"an issue comes up as a direct result [?] of a Jewish practice" "people following that practice are more likely than average people to run into the issue" "if there's any nuance that applies differently in the Jewish case " That's three different criteria in one answer. That's confusing, and renders votes on here unintelligible. Please edit this down to one suggestion, phrase it precisely, and post the others separately.

@MonicaCellio What does a vote for "probably on topic" mean? Do you view these criteria as subsumed one in the other? Or is it the conjunction of them which is needed (all true)? Or the disjunction (at least one true)?

@DoubleAA My answer to the question was implied and now explicitly "Yes." The rest is argumentation in support of that answer. I did not attempt to draw a bright line in this answer, but this question didn't ask for one. I've now proposed and defended a governing guideline, imported from my answer to the dupe of this question. My original argumentation is consistent with this guideline.

I don't understand your footnote. Aren't we trying to define what makes something Judaism related? Israel and Hebrew are not off topic as much as not basis for being on topic, as you know. They are just like medicine. Many Jews, in their practice of Judaism, study Hebrew. So it's reasonable to expect that those people would be especially...

@DoubleAA All I'm saying is that I'm not suggesting we should overturn rules we've fixed in, inter alia, the FAQ based on this principle.

@IsaacMoses But according to this most Hebrew questions are on topic, which is against the FAQ. So the FAQ argues on this answer. If you don't want to change the FAQ, you need to change this answer.

@DoubleAA I think we're talking past each other, because my response is "that's why I included the footnote."

@IsaacMoses What? A position that argues on the faq doesn't magically not argue on the fact by writing "i do not argue on the faq".

@DoubleAA are you suggesting that this answer asserts that if it's accepted, the rules in the FAQ don't apply or that it argues, on the merits, that they oughtn't?

@IsaacMoses If this answer (particularly the first bolded test) is taken today as policy, it would represent a significant departure from standing practice as implemented i think based on the faq (i haven't read it recently), since most any question about Hebrew would suddenly be on topic. Asserting otherwise in the footnote is nonsensical or self-contradictory.

Example: How do I say in Hebrew "I want to eat that food". This is on topic because it is very reasonable to expect that a group of people who base their lives on Judaism would be especially able to give informed answers, due to their basing their lives on Judaism and thereby studying Hebrew.

@DoubleAA Except that, despite the reasonableness of that expectation, it does not, as applied strictly to the fact of Hebrew language being involved, make the question on-topic, because we have so legislated.

@IsaacMoses That's false. That's not what "Hebrew is off topic means", as you've explained many times in chat. It just means Hebrew is no different than medicine.

@mevaqesh Any answer that would require a violation of the many inherently relevant Judaism rules would thereby be considered un-helpful. That's worth a great deal.

@DoubleAA I think that's exactly what that means, and exactly, when it comes down to it, why we had to bother to state that rule. It means that Hebrew, even though it's really very very adjacent to Judaism, is to be treated no differently than medicine.

@IsaacMoses So just like issues of medicine, the test for a question's relation to Judaism is your initial bolded sentence. It so happens most Hebrew questions would pass. (Asking about certain modern Hebrew slang wouldn't pass (probably).)

@DoubleAA If its relationship to Judaism is entirely through that path ("practitioners of Judaism tend to know something about Hebrew"), that is, by legislation, not sufficient to consider it on-topic.

@IsaacMoses I'm really confused what you are trying to say.

It is very reasonable to expect that a group of people who base their lives on Judaism would be especially able to give informed answers, due to their basing their lives on Judaism and thereby studying Hebrew.

So questions which can be answered by the type of Hebrew study performed by Jews in pursuit of their religion are on topic.

Maybe a Satmer Chasid would view that category as pretty small..

There is no relevant legislation, or at least, I don't know what legislation you are talking about.

@DoubleAA I think I agree with this statement. Am I supposed to?

@IsaacMoses It's not our current practice. Unless I'm just significantly less Satmer than you.

> How do I say in Hebrew "I want to eat that food"?

We currently treat that as off topic, but I think given that statement (or: given your answer) it should be on topic.

@DoubleAA OK

@IsaacMoses As in, you agree with that sentence?

@DoubleAA I think I was misremembering precisely what was written in the FAQ.

@IsaacMoses Frankly I haven't read it recently. I just know what we've been doing.

My apologies. I should have looked before dragging out this aspect of the debate. Hold on; recalibrating.

To be clear I'm not saying you can't advocate a change. Just your footnote confused me. And you should probably be clearer about doing so if you are so advocating.

> If you have a question about... general knowledge (science, etc.) as it relates directly to Judaism ... Please, ask away! On the other hand, questions unrelated to Judaism, even if they are about... Hebrew language ... are generally off-topic.

^^^ Sufficient excerpt of the relevant portion of the FAQ

@DoubleAA I am not. I am advocating keeping things as they are, as I understand them.

@IsaacMoses Are you then in the midst of editing your post, or do you think your current proposal is in line with current practice? If so, how do you explain:

@DoubleAA I've deleted the footnote and added an explicit first guideline "Is this question directly related to Judaism?" That would preclude questions whose only connection to Judaism is that they're about Hebrew or the State of Israel or the street layout of Boro Park.

@IsaacMoses Isn't "directly related to Judaism" exactly what we are trying to figure out here? How does asking it again help?

Actually, I should just delete this room and all comments associated with the footnote as obsolete, and we start again.

@DoubleAA It keeps what's now the second guideline from accidentally incorporating the street network of Boro Park.

@DoubleAA I'm tempted to change it to "motivated by Judaism," but I'm not sure if there's a class of questions we now consider on-topic (and want to) that that would preclude.

^ What do you think?

(I think you ought stop thinking about what we currently have and think about what we want to have.)

@IsaacMoses I'm sure how much that makes a difference, although "related" is pretty vague.

@DoubleAA In your opinion, which I value a great deal for many reasons, and which I know you're prepared to back up with reasoned argument, is there a class of questions we ought to want to have that would be tend to be precluded by requiring that questions need to be "motivated by Judaism"?

@IsaacMoses Frankly, as I just pointed out in Bam, I find the use of "judaism" there to be vague too.

Is how to find meaning in Robert Frost on topic? Some would argue that one could be motivated to do so by Judaism.

@DoubleAA I understand.

@DoubleAA Make the argument in the question then. I submit that a human Judaism expert with sufficient reasonableness threshold would not see that motivation as implicitly obvious.

"Is it reasonable to expect that a group of people who base their lives on Judaism would be especially able to give informed answers, due to their basing their lives on Judaism?" might not apply to Robert Frost, but only because most Jews are Charedi or uninterested in Frost (to oversimplify and be cynical a bit). Some might argue that in an ideal world all Jews who practice Judaism would not only be interested in such activities but many would be well trained in them.

... and that argument is subject to evaluation by the same experts.

...and I wouldn't want mods to be in charge of determining what's normal judaism.

@DoubleAA Sorry, man. The buck's got to stop somewhere. There's not gonna be a Meta rule that defines that for you and catches all possible edge-cases.

@IsaacMoses "Based on my desire to explore the God given human condition, I've read this poem of Frost's but am unsure why he uses fences as the dividing construct. What do we know about fence usage on private and public thoroughfares in Frost's location? Was his description typical or atypical?"

@DoubleAA OK, now apply the second guideline. And remember, this is for posterity, so be reasonable.

In other words, tachlis, do you really buy the "some might argue" you posed above?

@IsaacMoses I buy that they argue it...

@DoubleAA (FTR, I'm not 100% sure whether "desire to explore the God given human condition" constitutes "motivated by Judaism," but I am sure that we could construct a motivation I'd be more sure of if we wanted.)

@IsaacMoses I agree.

@DoubleAA But is it a reasonable expectation that because people are experts in Judaism, they'd be especially likely to have read their Frost?

@IsaacMoses In today's climate, no.

@DoubleAA OK, so off-topic.

@DoubleAA "Is this question motivated by an expressed or implicit desire to understand or practice Judaism?" I'm getting all precisiony now.

@IsaacMoses And I'm getting sleepy. I'm going to let this sit till other's have a look in the morning.

@DoubleAA Fair enough. thanks for helping me think

@IsaacMoses ping

I'll add that, in light of the Frost discussion above, I move to change to "...that a group of people today who base their lives on..."

@DoubleAA Thanks. TTYL

@DoubleAA My intent in this answer is to characterize current prevailing practice, as I understand it, in a way that's helpful to future close-voters, and to advocate for its continuing. If you believe that any part of my answer strays from that intent, please call me on it. If this answer ends up providing a characterization that is indeed a useful clarification of existing practices, and if its characterization is accepted by community consensus, then it might be a good time then to...

... integrate it into the FAQ materials.

@DoubleAA No. There is no reason anyone would reasonably think, reading it, that it's motivated by Judaism. There's also no reason anyone would reasonably think that Judaism experts would be especially good at answering it.

@DoubleAA If the question is "How should I chop wood to get ash to use on 9Av?" then it passes the first test (motivation is 9Av) but not the second, since there's no reason to believe that Judaism experts would have any special insight.

@DoubleAA Motivation: All I was intending with "implicitly" was to not force everyone to say things like "This question is motivated by my desire to understand more about parshiyot, which are part of Judaism, as indicated in [these primary sources]()." ...

... With "implicitly or expressly," I'm trying to prevent "motivated by" from being interpreted as a description of the author's mental state, rather than as a description of what a reader can infer from the question as written.

I am open to suggestions for clearer ways to get that across.

@DoubleAA That's all for right now. I'll look at the comparative religion idea later.