many new monks confuse xp with experience. i, and many others that have been community members for a length of time, see it differently.

if the community at large was actually voting on perl knowledge/skill/ability, i fear there would be much more bickering and personal attacks based on downvoting. now, downvoting is rarely done, and usually explained. no one wants to offend, no one wants to be themselves downvoted.

a long time ago i updated wording in this post to avoid downvoting. that was back when i was newer to the community, and somewhat naive. i felt offended that my wording was mistaken as a personal attack. a added a winking smiley to the end of the first line, and it completely changed the context of the message.

last summer, i took a solo road trip across the country, which offered me a great deal of perspective on many aspects of my life and work. since i've returned, i've been less active as a member of this community. firstly, the knowledge contained on this site is now so great that ten minutes of SuperSearch usually gets me the answer to any nagging question i may have. secondly, it's faster for me to search the site than to wait for a well-crafted response i expect from a poster. thirdly, i vote positively only when i've learned something, and the post is well-crafted. i vote in the negative on extremely rare occasions, and always post a list of reasons. lastly, and importantly, i upvote more often for low-xp posters, to encourage them to be active in the community. this community is no more than the sum of its members. i have learned a great deal here, and if i can encourage more activity, i think it can only benefit perlmonks.

i've learned a few things since my trip. forget about xp. i will probably shake my head at the amount of xp i gain from this one post. it's not perl related. it shows nothing of my knowledge of perl. but it does show my knowledge and commitment to this perl community.

as i've said before, i say again. forget the xp, remember the experience.

~Particle