The Upper Room - 2011-10-27 (page 1 of 2)

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12:00 AM

@MarkTrapp phiolosophical doctrine, once again my point is upheld.

However, I was guided that I needed to reference the specifical usage of what I was referencing in asking that question, because some groups used bible A and some groups used bible B

@MarkTrapp unless this is a law and we just call it the Monroe Doctrine

user2334

Come on jco, you know it's a whole lot simpler to ask about your specific question getting closed than to do this roundabout pedantic argument about what the word doctrine means. If you want to know why your question was closed and the FAQ isn't helping, create a meta question about it

Then you didn't follow my comment string

I did ask why it got closed

I went to the meta question that I referenced in my other question and asked what they meant

the mods said that maybe it wasn't clear, and I said maybe another meta Q was in order

then I asked another meta Q. I'm not sure where I didn't make the trail widely public.

cref: meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/725/…

cref: christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/4340/…

Caleb specifically said:

> I think we need to work on helping people with these edits one way or the other until there is a much more defined pattern to work from.

I figured that flowed from the discussion that was being had, ergo, my question, a way to help define the pattern.

Now, @MarkTrapp, that I have posted what I thought was a pattern defining question, can you help me clarify what was meant in the previous question that I referenced that was in turn the reason my question was closed?

If I, a fairly educated individual, with a bit of a background in reading voraciously, doesn't understand what is meant by "must specify the doctrinal tradition", then what makes you think that everyone else will and I'm the only statistical outlier?

If this means I've been leading you into an answer, so be it.

user2334

@jcolebrand The reason I mention creating a meta question about why your specific question got closed is because you've been focusing on something that's irrelevant to why the question got closed, although I can see why as the edits @Caleb made might've pointed to the issue being your specific beliefs.

But this wasn't about "why did my question get closed" this is about "what does this word mean"

I was fine with it getting closed, and I even worked with the mods to edit it properly and get it reopened.

user2334

@jcolebrand Which is a complete red herring, because your question being closed has nothing to do with what the word means. Your understanding of the word is correct. It's not being used in an obscure or technical manner

12:09 AM

Nowhere in my meta post did I mention my post which had been closed

Then why did my question require edits which totally didn't change the meaning of my question?

If you read through the <sub> text on my post, you'll see that I don't rule out any Christian text.

So what edits were made that "improved" my question?

Nothing.

So why did it get closed and reopened? Apparently something of substance was changed.

user2334

@jcolebrand Right, that's the problem: your question, unless you're asking about a specific tradition, is untestable. Me, as a Roman Catholic, could (and likely will) have a wildly different answer than a Mormon, or a Baptist, or a Unitarian

Somebody on C.se is doing something which doesn't make any sense, and it may be me.

@MarkTrapp but I only asked where the texts said it was so

I didn't ask what any particular branch of the faith thought

So what about the edits suddenly made my question digestable, where before it had not been?

user2334

@jcolebrand Every denomination interprets the Bible differently. That's why there are so many denominations.

Now, had I asked: "Is there a sect of Christianity that thinks that Satan is the King of Hell" that would be TOTALLY DIFFERENT

@MarkTrapp interpretation is not text tho

The words are the words.

So what changed in my question for it to be reopened?

Something changed

I followed the posts on meta, which I was happy to oblige with

Obviously it's something in that post that I didn't understand

The only part I didn't fully understand is what I asked a new meta question on

user2334

@jcolebrand That over a billion people spend 2,000 years dissecting. There isn't a passage for each and every thing a Christian might believe word for word plain as day: it requires interpretation.

12:14 AM

@MarkTrapp Ah, but there are stories that lead to the beginnings of interpretation. I know why people say that hell is a place of burning fire, because Revelations makes mention of the punishment regarded for some.

user2334

@jcolebrand Yes: the question was changed from "tell me any Biblical interpretation for X" to "tell me the Southern Baptist interpretation for X"

@MarkTrapp but it SHOULDN'T BE THAT

@MarkTrapp that was specifically what my edits strove to prevent

user2334

@jcolebrand then specify a different tradition you want to know about

@MarkTrapp WHAT ARE THOSE TRADITIONS?

Which ones are acceptable to be answered/asked about on C.se?

Which ones are the "observed doctrines" on C.se?

in short, my meta Q

user2334

Any Christian tradition... Southern Baptist, Roman Catholicism, LDS, Lutheranism, etc.

12:16 AM

I know that the Christian religion is widely-encompassing and that there are many texts which some sects do not respect. I want to know if any of those texts, ANY, match my question.

user2334

You asked a doctrinal question but didn't specify the tradition you wanted the answer from. That was it. Nothing to do with the definition of doctrine

That is what I want my question to answer.

That is what I asked.

user2334

Let me put it this way

user2334

"How do I instantiate a class in an efficient manner?"

user2334

Without a language or a framework or something, the question is unanswerable/untestable

user2334

12:18 AM

Tell me what language you want to know for: C++? PHP? Python?

yes, without a language, the question can't be answered.

I specified for all Christian texts.

That is a framework in which it can be answered

@jcolebrand How do I instantiate a class in an efficient manner in every language ever?

user2334

@jcolebrand That's like asking "Tell me all the ways I can instantiate a class". It's an unreasonable question to ask of experts and specialists

@MarkTrapp no, that would be like asking "of which historical documents are there mentions of an evil figure being named the king of the domain of the damned"

that would be impossible

there are recognized historical texts that are regarded as Christian texts.

Those are what we draw all subsequent canon from

Ask on history.se

12:20 AM

Usually they have to be n years old

Given all those sources of canon, only a few really concern themselves with Satan/Lucifer

Therefore, it is a finite set of documents that can be culled from

I have never heard of a document claiming that he was as I asked in my question

user2334

@jcolebrand That's not how it works. Christianity is not a monolithic religion: each denomination has hundreds of years of knowledge and teaching attached to them. If everyone was working off the same page, there wouldn't be countless denominations

Hence I asked the site that would most likely have observers of those canon that would know

user2334

It's like saying you can ask a general programming question because every computer uses binary

@MarkTrapp yes yes, I don't know what part of that you're confused on. Pretend I'm somebody that's really educated about the system. The only thing I don't have is a complete copy of every text and a working knowledge of dead and ancient languages.

@MarkTrapp no, it's like saying I can ask a programming question on Stack Overflow because there are enough experts there that somebody should know

I would not, however, go on Stack Overflow and ask what was the appropriate temperature to cook a quiche on.

I would not expect them to know

user2334

@jcolebrand You're asking something that's unreasonable and not constructive of experts. If you can't specify the testing conditions for an answer by providing a tradition/denomination you want to know the answer for, you're probably in the wrong place.

12:22 AM

@MarkTrapp I can:

Testable answers: Is the text considered at some point Christian canon? Does the text involve Satan/Lucifer?

How does @MarkTrapp define a text as Christian canon?

Interestingly, there's a place for language-agnostic questions: but they're usually almost useless for beginners. So there's this subtle difference between a question that asks, "How do I implement an efficient sort for <scenario>?" and fails to specify the language, and the same written by someone who is fully capable of applying any answer to the language of his choosing.

user2334

@jcolebrand I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall. Every single Christian tradition will give you a completely different answer to those questions!

@Shog9 But is there a place for asking which languages support specific feature X?

@MarkTrapp no, they won't.

@jcolebrand No, because those questions are pointless.

Either a document exists, or it doesn't.

@Shog9 whyso?

12:25 AM

@jcolebrand What is your goal in asking such a question?

@MarkTrapp there is no place in the protestant 39+27 bible that says the answer to my question exists. All the sects that use that bible will say no.

@Shog9 Are we discussing in computer programming terms or specifically for the Q that was closed and reopened?

user2334

@jcolebrand And guess what, there are at least a dozen mainline denominations that don't use the Protestant canon. But because you didn't specify, those people are just as correct as someone who says "no"

@jcolebrand Either / both. Come up with a scenario where you wish to make use of an answer while simultaneously not caring what it is.

user2334

Why is it such an onerous and unreasonable requirement to specify who you want to hear the answer from?

@MarkTrapp Yes, but I don't know how to strain those noodles into two different pots in the first place to differentiate that because I don't know ya'lls language yet and so I asked a meta Q to ask how to differentiate because obviously this is a term that ya'll grok and that I somehow don't, even tho I know what the word means.

@Shog9 I don't have a use for it, I just was curious, just like I don't have a specific use for my two most recent cooking.se questions and yet, I asked them.

1

Q: What are the various doctrines that could be applied to a given question on this site?

In Why was my question closed? How can I get it open again? we see that users are asked to specific a doctrine: Questions that are seeking understanding of specific doctrine, must specify the doctrinal tradition to which they are referring. However, I liken that to a blind person being aske...

discussion doctrine

12:28 AM

@jcolebrand "C+X, which I incidentally just created and runs only on the Commodore 64, supports X." "Luciferism, a branch of Christianity known only to my immediate family here in the backwoods of OK, believes that Lucifer is the king of hell. Based on direct revelation."

user2334

@jcolebrand You've been focusing on the wrong word. It has nothing to do with the word doctrine. Your question was about doctrine. You just didn't specify who you wanted an answer from (the doctrinal tradition).

@Shog9 Ah, but my question specified that it had to be in existing Chrisitian writing.

@jcolebrand Which, you did not define.

I probably should've added the words "canon" to my text, but by using "Bible" I think that everyone associates that with "observed canon" (or at least, they all have to date)

As Mark notes, "Christian writing" covers an amazingly large amount of text.

user2334

12:30 AM

@jcolebrand Who's canon? My canon as a Roman Catholic is different from everyone else's. So is Luther's canon. And the LDS canon. And so on.

@jcolebrand Everyone knows what Bible means. They just don't necessarily all agree

@MarkTrapp yes, but canon would rule out the joke answer that Shog was making a moment ago

@Shog9 yes, but isn't a "Bible" traditionally canon texts? Don't we all agree on that?

user2334

@jcolebrand How about we focus on your question? Whose canon do you want an answer from?

Oh look, I'm trying to nail down what a word means. Which is a great meta post

@MarkTrapp anybodys.

user2334

@jcolebrand That's too broad. "Does any language have the ability to use objects?"

12:32 AM

@jcolebrand Well, except that I don't buy into all these crazy apocrypha books that Mark has in his bible.

@MarkTrapp that's not unreasonable. Some languages don't have native objects.

@Shog9 Ah, but are they legacy texts? Then I do care.

user2334

@jcolebrand But there are at least 100 that do. Do you seriously expect someone to provide a comprehensive answer on all of them to completely answer your question?

@jcolebrand What about the Mormon books then? Are you interested in those?

I feel like what Mark is saying to me is that every question must pigeonhole it's answers against a given predominant branch of Christianity as either recognized today or as recognized in the past by any group of historians (denominations/sects/doctrines/whatever) and that I am saying "I don't care what branch it was"

@Shog9 yes, if they mention what I said.

@MarkTrapp Nope, just one.

All I want is one.

If I ask for one, and 100s exist, I'm liable to get five.

user2334

@jcolebrand That's the problem. You didn't specify the conditions under which an answer can be considered correct

user2334

12:34 AM

It's a list/poll/survey question. They suck just as much as they do on every other site on SE

Having gotten at least one, however, teaches me something I did not know and most likely (given my experience researching so many things in the past) gives me new vocabulary words and new vocabulary frames of reference to start researching new things that I did not know before.

@MarkTrapp but there are bounds to this.

@MarkTrapp If it matches any "Bible" and mentions Lucifer/Satan as being the punisher of the dead.

user2334

@jcolebrand You didn't specify any bounds in your question.

Those are the immense list of criteria that must be met.

They seem rather focused specifically

I don't know how boundless those two criteria can be.

user2334

I created a new Bible 2 weeks ago (meets your "must already have been written" requirement). It says X. Give me my rep now.

Only so many "Bible"s have been written

@MarkTrapp Ah, but you didn't provide me the passage.

user2334

12:36 AM

Mark Trapp 1:1: "X"

user2334

I expect a 500 point bounty

> Where does the Bible say that Lucifer (Satan) will punish those who have rejected Christ after death?

If I had 500 points I would give it to you

user2334

In the Book of Mark Trapp, part of the Mark Trapp canon, written in AD 2011, it says "Lucifer will punish those who rejected Christ after death."

IMHO, a far more practical strategy is to answer in the specific context, and then generalize if it applies to more than one. Now, stop me if you've heard this one...

Now, since I didn't say (and this is the result of this conversation, so at least one positive thing has come of it) "and list the Bible that you're referencing" then yes, you're correct.

12:37 AM

Stack Overflow Blog: The Wikipedia of Long Tail Programming Questions

Posted by Joel Spolsky on January 5th, 2011

Have you ever noticed how certain questions come up again and again on Stack Overflow sites?

Oh look, my PC is freezing. Should I use SELECT *? Oh, and, how can I host a server from home?

Really, people, do you want to be answering these same questions ten years from now? How about when you’re 65? That doesn’t sound so appealing now, does it?

We predicted this problem, even before we launched Stack Overflow. Why? Because the same thing happened on Usenet, where:

Most users could only see a few days or, at best, one month of archives for any given newsgroup. It was literally impossible …

@MarkTrapp Now that is an answer. In my followup comments I would ask what library you found that in so I can follow it up in researching.

@Shog9 I would like to point out, mind you, that there is kind of a thing that this is a very interesting question to most people. This isn't some esoteric question.

user2334

@jcolebrand Oh my no it's not. It's complete hogwash. I didn't demonstrate any expertise by making something up in 30 seconds

I mean, it's on C.se, it's esoteric to begin with.

@MarkTrapp I didn't say it was verifiable, I said it was an answer to the question

Differentiate please.

I never said I asked perfect questions on the first pass

user2334

@jcolebrand No it's not an answer to the question. It completely doesn't answer the question. I just made it up. It has no educational or practical value

I only maintained that I didn't want passages that don't strictly pertain to "Southern Baptist Protestant-only-strain KJV Bibles" for the passage.

@MarkTrapp and further comments would have weeded that out

user2334

12:40 AM

If I say "Bananas" when you ask me what 2 and 2 make, I'm wrong. I'm not technically right because I gave you an answer that when later verified is bull. I'm just wrong. I didn't answer your question.

@jcolebrand I'm not suggesting it is. But the whole point of this push for better questions on C.SE is just that - better questions. Not squelching popular / populist questions - just making them better. So they can get good answers. Which is, after all, the whole point of having a site.

@MarkTrapp No, I meant that you referenced a passage in a book in your answer, that is what made it an answer. You attempted it with a passage. You didn't answer with something that was patently nonsense. In this specific conversation we both knew it was contrived, but we found a passage, that answered the where question that was asked.

@Shog9 ok, so what I'm hearing is that I need to make the question more focused, in some way, so that the bounds of verification become easier to judge. I got that. I can do that when I leave here finally and go walk my dog and fix dinner.

however, I don't think this is a long-tail+nobody-cares question. Just because it hasn't been asked, doesn't mean nobody cares.

user2334

@jcolebrand Stack Exchange is not a dialectical exchange: if I address everything in your question as it is worded, it's correct. There is no back-and-forth to tease out what you're looking for. You specify what you want, very specifically, up front. That's how SE works.

@MarkTrapp And at first blush I thought I did. I asked "where in the Bible" and left "the Bible" open to intepretation because, frankly, so long as it's in what someone considers "the Bible" that's interesting enough to me. Nobody is going to just bind a book on the spot and call it "the Bible" because all Christians would have more respect for the book than that.

I was then told to narrow it down. So I told the mods "ok, I was raised SoBap, and I recognize the 39+27 book, but I want any Christian writing that mentions this" (and should have specified "Christian canon from before 500 AD" or somesuch)

@jcolebrand I suspect the reason Mark jumped at the chance to use a programming-question analogy is because by now you should be intimately familiar with how those can go wrong. Not because they aren't useful questions. Not because askers are stupid. But simply because they don't realize the scope of what they're asking. To someone who's only used VB and Java, the idea that there might be an entire universe of answers out there that wouldn't fit either one might be simply unthinkable...

12:46 AM

However, the way I was told to narrow it down, and the reason for my meta post, was to specify a doctrine

user2334

@jcolebrand There are at least a dozen different "Bibles", all with hundreds of years of tradition backing them. I made up the Mark Trapp Bible, but to other denominations, the Roman Catholic canon or the LDS canon sounds just as made up.

@Shog9 yeah, which is why I jumped on his "object" question.

@MarkTrapp Yes, and if any of those have a passage detailing Satan/Lucifer as being responsible for punishing the dead, I want to read that passage

I should have specified "please tell me which 'Bible' you're referencing and please stick to canonical texts only. Anything written since the invention/wide-distribution of the European printing press does not interest me."

@jcolebrand Which is great, because there are a lot of languages that do have native objects, even more where you can use objects without any native support for them, and then the whole "what is an object, really?" question that lets JavaScript have objects without really treating them like any other mainstream language (except for the ones I've forgotten about, whose proponents will now derail my question with their philosophical arguments).

@Shog9 and I want to know what's a language that doesn't have objects.

Does that make the question less valid?

I don't want to know every single language that doesn't have objects.

I just want to know that languages without objects exist.

user2334

What was wrong with Googling?

user2334

12:50 AM

Why are you asking experts and specialists to name an example?

@jcolebrand First, we need to agree on what an object is. And whether a lack of native support means the language doesn't support them, or simply expects those who want them to implement their own support, in whatever fashion they please.

I want to know that a passage in a Bible expressly says "And Satan will be their whipping master. And lo shall he whip them three times. Nay he shall not whip them four times, and whipping them five times is right out" etc

Once that's done, we can start arguing about what a "language" is, really.

@MarkTrapp because I trust their answers. I don't trust the answers of random people on the internet.

@jcolebrand you're gonna hate SE then

user2334

12:51 AM

=7grefasu90[vh;iodljkhsadjvhk

@MarkTrapp ok, better response: Because I don't know how or where to find that answer to my question

user2334

I don't see how I can explain in any other way how absurd that is.

@MarkTrapp that's because I know better :p

user2334

@jcolebrand Is that really what you think Stack Exchange is about? A glorified Google assistant?

@Shog9 There was already a question about "what a 'language' really is" and I asked that on meta.C.se

@MarkTrapp in some ways, yes. In other ways, no.

user2334

12:53 AM

@jcolebrand You've provided no semantic content there.

That is what I use cooking.se for, and it's the first place I look for cooking stuff before venturing out on the web, because apparently I've trained google to give me SE results.

That is what I use Stack Overflow for

Mostly because all the answers are already there.

That isn't what I use English.se for.

@MarkTrapp Do you think that the SE network is for something other than asking questions and getting answers?

I'm pretty sure that's what google does too.

user2334

I don't think Google does. Google is dumb. It pattern matches based on dumb queries you give it. I don't view SE as a mechanical turk

I do view SE as a mechanical turk, I don't view google as one. I view google as a glorified encyclopedia index

user2334

You don't go to a professor or a programmer and ask them "Hey, tell me all the places I can find X"

user2334

It dehumanises them

12:56 AM

You do know that a mechanical turk is a human, right?

user2334

A mechanical turk is a human acting as an automaton

Yes

ok, just making sure we're clear

user2334

And you don't think that's dehumanizing?

@MarkTrapp I don't want all the places. I want one place.

@jcolebrand I want you to understand: I'm not saying these are inherently bad questions that must be squelched at all costs... The ultimate test is usually simply, "what is the context?" IOW, if you're teaching a class, and want an example, that's different from, say, idle curiosity (which is, let's face it, hard to defend).

12:57 AM

Asking them to list everything would be dehumanizing.

user2334

Why can't you Google it yourself?

When I get asked to name one site that does something, I don't mind.

user2334

But whatever, now that I at least know where you're coming from, you just need to narrow down the scope of the search. "All Christians" is too broad a scope.

@MarkTrapp because I don't know how to ask google to define bible in a way that I would agree with it and still find all references to all works.

@MarkTrapp but I do want to know "All Christian texts that are canonical"

We can quibble over what makes a text canonical if need be.

user2334

@jcolebrand There are 5,000,000+ hits. Would you like to refine your search?

12:59 AM

@MarkTrapp for what?

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