I remember when Casey West and Kevin Meltzer started this list. Casey was very specific on-line and in person about it being a place where newcomers could ask questions without being flamed. The FAQ bears this out:
: 2.1 - What is the list for? : : A list for beginning Perl programmers to ask questions in a friendly : atmosphere. That is also the complete description of this group at http:// lists.perl.org/list/beginners.html. The FAQ goes on: : 2.3 - Are there any rules? : : Yes. As with most communities, there are rules. Not many, and ones that : shouldn't need to be mentioned, but they are. : : * Be nice : * No flaming : * Have fun :[...] : * If you think what you are writing may be taken in a way you didn't : intend, please add a smiley :-) Many flame wars are stopped by a simple : smiley! : * No flames. If your fingers are burning as you are typing the email, it : would likely be best not to send it. If anything is clear from that FAQ it is that the intention is to avoid flames on this list. Casey and Kevin appear to have stopped monitoring this group some time ago, though. There is no shortage of lists, groups, or forums where people can get flamed for not following the rules, and people who want to flame them have an outlet for doing so. I've already stopped reading most of them because it's not worth my time when most of the content is arguments about conduct. I don't know whether communities inevitably fall into that mode after a while but this one at least had a good run and I'll be sorry if I end up leaving it too. Andy Lester had a good article about this: http://perlbuzz.com/2010/11/ think-for-perls-sake.html. But judging from the responses it seems he and I may be in a minority. -- Peter Scott http://www.perlmedic.com/ http://www.perldebugged.com/ http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0137001274 http://www.oreillyschool.com/courses/perl3/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/
