My second way of thinking was: ok, if some people want it, maybe we should let them have it. It is not going to harm anybody, has minimal cost and we can always change our minds later and remove the section.

But I have reconsidered the matter again and now I really believe that we should have an OT section. Let me explain why:

I have been on the monastery for ten years. At that time, when I got here, I already was a Perl expert with several modules in CPAN and some contributions to p5p so I didn't need help on Perl matters too often. But anyway meeting other people with the same interests and helping them was a rewarding experience. Also, from time to time, challenging questions that would get me hooked to the keyboard for hours (several of my CPAN modules are the result of that) would appear too. So, well, for me it was a nice place to be.

But after so many years, I find the monastery increasingly boring. I have reached a point where I feel that it is always the same old newbie questions over and over and even if I keep visiting the site often, I seldom write any answer, except maybe for questions related to my own modules.

Now when I want to look for some challenging question to entertain myself, I go to StackOverflow. As much as I dislike it, its we-have-rules-for-everything, its lack of a friendly community and its lack of discussion/collaboration by design (and by that I mean no-threads), the thing is that they have the proper questions.

Also, my experience as a Perl Monger has show me that when I meet somebody interested in Perl, the probability of us sharing other interest is huge. And I have learned and discovered lots of non Perl related things from Perl people. Here at the monastery we have a similar great community but we are not squeezing all of it.

In summary, I think we should give a try to an off-topic section. And I say off-topic and not just related to Perl, not just related to programming, I want an OT section not limited in any way.

Just let the "Approve question" button do its work: if somebody else in this community (and with the required XP) finds your OT question interesting, it should go in. That should be the rule!