I wasn't saying that we need to give merlyn an award, or that he doesn't deserve an award, or really anything specifically about him. I was just using him as an example of why giving a PM award for Perl sites or Perl articles could be a bad idea. He happens to be both a prominent PerlMonk and the author of a ton of Perl books and articles. Substitute the name of any other monk/author if you'd like.

My argument was this:

The "best" Perl articles that I have read (i.e. the ones that get printed and put in my Perl Stuff binder) are often written by people who happen to be members here. I was speculating that there could be enough monk-generated content getting these awards that it would look like we just invented an award to give to ourselves. But I could also be wrong about that. No assumptions, no suggestions, just another thing to think about if you're considering giving out an award.