Good proposal.
Having 'obstacle course' to help newbies reach for FAQ before posting is returning again. There was discussion about it at Use strict warnings and diagnostics or die. And sure enough, I (pmas) proposed the 'obstacle course' ;-)

I still believe 'obstacle course' will help our Monastery in multiple ways:

1. Guide newbies through FAQ, and resources with answer already available, but maybe not too easy (for newbies) to find.
2. By providing links to FAQ, we lower pressure on newbies (I know I hate to ask stupid questions).
3. If newbie is not afraid that question being asked is stupid and was answered hundreds of times, maybe s/he will be less reluctant to register - which is Good Thing.
4. Compared with other on-line communities, PerlMonks has one very special feature - Experience Points, which allows us to assume something about perl skills of the person asking question. Why not to use this info for PerlMonks advantage? To be even more useful tool for all participants? Why not to build on our comparative advantage?
5. Because 'obstacle course' will guide newbie through FAQ, quality of posts will increase, less noise. I do not know about you, but I do not enjoy answering simple trivial questions by mentioning links where topic was kicked to death. My time is limited and I enjoy reading about tricky questions (and solutions). Please understand me, I was nebie recently (and I am not an expert yet - far from that), but still... I believe that self-help is the way. Here is what I found (and liked) on NewsGroups:

   "Get real!  This is a discussion group, not a helpdesk. 
   You post something, we discuss its implications.
   If the discussion happens to answer a question you've asked, 
   that's incidental."     -- nobull in comp.lang.perl.misc
   [download]

   I know we in PM <bold>do care</bold> about answering the question (so we are tempted to be helpdesk), but we are not paid to do it, right?
6. Many of you can add more reasons here...

Solution can be very simple (and I hope relatively easy to implement): for a monk with less than (put your favorite number here), on post preview page, or existing standard posting page Seekers of Perl Wisdom, just above edit window allowing to post new question, we can display couple of <bold>links</bold> to FAQ. Not complete FAQ - it should be not excercise in scrolling down. If newbie is asked to use strict, and does not care to click on the link and read why s/he should Use strict warnings and diagnostics or die, well - at least we know which kind of person is asking questions - and how detailed answers needs to be... ;-)

pmas
To make errors is human. But to make million errors per second, you need a computer.

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