@NeilFein I'm not necessarily objecting, per se. I just don't get what that specification would come to exclude. It strikes me as like asking for answers to a question about derailleur choice that are friendly to anti-helmet movements.
(Please excuse the perhaps-too-forced analogy. Maybe I'll come up with something better.)
Where I'm coming from: the old site, and the SE 1.0 site it came from, seemed somewhat unfriendly to non-orthodox strains of judaism when I browsed through the questions. You and I had an exchange on the area 51 proposal about this, and while I'm sure it wasn't your intent, it seemed to me that my points about this were being ignored.
However...
I love using the SE sites, and my Judaism is quite an important part of my life. So I'd like to give Judaism.SE a chance.
If the site can't abide the mere mention of reform or reconstructionist or conservative Judaism, then it is, to me, by definition quite hostile to those strains.
Witness this answer. When I asked the user where I could find a translation, he replied that he had translated the page. When that quite clearly isn't the case.
A lack of knowledge of hebrew is part of my problem. I've encountered disdain about this in the past. But it shouldn't be a barrier to entry here.
I'd like very much to become a part of this community, but if I'm going to encounter this a lot, I'd just as soon only come here from time to time and let it be a SE site where I won't fit in. No shame in that, no one site is going to fit everyone.
@NeilFein Disdain? Really? Honestly, I'd be shocked if you could point to anywhere on the site where lack of knowledge from an asker (coupled with a clear desire to learn) was met with anything other than sincere attempts to educate as clearly as possible. The particular example you point to is much more a case of imprecision of language and some laziness than hostility toward non-Hebrew-readers. ...
... The user in question has a history of posting answers that contain little more than a bare deeplink to a Hebrew document, which, believe me, not only non-Hebrew-readers find vexing.
@IaacMoses - I'm willing to consider that I may be projecting a bit here. But I've seen answers like this here in the past. By "like this" I mean answers that make little sense to an outsider like myself.
(Incidentally, answers that are truly just just a link are a real problem. On Bicycles, the mods convert these into comments quite aggressively. We had nearly no objections, and users started flagging more "answers" like this as "not an answer".)
Yeah. Perhaps I should have simple asked "what is this book, and where can I find a translation."
As it is, I have little idea how to look at it and find the volume anywhere in the real world. Since it's in a language I know well enough to follow along in shul but little else. (I wrote my wife's Ketubah, but that was a long time ago.)
@NeilFein Accessibility is a big issue for J.SE. We're trying to be a site for professionals/experts, like all other SE sites, but we also want to be a resource for all kinds of "people interested in learning more," and open to answering even the most basic questions, due to Judaism's mandate to educate. And the language barrier kicks in, so that expert-level conversations are naturally unintelligible to novices, much more so than on, say, SO. This has nothing to do with hostility, though.
@NeilFein Right. He thought you were asking "what does it say?" to which he responded "I told you what it says," but it seems that you really want to see the primary source yourself (kudos).
@IsaacMoses - accesibility - Okay. But if I do stick around, I'll likely end up asking questions involving atheism and judaism, and the conservative version of Kashrut, and the reconstructionist movement.
... I don't think we can avoid having lots of content that will be hard for novices to understand without asking for clarification. However, we do need to be ready to provide such clarification, accessibly, when someone asks for it. I think we do that pretty well, most of the time.
I of course have no intention of disrespecting orthodox judaism.
@isaacmoses - One of the most interesting books I have on my Jewish books bookshelf is Adin Steinsaltz's guide to the Talmud. Fascinating stuff, especially the history.
@NeilFein Ah. See, not being fluent in Rabbinic Hebrew is not the same thing as affiliating with a non-orthodox movement. There are many with each of those characteristics that don't have the other.
In other words, I don't think anyone takes a philosophical position against understanding Hebrew.
@NeilFein I think you'll find that how the community reacts to references to atheism and various movements will depend a great deal on how and why they come up.
@NeilFein Great question! ... and another one that I really don't think has anything to do with movements. And, as long as the tone of the question is inquisitive rather than hostile, I doubt anyone would take offense.
Reconciling atheism with a deep respect of Jewish tradition and culture is a big wide-open thing for me.
(One reason I'm attracted to the reconstructionist movement.)
(No congregations near me, though.)
Seems to me that references like this, as long as they're integral to the question and not gratuitous, would makes sense then but not in other circumstances.
Or something like that.
@IsaacMoses - Thanks for the chat. It's quite obvious you care deeply about this site.
... more than once, I've seen people assuming that questioning various Jewish practices and beliefs would be considered offensive here. Not at all! Most of Rabbinic literature is probably devoted to poking holes in various practices and beliefs to better understand what they're about. It would only get offensive if the asker takes a snarky tone. (Which we've had recently, as @tom alluded to.)
... so your question about the ark really only requires basic civility, not any special kid gloves.
... see the difference between the Wise and Evil sons at the Seder, who ask almost the same question.
@NeilFein Thank you. This has been most thought-provoking. I do, indeed care a great deal about this site and its ability to be as useful as possible to as many Jews as possible. Feedback from and the opportunity to clarify things for occasional users like you is quite valuable.
