Jaami'at StackExchange al-Islamyya

Al Ummat

12:00 AM

is there something like posting rules for this site specifically?

goldPseudo

what do you mean?

Al Ummat

@goldPseudo I know there is the faq, but what I man is a seperate page where it lists rules on how we post questions and answers specifically for our site no other

goldPseudo

We'll be able to customize the FAQ page for our site as we develop.

The one we have now is just the "default" FAQ page that all betas start with.

Al Ummat

ok

goldPseudo

just for the sake of example, the judaism.SE FAQ looks like this:

judaism.stackexchange.com/faq

Al Ummat

12:10 AM

Yes this is what I am talking about

or the type of faq

goldPseudo

one of the 7 Essential Questions is "What should our FAQ contain?", so there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss it in meta.

Al Ummat

@goldPseudo do you think it would be time to ask such a question? or should it wait a while?

goldPseudo

i think it can wait until we've got a better idea what is and is not on topic. There's still plenty of discussion going on on that front.

since that would be a significant chunk of the FAQ in and of itself.

Al Ummat

how about we deal with what is on or off topic here , over the chat, and than we will post answers to the meta

goldPseudo

better to deal with it on meta.

Al Ummat

12:16 AM

yeah

goldPseudo

there's a lot of users who don't log into the chat

Al Ummat

@goldPseudo should I ask another question like what is on or off topic? because I see the existing question is dealing with one question

goldPseudo

and chat doesn't really have the voting abilities of meta, so there's no real way to judge a 'good' idea from a 'bad' idea democratically.

right now, i think the best course of action would be to deal with the questions as they come up.

Al Ummat

@goldPseudo Ok :)

goldPseudo

If there's a posted question that you're not sure should be on-topic, bring it up. But we've already defined a lot of the "will this be allowed" issues during the commitment phase, so we mostly have a good idea where we stand.

And if you have a question you want to ask that you're not completely sure is on-topic, it's better to just ask it and let everyone have their vote.

If and when people disagree as to it's on-topicness, that's the time to bring it up on meta.

Gigili

10:38 AM

@ashes999: Please approve my edit islam.stackexchange.com/questions/305/…

What's the point of these edit wars?

I don't get it. People fight when we try to improve their posts.

I'll post a meta question.

Gigili

12:16 PM

Vote to close: islam.stackexchange.com/questions/30/…

Dynamic

@Gigili Already did. :P

Gigili

@Dynamic Thank you, little user!

Gigili

12:43 PM

> There's none so blind as those who don't want to see.

Dynamic

@Gigili Where is that from?

Gigili

Umm, not sure. Just remembered the quote.

Not a religious person, for sure!

Dynamic

:-) Yeah

I guessed that

Gigili

Oh God, look.

> @Bahribayli about your verse. it says that the time of Judgement day is not in business of prophet. OK. so what? usually when people asked a question, prophet waited for angel Gabriel to deliver the answer form God. this verse not mean prophet talked from himself. – Ahmadi 1 hour ago

> There are so many examples like this in Qur'an that I can't accept that any word from Prophet (pbuh) is from Allah. BTW there is no logic to include some words of Allah in Qur'an and leave some out. – Bahribayli 1 hour ago

Gigili

1:05 PM

Hi @Ershad, welcome!

ashes999

1:18 PM

So...

I think we need to have a discussion about this sunni/shia thing @Gigili

I mentioned in a comment about 60 seconds ago -- there's no need to label every answer as "sunni" or "qadiyani" or anything like that. If it's general and acceptable to all groups, sure, leave it unlabelled

We don't want to create a site that has "silos" of opinions from different groups; commonality is a win for us. For example, Qur'an.

Gigili

That makes some sense.

ashes999

I posted a meta about it

0

Q: How to Cite Answers

In one of Gigili's answers, I realized that we haven't really talked about the best way to cite sources. I believe we need a clear, strong, common way to cite sources. Islam is pretty vast; we already have sunni vs. shia vs. sufi vs. ahmadi sources cited across the site. That's okay, because we ...

discussion

Gigili

@ashes999 You want me to link to Qur'an for a Hadith? That's odd.

I can take a photo of a book, if you think that helps.

ashes999

1:37 PM

@Gigili Qur'an and hadith are FOR SURE available everywhere on the internet, reliably. Quran.com and sunnah.com are a good start.

goldPseudo

i disagree. there are plenty of hadith that i've not found good online sources of.

Gigili

@ashes999 I was referring to your meta question.

And I cannot find it online even though it's a popular one.

goldPseudo

the two Sahihs are easily linkable, but beyond that there's a lot of stuff that's hard to find good links to.

Gigili

I mean, not a reliable resource. Google yields lots of resources and the one I posted was the best.

ashes999

@goldPseudo you can always google to find out "it's collected in X," like the Musnad of Imam Ahmad

Gigili

1:39 PM

It doesn't look fake or something, at least.

ashes999

@Gigili which collection is it? My Arabic is pretty rusty.

Gigili

@ashes999 Collection? The one I cited in my answer.

ashes999

Yes.

Which book, collection of hadith, etc.

goldPseudo

And then there's a lot of fatawa which refer to hadiths vaguely, rather than quoting. Finding an authoritative source of those is not particuarly easy since there's no real search strings to work with.

ashes999

@goldPseudo quoting a fatwa is okay too. That's a valid source.

I'm not asking anyone to do great amounts of research and correlating.

Just look up your sources online and include them.

Gigili

1:42 PM

@goldPseudo That's the problem about some question, like the one posted recently on sexual relationships.

ashes999

Don't be like me and say "I heard it in some class on Islamic Finance," look up the hadith and fatawa you talked about in class and cite them.

Oh, I still didn't answer that question yet :/

this seems to be a different question

Ershad

Hi, @Gigili

ashes999

@Gigili I think that question was answered quite nicely with Qur'an and hadith, actually

Ershad

Okay, Now I understand the purpose of Chatroom. You guys are fast.

ashes999

:)

goldPseudo

1:47 PM

depends on who's here at the time.

ashes999

salam @ ershad

wait a few hours and see, it'll pick up more :)

goldPseudo

theres a sort of sweet spot where everything's fast and productive. too many people, and it ends up as aimless chatting with everyone talking to everyone else.

Gigili

On which SE site were you active other than Islam, @gold?

I'm too lazy to look at your profile!

Ershad

walaikkum assalam wa rahmatullah @ashes999 I am trying to understand this website. There is quite a lot of dynamics around.

goldPseudo

@Gigili, mostly boardgames these days. but i've been on the Trilogy pretty much since they started.

ashes999

1:50 PM

@Ershad is this your first Stack Exchange site you're participating in?

Gigili

@goldPseudo I see. Interesting.

Ershad

@ashes999 Yes, I use SE only when I need to look up something in latex or programming or physics. Was too lazy to sign up. Never posted or involved in anything else. I recently signed up for the Islamic group and one more on fluid dynamics.

mashaAllah, welcome

Asalamu wa alaikum

wa'alikum as-salaam

1:56 PM

@ashes999 Jazakallahu khayraa. @AlUmmat Wa`alaikkum assalam

Gigili

@goldPseudo: The OP could edit the question to ask only one question, no close-vote was needed really.

Ershad

@ashes999 Checked out deengames.com. Maa`sha Allah. Liked find the harf, could be very useful.

goldPseudo

I don't really encourage changing questions to that extent. Especially if someone answers before the edit is made, then the answers and the questions don't really synch up anymore.

Splitting a question into (up to) five posts is a fairly significant change.

@AlUmmat, I would normally leave them up, since other people may upvote it again later.

If a post is still in the negative after a week or so, when everyone would've had a chance to vote who is likely to vote, then I'll reconsider if it actually is a good answer to the question and worth keeping.

If someone leaves comments as to why they downvoted, then editing the post to account for those is usually a good idea to get a downvote removed.

Gigili

@goldPseudo Well, in other SE sites, mods edit the question to make it one per post. Also, last time I checked there was no answers.

goldPseudo

afaik, mods can pare the question down to one question per post, but there's no real tool available to branch the other (up to) four off to separate posts.

short of asking a new question on the original poster's behalf, which is a suboptimal solution at best.

10

Q: What do we do with "multiple question" questions?

It's generally agreed that asking multiple, weakly related questions in the same question is not a good idea. What is the recommended action in this case? gnostradamus recommends voting to close, with a reason. That sounds reasonable. However, in this particular case the user is new and inexperi...

feature-request questions moderation

ashes999

2:11 PM

@Ershad jazakumullahu khayran :)

it was an experiment though...

inshaAllah next one will be better :)

Gigili

@goldPseudo I'm saying this question could be edited to be one of them and the OP might post the rest as separate questions.

Oh I see. that meta post says something else.

Or maybe not

> closing the question without giving them a chance to fix it feels like the wrong signal to give.

goldPseudo

that's regarding a new user on a public site. i feel that the committed users in private beta should be held to a higher standard (that may just be me though).

since we need to make sure everything is "just right" when we go public.

Al Ummat

3:27 PM

Asalamu wa alaikum @yasar11732

yasar11732

Ve aleykum salam

Al Ummat

This is the third day of privet beta Alhamdulillah

yasar11732

Yes. I haven't been able to check site for some time, is something interesting going on?

Al Ummat

well the meta is active, if you want to call that something interesting :)

yesterday we got 203 visits

yasar11732

That is good for a private beta I guess. That is almost all the commiters.

Al Ummat

3:35 PM

yes it is

once it becomes public we will need 1500 visits

for it to be healthy

goldPseudo

The Zakat question has been split up. We should probably close the original as 'duplicate' now so nobody else tries to answer it.

Al Ummat

ok

I will vote to close

yasar11732

@AlUmmat I think that is easy, since Islam is very broad topic, and lots of people are interested in it.

@goldPseudo Could you send a link to question?

Al Ummat

here

2

Q: Calculating Zakat

Zakat is normally calculated as 2.5% of any amount above the prevailing cost of Nisab. There are various clauses that are not fully agreed upon, and I will appreciate your time in helping clarification. I split up the question in smaller questions which are not referenced. Questions 4 and 5 are ...

zakat nisab

should it be a duplicate or not constructive?

yasar11732

duplicate I guess?

goldPseudo

3:38 PM

duplicate seems to be the most accurate.

Gigili

@gold voted to close as NC.

goldPseudo

actually, it's probably better as 'not a real question' now.

Gigili

Duplicate of what?

goldPseudo

since there's not really a single 'duplicate' to link it to.

Gigili

I'd go for NC, too.

yasar11732

3:40 PM

I choose one of the split questions, and flagged duplicate.

I was too hasty again :/

Now I can't take that back.

Al Ummat

we just need one more vote

Gigili

I guess we need to vote to delete the answer.

Al Ummat

how do you do that

yasar11732

@Gigili Why?

goldPseudo

i wouldn't worry about the answer myself.

Gigili

3:44 PM

That'd discourage people to not answer a question which is going to be closed.

And it's quite misleading.

goldPseudo

can't answer a question that is closed. and there's no way to know in advance that it's "going to be closed" since it requires voting.

and even when it is closed, can be voted to reopen.

just upvote/downvote the answer like you would any other, should be sufficient.

Gigili

We're were discussion it already and there were no answer.

We usually delete them on ELU.

goldPseudo

you could bring it up on meta.

Al Ummat

should Islam.SE be open to all languages?

yasar11732

I think it should be a seperate site for each language

for example:

343

Stack Overflow (in Turkish)

Proposed Q&A site for professional and enthusiast programmers in Turkish. Profesyonel ve meraklısı programcılar için önerilen Türkçe soru-cevap sitesi.

Currently in commitment.

Al Ummat

3:50 PM

why?

goldPseudo

yeah, that's the general practice on stackexchange. we don't want to split our userbase by having half the site speaking arabic and half the site speaking english.

since english experts wouldn't be able to answer arabic questions, and vice-versa. and translating everything would be tedious at best, and inaccurate at worst.

Al Ummat

But I would have thougt that there only be one strong Islamic site on SE? what if there was a translator like google translate or something?

yasar11732

I don't think it would work out well.

Al Ummat

Someone who does not know what the question is in another language can translate it and than answer the question and then translate the question into the language of the question or something like that?

goldPseudo

ولكن كنت أود أن يكون thougt أن يكون هناك واحد فقط موقع إسلامي قوي على SE؟

(that is what google translate would get you.)

Al Ummat

3:53 PM

it does not have to be google translate I know google translate is not good

doesn't SE have apps?

goldPseudo

translation is more art than science. that's why there are so many interpretations of the Qur'an in English, not all of which agree with each other.

Al Ummat

or something

doesn't SE have apps?

yasar11732

google translate is best there is, and you know how it sucks.

goldPseudo

right now, i think if an arabic (or turkish, or urdu, or somali) speaker wants to use the site, they can translate their own posts into English without a problem.

rather than changing the site to do it for them. in most cases, i would trust a manual translation by the original poster over an automatic translation.

yasar11732

I am making up questions to build some source before the public beta by the way, is it still ok to make up questions?

goldPseudo

3:56 PM

i think we've got enough "real" question flow right now.

keep asking questions, but they should be questions you honestly want to ask and know the answer for, rather than "this question might look good on the site".

yasar11732

ok, I am keeping my last question than :)

goldPseudo

or ask-and-answer your own questions, if it's a question you asked before and actually did the research to find the answer for.

Blog - Stack Exchange: It’s OK to Ask and Answer Your Own Questions

Jeff Atwood on July 01, 2011

The FAQ has contained one key bit of advice from the very beginning:

It’s also perfectly fine to ask and answer your own question, as long as you pretend you’re on Jeopardy! — phrase it in the form of a question.

So …

if you have a question that you already know the answer to

if you’d like to document it in public so others (including yourself) can find it later

it is OK to ask, and answer, your own question on a relevant Stack Exchange site.

To be crystal clear, it is not merely OK to ask and answer your own question, it is explicitly encouraged. …

yasar11732

Anyone know what this tag for?

islam.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/rules

Gigili

@yasar11732 Umm, not sure if it's useful. Should I add it to the list?

yasar11732

list of what?

Al Ummat

4:10 PM

0

Q: Removing some tags

Going through tags, I noticed there are some tags that don't make much sense. I list them here so that we can avoid using them and they'll be automatically deleted: sin-or-not: I fail to see what's the point of this tag, since there's sin. bad-nicknames: I don't think anyone is going to ask qu...

discussion tag

yasar11732

Yes, I think you should add it to list.

yasar11732

4:23 PM

Is this correct way to call second ayat in Arabic -> Ayat'ul bakara ?

goldPseudo

4:37 PM

16 avid users now. our numbers are still looking pretty good, and with not even half the committed users active yet.

yasar11732

Awesome :)

Al Ummat

I wonder what it would look like if all of the committed users became active?

:)

goldPseudo

a few users are getting close to the 1000 rep milestone.

yasar11732

Wow, I am getting jeaolus :)

Al Ummat

look at this question guys:

0

Q: What is the meaning of Arabic letters in the begining of some suras?

For example, Al-Baqara begins like this: الٓمٓ ﴿١﴾ ذَٰلِكَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبُ لَا رَيْبَ ۛ فِيهِ ۛ هُدًى لِّلْمُتَّقِينَ What is the meaning/purpose of letters like الٓمٓ of Al-Baqara, that don't correspond to any known Arabic words.

quran

yasar11732

4:40 PM

Is it bad?

Al Ummat

no it is just one of those questions where the answer is Allah knows best

goldPseudo

this type of question might be worded better. e.g., asking about scholary research into the subject rather than asking what God meant by the letters (the knowledge of which is with God alone).

yasar11732

Should I edit and question and ask, what are different opinions about this subject?

Al Ummat

I think there is some study of scholars on this, but i could have answered the question more if the letters were Yaseen.

yasar11732

@AlUmmat I can edit the question if you want.

@goldPseudo You can edit the question if you want, making the wording as you like.

Al Ummat

4:45 PM

@yasar11732 ok thank you

goldPseudo

I don't like changing the meaning of other people's questions.

I'm merely making a suggestion.

yasar11732

What was the yaseen's sura number? I am trying to find a source to copy it to my question.

goldPseudo

36

yasar11732

@goldPseudo Thanks

I have changed the question a little bit.

15 questions per day considered a good beta, we have made 45 question per day so far :)

ashes999

by the way @AlUmmat, DVs means you need to make your answer better. Don't delete it, try to improve it

Al Ummat

4:58 PM

@ashes999 Yes thank you for telling me :)

goldPseudo

the only time i tend to delete my own post is if i find i've written something that's actually wrong, or if someone else has answered the question in pretty much the exact same way, except significantly better.

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