This past Motzai Shabbos was actually the first time it would have been practical for me to log on before UTC Saturday ended. Even with it being early, I usually am pretty busy motzai Shabbos. But I didn't log on anyways, because I didn't want to feel pressured to keep the streak going next motzai Shabbos.
BTW, it turns out (and I did not know this then) that the posts don't all have to be on the same Saturday.
@YeZ I earned the Fanatic badge one winter by taking advantage of that small window. There's a long-enough stretch between chagim and in standard time that works.
(I, um, had some things queued up before Shabbat, too -- for the hat, I mean, not Fanatic.)
@YeZ I read the descriptions when the hats started, but I wasn't one of the people trying to find out in advance. I don't obsess over it but, hey, hats. I don't know if I can get Aztec in 2014, but I should be able to get it by the end.
I did decide to answer a bountied question on MSE to see if I could get the hat for that, but so far no upvotes.
The bountied questions on Mi Yodeya are beyond my ability.
@YeZ ah. And I know I could get one by closing, editing, and reopening a question, but unless I see one that really needs to be closed and fixed, I'm not going to use my powers for that.
Within the context of Judaism Minhag is a term of art that is usually translated in English as "custom". There are times when I want to ask a question on MiYodea about the customs of Jews which are not necessarily minhag. (In this case I use the English definition of the word and not it's Hebrew ...
I've seen multiple sources that seem to indicate that one MUST keep his sideburns to either
The bottom of the ear
The bottom of the ear cartilage
To the jaw bone, around the middle of the ear.
When looking this up online, I came across this psak halacha from R' Abadi, in which he indicates th...
This looked different from the dupe to me and it had several reopen votes so I went ahead and reopened last night. Now I'm not so sure if that was the right thing to do. Some of the people who voted (both the original close and the reopening, with one of those people having done both) have been in this room recently. Any opinions?
I thought one question was about area and the other about hair length, but now I'm not sure the former is really the case. And I haven't had occasion to learn this area of halacha myself for what I hope are obvious reasons. :-)
@IsaacMoses thanks. And I see that the person who commented questioning the reopening has now commented again saying no, it's not a dupe after all. So I think we're good now, though if there's an edit that would make it clearer maybe somebody will make it.
@MonicaCellio Hello @Scimonster ......no, @MonicaCellio wasn't just talking about us behind our backs :P
@Scimonster I got the hat on another duplicate that I edited to ask a more specific version of the question it duplicated. ( there was discussion about it in Bam, first )
@Shokhet ok, noted for next time. I probably would have pinged you eventually if you hadn't shown up, but you're a regular here so I figured you'd see. Also @Scimonster . :-)
If that was part of your motivation, you should probably edit that in.....although I don't know if that's enough to make it on-topic (the close reason for "comparative religion" questions says "Questions about comparative religion, and questions about what others have written about Judaism, are off-topic on Mi Yodeya. This includes any question that requires of its answerers any knowledge of a religion besides Judaism." ....I'm not sure if that applies to this question.) — Shokhet27 secs ago
@msh210 didn't think it was off-topic (or at least didn't close it, when editing it) but I really don't know if that question is on- or off-topic here.
@Shokhet I think you need to demonstrate why you think Judaism might have something to say about your topic if it's not self-evident. "Comparative religion" might not fit the original form of the question, but I don't think any version made a good case for its on-topicness.
@IsaacMoses In the comment above the one I linked to, the OP wrote that he thought that Judaism might have something to say about this, because the Muslims prefer stealing religious ideas from the Jews, as opposed to pagans. Is that enough to make it on-topic?
@IsaacMoses .....which was why I told him to edit that part in -- that may be a case, but I don't know if it's a good one.
@Shokhet Not a good case, IMO. Maybe sufficient to be on-topic, though the same justification could be used for any "Muslims/Christians/Bahai" believe this; do Jews?" question
@Shokhet I'm not yet persuaded that I should. The question looks like narishkeit to me. I'd be interested to see if we have parallel precedents, one way or the other.
@Shokhet That would definitely not be enough for me to remove my DV
@IsaacMoses it sounds like narishkeit to me too. But now I'm wondering where our boundary is. Suppose somebody asked: "I know that Christians sometimes see images of {the Nozri, Mary, sometimes others} in unusual places like rock formations, and they understand that as divine communication. Judaism has prophets who had visions; does Judaism believe that people can see visions of God in ordinary things in the world today?" Obviously that question has faulty assumptions, but would we accept it?
@Shokhet @MonicaCellio I think that a documented claim by that religion's adherents that the belief came from Judaism could be enough. E.g. "Christians claim that Isaiah ##:## predicts virgin birth of a savior; does Judaism believe in that?"
@IsaacMoses yeah, an actual documented claim puts something in, I'd say. What about "reasoning" that Judaism would have something to say on the subject, like in my cooked-up example?
Or maybe we have a sliding scale? We've accepted "I've heard..." as justification, I'm pretty sure, but probably for things that we all agree are more credible. So, the more incredible the more work you need to do in order to ask?
@MonicaCellio I think close voters get to assess the reasoning for persuasiveness. Iff it seems persuasive enough to make it seem like the question's worth asking, then leave open.
@Shokhet yeah, I was asking if such "reasoning" is enough or if we need an actual claim. I think @IsaacMoses is probably right -- individual close voters will evaluate on a case-by-case basis.
@YeZ it starts out asking a question about biology and ends by asking "why is this still kosher". The latter is on-topic here but there's rather a bit of the former to get through first.
If he was challenging an assumption of the OU, that would be one thing. But he is accepting that it is true, through his own empirical observations, and asking why it is true that these eggs have more bloodspots than the others.
"Why are eggs like this?" is off-topic. "How can eggs with this many blood spots still be kosher?" is on-topic. I think the question needs a pretty major edit to get from the former to the latter.
@code613 you seem to mainly be asking "why do organic eggs have this property?", which is not on-topic for us. (That would be a question for Biology, probably.) You also ask, tucked into a paragraph late in the question, "how can these be kosher given that this is so common?", which is on-topic for us. Could you please edit to focus it more on the on-topic question? Feel free to include the other background, but the question needs to ultimately be about kashrut, not chicken biology. Thanks. — Monica Cellio ♦28 secs ago
Ok, I was going to say off-topic, but I think y'all're right about it being unclear.
> There are either too many possible answers, or good answers would be too long for this format. Please add details to narrow the answer set or to isolate an issue that can be answered in a few paragraphs.
There is a famous question asked by the Beis Yosef (R' Yosef Karo): Why do we celebrate eight days of Chanukah if the miracle lasted only seven? The jug of oil contained enough to be lit for one day, so the first day was not a miracle.
I think the real issue is "too many possible equally-good answers." Even in the case of Ner Lemeya, I think readers could fairly consider some answers to be more persuasive/authoritative/elegant than others.
Variables that are known of the organic and/or free range:
I don't believe the eggs with blood are just protein spots even though brown eggs through observation usually do contain more protein spots than the white egg variety.
While the majority of organic and/or free range are brown and are ha...