help developers better prioritize an ever growing to-do list? Did you donate money to hire a paid full-time developer? Did you volunteer when we discussed how to better manage enhancement requests? Did you take up mr_mischief on his request for information on how other on-line volunteer organizations manage volunteers? Or tye on his request to improve the patch application system? Add an insight to the discussion about the site improvement process? Volunteer to help coallate the numerous suggestions for improvement spread across tens, maybe hundreds of nodes?

Nothing in life is free. We can each pay money for a site that is managed by paid staff. We can volunteer our time and expertise to "pay" for a site that is free. But if we do neither and then the site fails our expectations, we have only ourselves to blame.

Best, beth

^* very approximate "guestimate" based on number of nodes containing operational code * 100 lines avg.

Comment on Re^3: Status of Recent User Information Leak

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Re^4: Status of Recent User Information Leak by Argel (Prior) on Aug 02, 2009 at 18:12 UTC
Regarding joining pmdev, you might find redesign everything engine? illuminating (and disheartening). I don't really think it's fair to "blame . . . all of us" considering that the majority of Monks on here are probably not up to the task -- and people just starting to learn Perl certainly aren't!! Not to mention that we have a reputation of being nice to new users! I guess back in October when you joined the site we should have also forced you to join pmdev?? (^_^) Not to mention that people contribute in different ways. Both ikegami and BrowserUK are clearly qualified to work on the PM code but what's the point of having a great engine without great content? Regarding site improvements, lots of people have made suggestions in PM Discussions in the past (including myself), but few are actually implemented. The majority of actual improvements have either been more incremental in nature or have been Javascript/CSS tricks (which are encouraged by a long list of CSS enhancements to the site). And of course that thread I mentioned up above helps explain why -- the PM codebase is complicated to work with and familiarize oneself with. [And of course thanks to everyone who has worked on it!!] Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks	[reply]
Re^5: Status of Recent User Information Leak by ELISHEVA (Prior) on Aug 02, 2009 at 20:04 UTC
There is always something to do for any skill level and any combination of skills. My claim that we are all responsible comes out of my deep belief that we all have something to give - even a newbie. Coding isn't the only skill this site needs to run smoothly. Editing, writing, interpersonal skills, project management and volunteer coordination skills all could be put to good use. I think if you reread my post you will see that I made a point of listing many things that people could do without needing to be part of pmdev. And the list is by no means exhaustive. If you aren't sure where you fit in, you can always ask in the chatterbox, or if you are feeling particularly bold, in a PM discussion node. If you time it right there will almost certainly be someone willing to brainstorm with you. Best, beth	[reply]
Re^4: Status of Recent User Information Leak by Anonymous Monk on Aug 02, 2009 at 19:54 UTC
This place still is the core of the Perl community and therein lies your anger. I call the wiki style citation needed here, The Perl foundation is the core of the Perl community.	[reply]
Re^4: Status of Recent User Information Leak by Anonymous Monk on Aug 11, 2009 at 16:12 UTC
"But the blame is not on "the gods", but on all of us - me included, you included." Wrong. The blame is on those who knew, but did not correct the problem. The blame is on those who knew, but did not tell others. That may be you -- but do not include me. If I had known, I would have put my foot down until the situation was rectified. Remember when Janitors were pruned? Don't go pointing fingers about volunteering when you know damned well that you keep people out of your inner circle. And why ... pray tell ... has the issue still not been rectified?	[reply]
Re^5: Status of Recent User Information Leak by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Aug 11, 2009 at 17:00 UTC
If I had known, I would have put my foot down until the situation was rectified. We still sign-in without https so the site is, as it always was, insecure. If you ever had your password mailed to you, which I think we all have, then you should have known they were plain text. The site's value was never that it was a paragon of forum software. Nothing about what makes the place valuable has changed. All that happened in the end was some cold water got thrown on a bunch of users who prefer to post anonymously. (Sidebar: Fun to see if this thread is still going when Perl 6 is released.)	[reply]


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