What is PerlMonks?

According to vroom, its initiator, PerlMonks is:

• An attempt to make learning Perl as non-intimidating and easy to use as possible.
• A place for individuals to polish, improve, and showcase their Perl skills.
• A community which allows everyone to grow and learn from each other.

nate had the following to say about the genesis of PerlMonks:

We were aiming for a cool Internet hangout for Perl gurus and semi-advanced users.

We wanted to offer an environment where people could ask questions, post their best work, and just basically geek out on Perl.

My first official title in the company was "Perl Monk". I guess I liked the philosophy behind being a monk. There's a religious connotation, and Perl is a language that some people take as seriously as a religion. Monasteries are culturally known as centers of learning and knowledge, and that is a good analogy of what we're trying to build.

All these questions people are asking will make a tremendous archive of Q&A-style documentation.

Perl refers to the programming language, while perl refers to an implementation of that language, or any of the associated technologies and projects, such as Parrot. See What's the difference between "perl" and "Perl"?

Note: We use "PerlMonks" to refer to this web site and the community centered on it. It is a singular noun.
"Perl Monks", a plural noun, refers to the people who participate in this community.

You will occasionally see "PerlMonks" abbreviated as "PM".

"Why does PerlMonks work?" is a discussion thread in which several denizens of the PerlMonks community express their feelings about how and why the community works so effectively.

PerlMonks was built on the "Everything Engine" (version 0.8). For a history of Everything, see The E2 Backstory @everything2.