I've been thinking a bit about ways to improve this site, and I'd like your input (and quite possibly your time and effort). For example: more original content (those articles of yours that perl.com is rejecting
Re:Look at K5 for a lead...
pudge on 2001-10-17T19:39:01
I don't understand what you're talking about... could you explain it? Re:Look at K5 for a lead...
gaudior on 2001-10-18T21:28:14
He's talking about the submission queue. On K5, articles that have been submitted are available for review, before they hit the front page. Registered users can vote the article up or down, and offer comments. If the article hits a certain threshold up, it goes into the main site.Re:Look at K5 for a lead...
pudge on 2001-10-18T21:36:39
Ah. I don't think that would be too useful at this point; we do not get very many submissions as it is, and the only things we don't post are things I really want not posted (like CGI questions, repeated stories, etc.).
But this brings up something YOU all can do to make use Perl better: submit stories! We don't get enough.Re:Look at K5 for a lead...
gaudior on 2001-10-19T14:19:11
It's a hard problem. How do you get more submissions? Get more readers, who are interested in participating. How do you do that? Have a lot of new interesting stories.;-/ Catch-22. It's especially hard when there is another thriving perl community, Perl Monks. The amount of time and attention available to each of us is limited. We can't be everywhere, with deep attention to each place.
Re:Look at K5 for a lead...
pudge on 2001-10-19T14:58:13
I don't consider use Perl and PerlMonks competing sites. use Perl is devoted primarily to Perl news and issues, while PerlMonks seems devoted to code issues. I suppose there's something to be said that the communities themselves overlaps... but I never gave much thought to the overlap, and am not sure I should.
But the issue isn't really getting more readers, it is making the site cater as well as possible to its readers. There are plenty of regular readers who know of important perl news who simply don't submit it, so it doesn't get posted, and fewer people therefore know about it. You might notice that Parrot 0.0.2 release was not posted. Why? Because no one submitted it, and I am too busy to find all the news and write and post all the stories myself. If the regular users and readers would submit more, that would go a very long way toward improving the content of the site.
I might sound like I am complaining, but that is only because I am.:-) I want the site to disseminate to its readers important and interesting Perl news, but I can't do it by myself. Re:Look at K5 for a lead...
jdavidb on 2001-10-25T15:04:03
Pudge, I'm doing my part. I just submitted an ask use Perl; ! But, in so doing, I discovered I had a (piddling small and uninteresting, to be true) story submission still pending since July 6. Nowadays, I realize it would be better as a journal entry, but did you realize it was there at all or is there a bug somewhere?
I presume you're not waiting for a slow news day.
:)
Well, over a year ago I did try to get some people interested in doing how-tos and genre bits on things like 'Apache::*, has your head spun off your neck yet?' but noone seemed enthused enough to try it for the now dead idea of 'use.cpan.org'...which is why I moved CPAN newsy stuff over here. Maybe some firsthand accounts of modules and the people who love them would be interesting.
Adding more adult content to this site will really help drive eyeballs here. You could then relaunch the site as "PerlAfterDark.com" and charge for content like those bastards at salon.com.
I think the journals have been a really great feature to use.perl.org. In fact, I read them a lot. Do people really want yet another tech article site? Do they want to see interviews? Comedy? I like the site the way it is, but then I don't have a day job.
Re:More
rafael on 2001-10-18T07:42:15
More humor and more modules... why not stories about the funny module of the day ? There are plenty of them on CPAN, sometimes doing something funny with the language, sometimes just plain funny (the Acme:: hierarchy, some of Schwern's modules).Re:More
jdavidb on 2001-10-18T18:13:48
I second the "random module of the day" idea. It's small, but still a good idea. I'm always looking for increased knowledge of CPAN, shorting of going through and memorizing the whole thing.
:) It's good to know what's out there. What if, every seven days, someone wrote a short intro to the most interesting random module of the day to come up in the past week?
Re:More
belg4mit on 2001-10-18T18:32:14
That would work too. I was just thinking of something that would:
a) be less discriminating (you never know what gems someone else might look over)
b) could be fully automated (just periodically fetch the module list from CPAN, remove different versions of the same module, and display the dox of a random selection from the set)Re:More
pudge on 2001-10-18T21:02:19
Well, I have named hfb the Module/CPAN correspondent... so hopefully she can do some cool stuff in that oft-neglected area of the site.
Re:Fix mail
pudge on 2001-10-18T21:00:03
This is fixed... it will be reflected in the next site update (probably next week). But come on, who doesn't use mail clients that can handle quoted printable? ;) Re:Fix mail
belg4mit on 2001-10-18T21:07:14
Me me me me (nmh baby).
If you can figure out how to make us post more comments, you'll have it made! That's when Slash works best.
Unfortunately, there's just too many places where Perl programmers go to talk: p5p, usenet, irc, perlmonks. You have to convince people to come here first. And that's not only a difficult proposition, it's probably not politically correct.
Re:Get the users talking
pudge on 2001-10-18T21:01:04
I am not sure if it matters if users talk much here. Sometimes, a site is just informational, and that is fine, if people are getting things out of it. More discussion is welcome, of course.
Re:favorite code snippets for newbies/ex-newbies?
$code or die on 2001-10-19T01:57:31
Dave Cross has spent some time writing drop-in replacements for Matt's Scripts. The last I heard, the name isn't final for the script collection. Problem is, beating Matt off top spot on the search engines will take some work.
Not Matt's Scripts (working link)
robin on 2001-10-19T13:39:37
The link above is broken. The NMS project is here.Re:Not Matt's Scripts (working link)
pudge on 2001-10-20T16:14:01
davorg has chronicled NMS a few times in his journal on use Perl, too. Plug plug plug.
Re:Interviews
pudge on 2001-10-20T16:11:54
Anyone who wants to write interviews or write about their modules are welcome to approach me. In case you hadn't noticed, my theme here seems to be "what you can do to help me, and how I can facilitate you helping me help you help others." Or something.
So anyone who wants to write, please contact me...
And don't think you are a nobody. Nobody is a nobody, and the less you think of yourself as a nobody, the more you actually are a nobody. Or something. I certainly don't care who is or isn't a nobody. If you don't think you can get someone good to be interviewed, A. you are probably wrong, and B. it doesn't hurt to try.
The point is, if you want to do an interview or an article, and you have decent writing skills, then mail me.
Re:Delay moving discussions to 'archive' status
pudge on 2001-10-29T21:17:18
Odd! The dealy should be 6000 days. I am willing to shorten it, but wanted to err on the side of letting discussion go on as long as people wish. Especially now that you can get notification for when someone replies to you, discussions have no need to die off.
In any event, it should be fine now. Please let me know if you see any problems with it. Thanks.
Re:Perlmonks slashbox
belg4mit on 2001-10-23T21:03:03
This already exists...Re:Perlmonks slashbox
Mischief on 2001-10-24T13:05:28
d'oh.
Re:Remove slashdot nastiness
pudge on 2001-10-29T21:05:33
Good call. I lowered them to 10 seconds on most of them (1 for the load/post limit). Thanks.
