The Library

Ray

2:34 AM

Is this one a J.SE question? hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/105/…

Richard

12:13 PM

@Ray I think it fits here. There is some overlap between J.SE and BH.SE. This probably fits in that overlap.

Ray

So, would the same go for, say, "How do Arminians understand John 6:37a" (or Calvinists, John 6:37b)?

Richard

12:26 PM

There has actually been a meta discussion about this.

8

Q: Are questions about the Old Testament from a purely Christian perspective off-topic?

This morning a question arose about whether Jesus fulfills a prophesy in the Old Testament. From a Christian perspective, this a fairly standard lens through which to look at the Tanakh. Obviously, the question is quite foreign (and potentially offensive) from the Jewish perspective. Richard c...

discussion

I believe it all comes down to this question, though:

8

Q: How much doctrine should we allow? What is the general guideline?

Recently, a question regarding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (regarding women being silent in church) was asked. The literal interpretation of the text in itself creates and implies doctrine. However, this question was asking about the historical context and interpretation of this text. This is clea...

discussion

Still... the "Pre-Christian, Jewish interpretation" is more of a historical question in my mind, rather than a current interpretation.

I had a comment on there saying that J.SE would be a good place to ask, but it got purged, apparently.

(There was some disagreement from the OP regarding that.)

@Ray However, I think the same would go for "What was the Chirstian interpretation of this in the Middle Ages?"

Ray

Ah, i see.

so theologically-contextualized historical exegesis as opposed to simply theologically-contextualized exegesis

Richard

The question is still pretty open. We don't seem to have enough consensus here to be able to say "this is ok and that is not".

Ray

Oh, gotcha

I can see the way we understand the hermeneutical circle concept playing into that

Stack Exchange

5:35 PM

0

Q: How do you write Hebrew characters?

I see that some people are using actual Hebrew (and Greek) here. How are you doing that? (I hate having to resort to transliteration.)

support

Ray

7:09 PM

@Richard Where are these questions coming from?

Richard

7:24 PM

Just reading through the Bible, looking for anything interesting.

I figured since no one else is asking questions, we needed some new stuff.

I really don't want this site to go the way Atheism.SE went

Ray

Oh, yikes

Richard

It had 5 times the active users, 4 times the answer ration, 99% of questions answered, and twice the number of visits per day that we have.

The only advantage (at this point) that we have over Atheism.SE is that we're sitting closer to 5 questions per day.

Ray

at this point in their lifecycle?

Richard

No, that was at the point when the were shut down. So, that's another advantage we have on our side: time.

But, still...

It just makes me nervous, so I'm coming up with any question I can think of. :}

Ray

Ah, I see

It does seem like there are only a few people asking most of the questions

Soldarnal

7:51 PM

I can't even imagine what kind of questions are on an Atheism.SE

But yeah, I'm with you @Richard - good questions are a priority right now

Jack Douglas

@Richard It is more important that we grow (however slowly) than that our stats are good in an absolute sense. This is a relatively specialist field, and I'd hazard most of the experts in it have never heard of SO.

Ray

@Soldarnal Yeah.. I've been aiming for high vote-to-view ratio... I don't know if that's the best metric for "good" or not

because honestly, I think we need more views

Soldarnal

Yeah, is there a way to sort questions by views?

Richard

@Soldarnal Only per user.

Soldarnal

I know the unicorn and eye of the needle questions have garnered more views than most.

Richard

8:03 PM

@Soldarnal Wow. Yeah, our "high" views are all under 200.

We need to find a site that asks good hermeneutic/exegetic questions and reword some of those for use here... I haven't found any site like that, though.

Jack Douglas

@Richard well we could each work our way through a different commentary :)

Richard

@JackDouglas Now, that's not a bad idea...

Soldarnal

Just discovered that can't tag hebrews because hebrew already exists.

Suggestions for a different name for the epistle?

Ray

Let's keep some integrity here.. and ask questions in good faith

book-of-hebrews?

Richard

@Soldarnal Wow, that's interesting.

Ray

8:07 PM

i remember seeing that the other day

Jack Douglas

@Ray how do you mean 'in good faith'?

Richard

@Soldarnal Yeah, do book-of-hebrews until we get som moderators.

Soldarnal

Questions that you legitimately have?

Ray

@Soldarnal Exactly

Richard

@Soldarnal So far... I've only posted one of those.

whistle-innocently

Oh wait... that was over at C.SE. nevermind.

The biggest problem I find is that it takes me longer to write the question than it does to find the answer for myself.

Jack Douglas

8:09 PM

@Ray I'm not sure that really applies at this stage of beta - as long as they are questions you care about it is ok to go digging.

we need to set the tone for the site

Richard

@JackDouglas Agreed. We need to get lots of high quality, on-topic questions.

Jack Douglas

@Richard Not least because otherwise we will be invisible on Google

Ray

It just doesn't seem very genuine to me... I'd rather see the tone set by "real" questions. I think they will be better quality and more representative going forward

Richard

My philosophy: If I can think of a question, someone else will legitimately have that question. They'll google it and find our site, find the quesiton, and find the correct answer. Here, I can, to a degree, control the quality and validity of the answers.

Ray

Though it seems I'm in the minority here, and the site is in need or more content, so I can yield on that

it just feels dirty

Richard

8:14 PM

@Ray Well, to a degree, it is. But, at this stage, the goal is to build the community rather than to have an already built community that can answer the questions. It is kind of dirty, but (in my mind, at least) it's like marketing.

If we can get a good corpus of questions, it will draw experts here and the site will gain the critical mass it needs to succeed as a StackExchange site. If we don't get enough questions, we won't draw the experts, and the site will go the way of Atheism.SE

Jack Douglas

@Ray there is something artificial about it, but it is the only way to build a platform for 'clean' questions

Richard

@JackDouglas Right.

Soldarnal

The field is very different from programming; because the corpus of study is fairly limited, the experts in the field are well familiar with most of the questions one could have

Ray

So, then, on the topic of marketing... what else do we do?

Just rely on search indexers?

Richard

The first thing is to build a body of good questions.

Then... I have no idea.

Jack Douglas

8:17 PM

@Ray then invite experts personally?

and hope they do the same

Ray

@Richard, that's a solid 2-step plan ;)

Richard

However, I do have a link:

Stack Overflow Blog: A Recipe to Promote your Site

Posted by Robert Cartaino on August 23rd, 2010

In The 7 Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta we covered what we believe to be the crucial steps in forming a viable Stack Exchange Q&A community. Today we’re going to offer some aggregated advice, both from us and our existing meta communities, on step 7 — How do we promote our site?

The absolute best and easiest way to promote your site is to simply share links to great questions or answers. The hallmark, the cornerstone, the fundamental bedrock of Stack Exchange is producing Q&A that we’re proud of, Q&A that’s worthy of sharing with others. At the risk of explaining the obvious, here’s how to obtain a link to a question: …

Ray

Oh, excellent

I can see seminary students loving this

they love to have nerdy discussions removed from people's actual lives

Richard

Yes. Profound, I know. ;)

Soldarnal

Alright, who among us has a popular blog like Coding Horror or Joel on Software?

Richard

8:20 PM

@Soldarnal Well, we might be able to draw John Skeet here or Joel... That's probably not the idea, though.

Soldarnal

Well, I mean the hermeneutics/exegesis equivalent to those blogs

Richard

Aah.

Ray

@Richard s/Jon Skeet/Jeff Atwood

Richard

Aah yes. Clearly, I read their blogs daily.

Good ol' Johnie Skeat

Ray

How about someone like Justin Taylor?

or Adrian Warnock

just thinking of Christian bloggers i've heard of

Richard

8:25 PM

@Ray My brain translated that as [Justin Timberlake - James Taylor]

Ray

Yeah, well, we might get some hits if those mentioned us

I have a friend who wanted to go to Grove City for college (this is some 15 years ago), and the application process includes an interview

One of the questions was "who would you like to have lunch with (someone dead or alive) and why"

she chose James Taylor

Her application was not accepted

Anyway--looks like Justin can be reached at betweentwoworlds@gmail.com

Adrian: adrian.warnock@gmail.com

If you guys are aware of Christian blogs whose readership might have an interest in this site, let me know and I can help track down how to contact them

Richard

That's probably a good idea.

Jon Ericson

9:28 PM

I put out a (poorly-timed) feeler to the Judaism site: meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/q/429/971

While researching the Psalm 22, I did find the question in a Google search. (Page 3, but still.)

If anyone does send a note to Christian bloggers, I recommend treating it a bit like a resume: try to play up the strengths of our site and tailor it to the audience. (I highlighted questions that could use Jewish input, for instance.)

@Richard Anyone have any background on what went wrong with the Atheism site? So far I can't find anything to say why the plug was pulled?

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