From: John Gabriele Date: 2006-05-16T04:36:21+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby community website / forum On 5/15/06, Austin Ziegler wrote: > > I'm not going to speak for anyone else, but I suspect that a *lot* of > people are like me on this: I don't have time. I barely have time to > read the Ruby blogs and keep up with ruby-talk in any case. Me too. > Without guaranteeing a high level of participation from active > high-knowledge members of the community, including the Japanese > community, a PerlMonks-alike is doomed to failure. Not that I think that > PerlMonks is even remotely worth emulating. The postings on the first > page as I look now are spectacularly uninteresting and don't offer > anything that hasn't been asked and answered elsewhere better. > [snip] Austin -- I've used PerlMonks in the past, and it's actually more than a forum. It's got a ranking system (both posters and posts are ranked) that turns out to make the site very useful. There's an interesting dynamic going on over there -- when someone posts a very basic question, they don't usually get a normal "here's how you do it" answer. Instead, they often get a, "here's where you can look in the docs for your answer" type of answer. I think that, when you have a ranking system like they have (i.e. if their posts are up-voted, they get more xp), folks tend to want to live up to their on-site standing. You know what I mean? It's like, they build (visible, via their xp points) a rep (and "title") over time. Folks start looking at their home node (which only the user can edit -- unlike a wiki) as a useful reference to other good nodes. Anyhow, I agree with you that another Ruby forum is not needed. But PM is much more than a forum -- it's got extra magic sprinkled on top. ;)