Got $5? Our campaign to fund a printing of Days of Awe - Mi Yodeya? hasn't gotten any donations at the $5 level yet! It would be great if we could have some in there within the next ~day, to break the ice for small donations before we start doing stuff like tweeting about the project. So, why not make a small impulse-donation?

I find the Halacha history described in this article about Parmesan cheese very interesting: jwfoodandwine.com/article/2015/07/15/…

I think i'm getting heat rash down my arm from my tfillin. Any advice? It goes away after half an hour, but it's still quite uncomfortable during and after davening.

@Scimonster judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/ask (Yes, it's totally on-topic.)

@Scimonster Or: health.stackexchange.com/questions/ask (Probably also on-topic there, framed slightly differently.)

@IsaacMoses It was very interesting, but this statement: "the OU takes the highest common denominator when it comes to certifying" was over the top. A perusal of the OU's website and its lists of standards shows this to not be the case - which is fine. I'm not criticizing them, just the over-the-top praise. All agencies have their leniencies. The OU is not different. You can only judge an agency by how well it enforces its own standards and how clearly it communicates them.

@Yishai Yes. Note that that statement came from an industry consultant, and that not everyone would consider it to be a praise.

....flagged as NAA...should/could it have been flagged as rude?

(is the rude flag option new?)

@Yishai Especially strange coming from Crown Heights where IINM many people do not eat OU certified dairy products because of a particular leniency that they use

@Daniel I found that strange as well, but I think the general statement that some unknown certification is less well accepted there than the OU is probably true, even if the OU-Dairy designation is generally not accepted due to its reliance on Rav Moshe's heter.

@Shokhet spam flags are not inappropriate for proselytizing (and that one picked up some).

@MonicaCellio He's "Exists only to promote a product or service" and (in this case) "does not disclose the author's affiliation. "

@ShmuelBrin yup.

One thing that makes me uneasy about publishing answers to anything online is that i'm afraid people will take my advice in a way that is not at all how I intended it

For example, I might say something with a caveat, and then the OP comments on the answer and quotes the part without the caveat and says "Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for"

e.g.

obviously over here on MY, the pressure is even greater to avoid giving any window for someone to misinterpret what I'm saying

How do people deal with that, in general?

@Daniel If the misguided reader is good enough to leave a comment describing their misguision, then you can respond. Usually, they don't. I think the things to do are write precisely and humbly (i.e. not claiming to cover more than you do), give extra emphasis to things you really want people not to miss, and including, especially on sensitive issues, a "consult your rabbi" disclaimer.

@IsaacMoses I'm talking less about accidental misunderstanding and more about willing misinterpretation

In other words, the reader reading what he/she wants to hear

For example, I think I was pretty clear in the answer whose comment I linked above. But I can't tell if the comment is saying that the OP is going to ignore my caveat or if it was well-received.

@Daniel I recommend hacking into SE, getting the reader's IP address, inferring the reader's physical address from that, traveling to said location, and telling the reader, punctuated with bops on the head, "That's. Not. What. I. Said."

@IsaacMoses ok that makes sense. We should get @HodofHod on that

@IsaacMoses la la la... I'm not listening! :-)

@Daniel so you have somebody who's fishing for validation any way he can get it. It sounds like he knows he's reaching, so the main thing you're concerned about is that he's misrepresenting you to others? That's frustrating, yes, and I think @IsaacMoses's advice applies there too. The people he tells will either know that "he says some guy on the Internet agrees", or they'll follow it up and read what you actually wrote. There's nothing you can do about the former, so focus on the latter.

@MonicaCellio I just don't like the feeling of being used to validate a position which is opposed to what I really believe

Even when it's clearly not what I believe based on the text that the person is using to misrepresent me

@Daniel yeah, that's frustrating. Misrepresentation is, basically, lying, so if you say anything at all in public you're already open to that risk, unfortunately. So short of clamming up (which would be a huge loss!) all you can do is write/speak carefully so that your actual words are clear, and if they don't match what somebody else said about them, that won't reflect badly on you.

Rabbis must deal with this all the time -- somebody asks a question (perhaps quite nuanced), gets an answer, and shares something about it with his friends, either accidentally or intentionally corrupting it. How do those rabbis handle being in that situation?

@Daniel Ha! I've been doing that for years!

@HodofHod So the fact that you've never showed up at my door means that I have always correctly interpreted your answers, right?

@Daniel either that or, you know, airfare is expensive.

@Daniel What do you think I am, Eliyahu Hanavi? I said I'd been doing it for years - it's a long walk!

:P But as far as I remember, yes, you have :D