On 4/19/06, Ryan Leavengood <leavengood / gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/19/06, John Gabriele <jmg3000 / gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > With Perl, they've got comp.lang.perl, but there's also Perlmonks.
> > Perlmonks has a system where you can rate posts (which are helpfully
> > displayed nested), and gain "experience points" if your posts get
> > rated well. They also have fastidious admins who remove trollish
> > postings (if any). Perlmonks is an *amazingly* helpful place for
> > Perlers. They keep that monastery clean. ;)
>
> I've never been a Perler myself, but hearing about this makes me want
> to be one (except for the language, LOL.) Would it be terrible to
> create a Ruby equivalent of this?

I'd say the answer is "no", it would not be terrible. Trouble is, the
perlmonks site is pretty sophisticated. You'd need a fairly powerful
web framework to put together something like perlmonks for Ruby. Dunno
if the Ruby community really has that kind of software, or even the
skills and experience necessary to tackle something like that yet...
{poke, poke, nudge, nudge ;) }

> Would that result in too much
> dilution of the community and maybe result in segregated communities
> (experts on "Rubymonks", the rabble on ruby-lang?) I mean if it has
> worked in the Perl world.......
>
> Ryan

I'm no expert, but I believe that in the Perl community, some folks
may have left the newsgroup and went to perlmonks because the
newsgroup can be a bit of a wild place sometimes. Maybe that's why
they went with the name "Monastery" -- to portray this feeling of
tranquility which may sometimes be contrasted by a few flaming posts
here and there on the newsgroup.

BTW, PM also benefits from having all manner of useful nodes hanging
around that are easily searchable (for example, check out their
"Tutorials" page (you will flip when you see how much useful stuff
they have there), or the "Code Catacombs" (flip again)). :)