I have been mulling over the recent Loads of Nodes discussion on the perceived increase in "I want someone to write me X" posts, and I came up with this idea: Why not set up a special section in the site for just those kinds of requests, with the requirement that anyone posting make a PayPal donation to the Perl Foundation (or any other worthy cause we can decide on), and that the amount of the petitioner's contribution be displayed with the request?

For example, if a petitioner wants a script that will validate an email address and is too lazy (or too much a newbie) to even take a stab at it, he or she could make a payment and post the request. Then monks with time on their hands could decide whether the amount donated was worth doing the coding, and provide answers if they liked.

This way money would go (in small chunks) to a worthy cause, questions without even an attempt at cracking the problem would be put in their own part of the site, and users would quickly learn the difference between a real question (free) and a LazyWeb request.

What do other monks think?