On the subject of your/you're eyesores in comments, would any of the mods mind correcting this for me if they're not too busy: judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/22994/… :(

@HodofHod done.

@MonicaCellio Thank you're!

@HodofHod :-)

:)

@msh210 thanks :))

@msh210 @msh210 i have posted questions for the jewish comminity and not Islam. I find this community is the best place to ask these questions as they are fundamentally jewish questions and it does not violate the faq terms as it asks a ruling from jewish scriptures i.e tanach or talmud. Islam.SE welcomes questions from all members , you can see similar question asked in Islam.SE and Christianity.SE.

moreever if you fear negative publicity then you should know that there is no dearth of negative publicity against jews in media. You should welcome and clarify the questions to from the Jewish standpoint as this is a rare opportunity since jews are a rare minority and hence highly misunderstood

@StackExchange All: I've pretty much unilaterally decided to cancel the weekly chat event called "Parasha Chat", since it was not actually occurring. I had added the approximately-weekly feed from Rabbi Waxman's blog as a reference for that chat, and therefore should remove that feed now. On the other hand, it's also of general interest. Does anyone specifically want that feed kept or dropped?

@msh210 Y"K sheshibarta

@msh210 If I knew how to say "but not to be" in Latin, I'd pithily say "imitatio Dei, [that] Dei"

@IsaacMoses "Imitatio Dei at ne sum Deus" maybe?

@msh210 Ya nye gavaryu Latin

@IsaacMoses ich oichet nisht

@msh210 No habla Deutch, either

@IsaacMoses That you thought it was German is a testament to the quality of my Yiddish. :-)

@Ali The FAQ makes it clear that questions here, like on all SEs, are only appropriate if they're genuinely asking for knowledge, rather than trying to open a discussion or persuade. In addition, questions that only make sense assuming the point of view of another faith are explicitly off-topic. Various of your questions have had one or both of these issues to various degrees.

@msh210 Im ani meivin Iddish, zeh rak a bissel katan me-od

I wonder why judaism.stackexchange.com/a/26341 got two upvotes and one down. It seems like a good answer to me. Can anyone recommend a way to improve it, or say what's fundamentally wrong with it? (I usually don't care/wonder about poorly voted answers of mine, but am genuinely curious how to improve this one, or what's wrong with it. And I know people must have seen it.)

@msh210 There's no accounting for downvotes, especially one at a time.

@msh210 You're probably not getting too much voting at all because the question's voted down

@IsaacMoses I know. See my more recent edit to my chat message you were responding to.

@IsaacMoses Could be.

@msh210 FWIW, one of the two upvotes is mine. I think it's a fine answer. Maybe someone has in mind or is hoping for an even better slam-dunk in terms of conceptual match and ubiquity?

@msh210 maybe for the JPS? :P Seems like a good answer to me. Maybe somebody was hoping for an affirmative and downvoted it for the negative.

@IsaacMoses I wonder. Thanks for the edit, anyway. It's an important one, considering the asker's motivation.

@yoel Maybe.

@msh210 ... and considering that not all readers of this question will necessarily know who Onkelos was or recognize Aramaic. No problem.

It's kind of an interesting point, isn't there an idea that Arabic branched off of Aramaic?

Not that I think the point trying to be made is actually relevant in a linguistic sense, but maybe there is an eventual connection.

@yoel More than likely, I'd say. Later concepts and words developing influenced by earlier ones is only natural.

Our Unanswered tab indiactes we have 380 unanswered questions; our Questions tab indicates we have 6785 questions. That's 5.6% unanswered. Looking at other sites (same method of computing): Math, 15.3%. Physics, 10.4%. Biology, 11.6%. UX, 0.2%. ELU, 0.04%. Parenting, 0.3%. Programmers, 0.96%. SO, 19.8%. We seem to be halfway between the sciencey sites and the ones where there are more "IMO" answers. I wonder, then: [cont'd]

[cont'd] Is there some natural way to divide our questions into two sets such that the one set will have 10%+ unanswered and the other ~1%?

@msh210 Interesting puzzle. Why?

Close as off-topic?: judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26363/…

@msh210 Either that or NARQ. I pointed out a couple of incorrect (from Judaism's POV) assumptions that need to be cleared up for the question to be meaningful in context and therefore answerable. In its current state, yes, it should be closed.

@IsaacMoses Why do I so wonder? Well, it seems sort-of natural. If our site is halfway between the sciencey sites and the non-, then that's due to some combination (in the sense of linear combination) of (a) every question's having some sciencey aspects and some non- and (b) some questions' being sciencey and some not. I wonder to what extent the latter is true.

@msh210 Or maybe we're pretty sciencey but a little less disciplined with our upvotes of IMO answers to sciencey questions than some of the other sites mentioned are. Or pretty sciencey but also small enough that every question gets attention.

@IsaacMoses Re your second idea: biology is small and math is big. Re your first, yeah, maybe.

@msh210 Y"K shesagarta

@IsaacMoses Who are you now?

@msh210 A fan, I guess.

@IsaacMoses The only fans I know that close are Chinese fans.

@msh210 You're the closer. I'm the fan.

@IsaacMoses "closed as off topic by Isaac Moses, msh210♦ 4 mins ago"

This asker had the misfortune of asking amid all the Ali questions. It's not a bad question but may be skipped by people.

@msh210 It's not 100% clear to me.

@IsaacMoses <span lang=fr>Comment?</span> <span lang=en>Comment.</span>

@Ali My fear of negative publicity is unrelated to your questions. I don't know what opportunity you refer to.

@msh210 (I recommend not engaging on side accusations. That way lies long, pointless arguments.)

the above question is a valid JSE question you can ask employees of SE too

@Ali Go for it.

i just asked for knowledge as to "Who is this prophet in torah"

i seeked for an answer

@msh210 Assuming this is a request, done.

but it was closed

@Ali Please review and address the comments on the question, preferably there.

@IsaacMoses Good point.

This may be more appropriate for meta than for chat, but I wonder at what point does thinly veiled proselytizing become unacceptable?

The question as stated does not violate any faq terms. Its only because of my other questions you have a biased view towards this question.

@Ali It's inappropriate for you to respond to explicitly-stated issues with your content by questioning others' motivations.

Dont you feel injustice for you to close this question as what it asked was only about a prophesy

@yoel Worthwhile to discuss on meta. My base suspicion is that it's prohibitively difficult to do something that's both effective as proselytizing and objectively acceptable based on other existing rules.

@Ali No. Many questions about prophesy are off-topic on the site.

i guess it goes against the motto :"And speak of them" (Deut. 6:7) Speak of Jewish life and learning

@Ali this is not something only you have to face. Many come in with interpretations of our Torah that are, to say the least, not traditional. Questions based on these interpretations cannot be answered from a perspective of Jewish law and tradition as they depart radically from it.

I asked jewish people and not muslim people hence surely i expect a Jewish answer and not a muslim answer

@Ali if you say our Torah means one thing and our sages say it means another, how do you propose we answer that question from our perspective? It is not in scope, any more than a question from a Bahai perspective would be in scope at islam.se

@Ali if the very basis of your question is flawed, it is going to be closed

@Ali since we both presumably believe in G-d, consider this. An atheist comes and says "the Torah says x and y, and since there is no deity at all, it must mean z. How does Judaism reconcile with this interpretation?" How could we answer such a question?

@yoel reg bahai questions like " What is this prophecy in Quran about..?" are more than welcome at Islam.SE. Do give a try there!

infact such questions from non muslims are encouraged

@Ali I am not familiar enough with either religion to frame a specific example, but I put it to you that you are not asking your questions this way. You are assuming the Torah means something that is very different from what Judaism says it means. I do not begrudge you your right to interpret anything in any way you might want, but it is impossible to answer it from a Jewish perspective if it is not grounded in a Jewish perspective.

if you say "who is this prophet that the Torah speaks of who will be greater than Moses", all we can say is "no prophet will be greater than Moses, ever, and this is not what our tradition teaches this verse to mean."

@yoel many jews themselves wont agree with your fringe views

@Ali and @yoel, I think your respective positions are clear, and there's no further point in repeating them to each other again.

and what i asked too was a jewish perspective, with evidences to support your claims

@IsaacMoses if the views of all Jewish sages throughout history are regarded by Ali as fringe views, there is certainly no point in continuing, except to say that according to Judaism non-Jews cannot be prophets, period.

anyways you are always welcome to ask any questions on Islam at islam.stackexchange.com

@Ali I have zero interest whatsoever.

" except to say that according to Judaism non-Jews cannot be prophets, period." i have enough evidences from your sages who say "Non Jews can be prophets" @yoel

infact somewhere i read that there can be prophets even among gentiles

Good night, everyone.

@Ali actually, good point. Bilaam comes to mind.

@IsaacMoses good night :)

I too need to go now, join u soon!

fi AManallah

thanks everyone i learned so much about hebrew and judaism while being here. Hope to learn more from you wise folks

i was down voted unnecessarily?

@IsaacMoses i am been unnecessary being downvoted, its not that i care but it does give a -ve impression to the audience as well as of the audience

ok thanx

I don't really see why this was closed. The proper answer would cite the correct translation of the verse and explain how Jewish tradition understands the two verses and how they don't contradict. Challenging bad assumptions is usually accepted as a valid answer.

Hi

@DoubleAA You're right that the initial comments could have been an answer instead. However, they were posted as comments, and the OP's replies thereto clarified that his intent was not to be satisfied with such comments as answers: that his question was assuming a misunderstanding of the scripture and insisting on such misunderstanding. In that case, there's no possible answer in the context of the scope of Mi Yodeya: so I closed as off-topic.

@msh210 If he indicates that he won't accept such an answer, that's really irrelevant. Lots of questions don't have accepted answers. The answer would be right and upvoted.

Does judaism.stackexchange.com/a/12074 not answer the question at all or am I crazy? (Or both?)

@DoubleAA But based on past, recent experience with this poster, an answer unacceptable to him will lead to wholesale revision of the question. Do we need to go down that road again?

@DoubleAA Moreover, and I guess more importantly, it's not just that he won't accept a proper reading. It's as if the question is "Here's my reading. I'm insisting on it and all answers must take it into account. Now...". If you asked on SO "How do I do X in Python" and someone answered "This is how you do it in perl", it'd be downvoted (deleted as a nonanswer? I don't know how deletion-happy they are there): [cont'd]

[cont'd] it doesn't answer the question. Likewise, here, an accurate reading would not answer the question. But then the question is off-topic.

@msh210 to jump off your analogy, it's almost like a question that says "BASIC is based on Python, and this is proven by the fact that BASIC uses Python's print statement. Therefore, there must be a way to make a Python-style dictionary in BASIC. How do I do this?"

@yoel You've lost me there. :-)

@msh210 yeah, it was kinda a stretch

@yoel Not just the analogy: I also don't know what 'dictionary' means in this context.

@msh210 in Python, a dictionary is a linked list of keywords and values

to the best of my knowledge, it does not exist in BASIC

@yoel Ah, okay. Like a hash.

@msh210 We can start enforcing a prohibition to change questions after good answers are attained, per site policy.

@DoubleAA We can certainly. My second point is more crucial here though.

IMO A question that makes an incorrect assumption and can only be answered in the context of that assumption is not in scope for its SE

@yoel We have questions all over this site that make bad assumptions.

They are usually pointed out in answers.

@yoel Well, @DoubleAA is right that we've long allowed such questions with answers that explain away the wrong assumption. I've probably asked some myself: possibly you did too. We have many.

Maybe the question we need to be discussing (and it's come up before) is just what it means to be in line with Jewish law and tradition with regards to scope.

A wrong assumption isn't a problem per se

unless that assumption is a matter of fervent belief and principle by the asker

@yoel Not sure how that is relevant here.

People make wrong assumptions for all kinds of reasons.

@DoubleAA I'm not sure how to be more clear without being explicit

If one asks the question with the assumption that early Jewish practice was actually Islam, and that the rabbis perverted that practice into the Judaism of today

it's one thing to correct that assumption the first time

@yoel Then what? Is the question about understand pshat in Tanach?

even the second and third time

@yoel This question does not explicitly state that assumption. It's not (logically) necessarily based on that assumption.

@DoubleAA when the list of questions from that perspective grows to double digits, it seems to me that it is sensible to assume that perspective for all that asker's questions

@msh210 I don't follow your second point (getting mixed up in the analogies). Can you restate it?

@yoel It doesn't matter what prompted him to ask it. It matters if the question itself is useful or not and what the question necessarily presupposes.

@DoubleAA the question presupposes that there will be a prophet of greater stature than Moshe Rabbenu

That is irreconcilable with Jewish belief

Therefore, it is not in scope

@yoel No, it reads the ps'ukim that way. I'm with @DoubleAA on this.

@yoel No. It says: these verses imply X. Has X been fulfilled?

@msh210 okay, then why close it? It's easy to answer. "No. It means Y"

I disagree that it's simply a mistake in reading the pasuk

The user is proselytizing

@yoel See above

@DoubleAA Will do bl"n; hang on.

@yoel That could be. But any question that doesn't explicitly do so is still on topic. (IMO. I'm not speaking officially here.)

See for example Isaac's edits here: judaism.stackexchange.com/posts/26342/revisions

@DoubleAA I'm not so sure that's true. In the past, certain users have asked leading questions from a xian or atheist pov and they have had their questions begin to be closed and even deleted much more quickly than this user. What is different here, in your opinion?

@yoel Can you cite me an example please?

Let me dig up a few.

But JimThio comes to mind

and there was a "messianic" named Judah something or other

(I'm not doubting per se, just looking for an example to compare and contrast concretely.)

In the comments to this question, the viability of a question that misreads verses is discussed

@DoubleAA actually, now that I'm looking, it would seem that historically we do not close even thinly veiled proselytizing. I guess it's just the sheer number of questions from Ali that make it seem like a larger problem

I maintain that a question based on a misreading or misinterpretation of psukim is not answerable in scope.

Incidentally:

@All We have had a number of user requests to have mods edit out grammar mistakes in comments. Does anyone want to opt in to mods always editing out clear (within reason) examples of such mistakes (your/you're, it's/its, who/whom)? No pressure to, just if you want that to happen it can save many pings in chat.

@DoubleAA Suppose someone asks "I know one of the 365 mitzvos lo saase is a prohibition specifically on picking your nose; where is this in Chumash?". And someone comments "you're wrong: it's not, not according to any of the mone hamitzvos". And the OP replies "no, I'm right, it's on the list I compiled even though no other Jewish source has it". What possible answer can be posted to that question?

@DoubleAA I think that would need to be asked on Meta.

"The Torah says 'an eye for an eye.' What if the person who blinded me has no eyes?"

@msh210 Why? If a user opts in here, they have given permission.

@yoel The gemara asks that question. It's one of the proofs that it's not literal. IIRC

Sure, and then we say "financial restitution"

@DoubleAA

@DoubleAA I think that's not necessary. If someone's particularly invested in the text of a particular comment, let them make the request. Unless the comment's part of an ongoing discussion, such that it's about to get read a bunch, it's probably a waste of the requestor's and the mod's time to fix it.

but then the asker says "no, it's literal"

@DoubleAA Sorry: I thought you meant "do you [the site as a whole] want to opt into mods' editing such comments [no matter who posts them]?".

@msh210 I suppose I should have pung: @Any.

@DoubleAA heheh

The issue here is not bad readings, but an insistence on those readings

to the point of saying that the correct reading represents a fringe view

@msh210 @yoel I don't think we need to care what they insist. Answer it properly, it will be upvoted, if they ask it again we close as dupe.

@DoubleAA it just seems like a bad precedent, and a waste of time besides

@yoel I find certain questions here a waste of time that others don't. Our goal is to be useful for future readers, not only the current one. If you think it's a waste of time, don't do the research to write a good sourced answer.

@IsaacMoses I never said it was necessary. It's completely optional (on the user to opt in and the mod to bother to fix).

@DoubleAA in your opinion as a mod, what is the difference between a question based on assumptions derived from another religion and a question that is proselytizing for that religion? How should the latter be dealt with?

@DoubleAA Whether it will be useful to future readers is a matter of discretion. I think that if a question completely based on incorrect assumptions, then closing and answering are both potentially valid responses, and there's nothing wrong with the community and/or mods choosing the former. In the case in front of us, I think that it's reasonable to say that this question would be of limited use for future users. Answering it would generate more argumentation, making it a bigger deficit ...

... to the Internet than it already is.

@DoubleAA Sorry. Misread your proposal. I thought you were asking whether we thought y'all should start doing that to all comments at will.

@IsaacMoses Ya my bad. msh210 made the same mistake. I should have pung @Any.

@DoubleAA No, my bad.

@yoel Proselytizer: Doesn't Isaiah ~50 mean Jesus? Jesus will save you. (end of question). Based on assumptions: Note: I'm a Christian. How do Jews understand Isaiah ~50 which refers to a son of a virgin.

Former: close as off topic or maybe spam. it will delete itself for being negatively voted and unanswered. Latter: answer it.

Not that my being a mod is really relevant. I do what you guys tell me.

@DoubleAA well, a mod is empowered in ways that regular users are not

@IsaacMoses I think argumentation can be kept in check by rolling back late changes to posts, deleting off topic comments, and locks as necessary. I admit these haven't been used much recently.

@DoubleAA I guess my feeling is that the question we are dealing with is in between those

@yoel I agree the line can be fuzzy.

I have to run now.

@DoubleAA anu ratzim

@Suhaib welcome.

@DoubleAA see ya... maybe we should formulate something on meta, but I'm not sure how to put it

:-s ??

@DoubleAA ... or by closing. Don't forget that closing's not permanent. If comments indicate serious problems with a question's premises, it could be quite beneficial to the question if it's closed before any answers that just attack those premises come in, the author addresses the issues and fixes the question, and then it's reopened such that it can be meaningfully answered on-point rather than with respect to its premises.

@DoubleAA ... sometimes the pounds of cure you describe are worth it, but sometimes, I think it's OK to judge a question as needing the ounce of prevention instead.

@IsaacMoses You're talking about a temporary close so the OP can ask what he actually intends. If there is no hope for improvement, you can't apply a temporary close.

If there is no hope for improvement, then pausing and waiting for that improvement is hurtful not helpful.

Answers which challenge the premise are in that case ideal.

@DoubleAA I happen to disagree with @msh210's expectation here. This question could work without the incorrect assumptions. It would be a different question, and wouldn't get OP all of what he wants, but it would get him the on-topic aspects of what he wants. Q: "Who are the prophets that these verses tell of?" A: Neviim, Mesorah, etc.

@IsaacMoses I suppose so.

... and that would be a better answer for the Internet about the nature of Jewish prophecy than just "you [particular OP] are reading these verses wrong today"

@IsaacMoses do you think, then, that we should assume a question wants to be in scope, and do our best to edit it to be in scope when it is obvious that the asker's lack of knowledge prevents their doing so?

@yoel Probably that's a good idea if how to change it is clear; maybe not if there are two or more possible in-scope questions the asker could ask instead. In the latter case I don't see how we can say the edited question 'is' the original one but fixed.

@yoel It's a matter of discretion. I think it's good to be helpful like that, but it's bad to depart completely from a question's original meaning. If you'd rather the OP asked a completely different question, ask it yourself. If the OP is interested in getting the question answered, comments educating the OP about scope issues should be sufficient to help the OP edit it to be in-scope and consistent with OP's desire.

@msh210 That too.

@yoel, e.g. here, my thought was that the in-scope question here was clearly in there, if you strip away the argumentative tone and the off-topic theological comparisons, so I did the stripping.

@IsaacMoses @msh210 I guess the lingering concern I have is that we are in some way encouraging bad questions by not closing outright

@yoel If you think the content'll be useful if you edit it, then that could be an important consideration. We're managing the content at least as much as we are the community. Closure is also viable in these cases, especially if the final question won't be that useful. Here, I thought it would be worthwhile to have the question "Did the Rambam say it's OK?" and the answer "No." on record.

@IsaacMoses If it "would be a different question, and wouldn't get OP all of what he wants" then is that what we want to do?

@IsaacMoses Then ask it. I don't see why we should make him ask it.

@DoubleAA I don't opt in. Comment revision history is hidden, and I don't like having my signature after something that I didn't write, even if the change is minor, unless there is some indication that it was edited by another.

@msh210 Easy for you to say when you don't have to ask someone else to change it when you do notice it.

@DoubleAA Were I not a mod I still wouldn't opt in. But that's me.

@DoubleAA I contend that at least in some situations, we should give OP the chance to change it

... and also that yes, not all questions based on incorrect premises are useful to leave open and answered as to their premises.

@msh210 I don't think you're crazy, and I think you're right.

@MonicaCellio So (a). :-)

@msh210 yeah. :-)

Hm, there's only one "trusted user" (10000 rep) on Area51.

@msh210 ... and only 160 who have the next level down - ability to vote to close proposals

@msh210 7. The users progress vertically, not horizontally.

@msh210 It's hard to get rep there. It seems to me that to get a lot, you have to propose a successful site and/or recruit people to commit to and then participate in a site that gets made

@IsaacMoses yeah. You can get 5 per question-vote in definition, but you're limited to 5 questions so if you max out a proposal (and how often does that happen?) that's 250. (People can vote questions higher than 10, but from what little I've seen it's discouraged because you get so few votes to begin with.)

@DoubleAA I wouldn't mind opting in as long as it's limited to obvious typos, i.e., your/you're, adn/and, teh/the. But even then, I fear it might just be annoying to mods to do that.