Starred posts

wax eagle

Oct 11, 2011 14:13

Google Doc: Refocusing C.SE -- The meta reformation.

4

Richard

Oct 10, 2011 14:11

I'm starting to get the sense that what defines a "good" answer is one that has doctrinal or biblical support.

4

Flimzy

Nov 22, 2011 22:30

I wonder if Christianity really is a good fit for this site format

3

wax eagle

Oct 13, 2011 15:06

right I think trying to generalize to "Christians" is where most questions have gone wrong so far.

3

Ray

Oct 11, 2011 21:50

Just wanted to say thanks and let you know I have a lot of respect for you guys

3

Caleb

Oct 10, 2011 19:07

I think it's a sound argument; in any case it's the best we have. We simply can't make a guideline against personal exegesis because that would be to force a doctrine on users, but we can give quality guidelines for how it must be presented.

3

wax eagle

Oct 10, 2011 12:14

what are our 95 thesis?

3

Flimzy

Nov 22, 2011 22:28

The problem with the current standards, I think, is that they require the asker to already be an expert (of sorts) before they ask a question.

2

Jürgen A. Erhard

Nov 6, 2011 13:35

I read guidelines and hear rules. It shouldn't really surprise me, this being about Christianity. But it also does, this being about Christianity. Oh, and "we need quality, folks" is surely a great goal, and I'm all for it. But "we need to make it to launch" is, I think, a much more important goal. What good is a closed site with great questions and answers, in the long run?

2

Waggers

Oct 13, 2011 14:26

So what I think we've established is:
1. all exegesis is personal.
2. All personal exegesis is doctrinal.
3. All exegesis questions are on topic at BH.SE.
4a. Exegesis questions that specify a denomination are on topic at C.SE;
4b. Exegesis questions that don't specify a denomination are off-topic at C.SE.

Is that right?

2

Waggers

Oct 13, 2011 13:30

We're coming up with a more robust definition of Christianity, in terms of established doctrine and biblical basis. I for one think that's a good thing

2

wax eagle

Oct 13, 2011 11:40

@Waggers I think you've nailed it here. We are a site about christianity as it currently stands (much like the experts in Jesus' day were experts on Judaism).

2

Caleb

Oct 12, 2011 19:08

@PeterTurner I am curious to know what you think the "minority opinion" is here. I've been trying to keep an ear our and people have voiced concerns but so far I don't hear a concrete minority opinion that is contrary to what we're trying to accomplish. I don't want anyone to think we're running over them. Part of the job of moderators is to listen and get input and figure out what the best direction is even if this comes from a minority. We are listening.

2

wax eagle

Oct 12, 2011 15:50

@JustinY excellent. self cleanup will be one of the best ways for those of us who have bought into this to make it happen.

2

Waggers

Oct 12, 2011 13:13

There's a holy trinity joke to be had in there somewhere

2

Ray

Oct 11, 2011 21:34

Also, I wanted to point out that the mods have freedom to go with something other than the meta answer with the highest votes

2

Richard

Oct 11, 2011 20:02

On Meta: Can we reverse the trend on low quality posts?

2

Caleb

Oct 10, 2011 19:20

This whole discussion of including doctrine/references makes the whole pastoral-advice problem an almost moot point.

2

Caleb

Oct 10, 2011 18:20

If we use chat over at GoogleDocs then lets please keep it just to meta discussion about the google doc itself and the editing process. Anything conceptual about C.SE should be here in SE chat. That will make it easier when we bring SE staff and others into this discussion.

2

user2334

Oct 10, 2011 18:12

The issue right now isn't that there are some people who shouldn't be calling themselves Christian for the purposes of this site, but that everyone who has a Bible gets to pretend they're Augustine or Thomas Aquinas: people who aren't really experts and aren't relying on prior expert research are providing answers. Why, if I'm an expert, would I want to answer a question and be placed on the same footing as someone who appears to be talking about something off the cuff?

2

Caleb

Oct 10, 2011 15:05

This is a place for those with experience or interest in helping us talk through the issues before we make a mess of things :)

2

Richard

Dec 15, 2011 14:26

Proposal: All exegetical / doctrinal / subjective questions that are asking about doctrines shared by all established doctrines/traditions of Christianity does not require a doctrinal stance.

Wikis

Dec 9, 2011 06:59

Here's my opinion, FWIW, not having kept up to date with the development of this site and the discussions above: The quality safeguards, which resulted in questions being closed, was a big turn off to me. That's the main reason I haven't participated for a while.

Richard

Dec 6, 2011 15:50

> Real questions have answers, not ideas or opinions. Narrowing down the scope so everyone interprets how to answer the question in the same way is exactly what Stack Exchange is about. There may be more than one approach to solving the problem, but there is only one unambiguously-stated problem.

mxyzplk

Dec 3, 2011 00:00

Now envision a site full of those. ta da. Or top question #1, "how do I explain my nonbelief to a Christian." Perfect question. Good answers. I don't see any problems here. Figure out how to get THOSE questions. Being a poor man's wikipedia isn't very valuable.

mxyzplk

Dec 2, 2011 23:45

Your problem of "majority doctrine" stems from trying to be a doctrine site in the first place. It's the wrong approach. What is SO about, by and large? Answering theoretical questions? No, it's about answering a real person's real question to help them solve a real world problem.

JustinY

Dec 2, 2011 16:04

@mxyzplk Many of us wish that C.SE could be the way you want it to, but we know its not feasible. We've discussed it many times. We realize that we can't cater to everyone's interests. We lost many users that were key to the site at the beginning. We knew it would happen, and its a bummer, but we had to do it. At the same time, there are others who weren't willing to participate originally because it was mostly a voting contest for your favorite doctrine.

wax eagle

Nov 28, 2011 19:16

@Flimzy too often the top voted question on a site is not a good example of what is a good question on the site...

Richard

Nov 28, 2011 13:34

There is a base level of understanding required to ask questions. However, that is true SE-Network wide.

Flimzy

Nov 28, 2011 05:38

@JustinY @JustinY: They are meant to attract experts, so that questions get good answers. If they only existed for the edification of experts, then 95% of the questions on SO would be off-topic, because they are beginners asking questions that experts answer.

Caleb

Nov 22, 2011 23:34

@Flimzy As far as I understand, he's fine with inter-tradition vote contests: let the best articulated/defended answer come to the top. I don't see that as a constructive way to proceed long term as it would make things a constant war zone where we fight each other in comments rather than potentially learning from each others answers.

Flimzy

Nov 22, 2011 22:31

Imagine a room full of programming experts... and imagine a room full of Christianity experts...

Flimzy

Nov 22, 2011 22:27

which is not constructive... even if it makes the site popular, and gives people lots of rep... it's not what SE is about... and it's not constructive from a Christianity perspective, either.

Richard

Nov 21, 2011 16:36

I believe that we need to either limit the questions (as we have currently) or limit the answers (as I'm proposing) in order to make this a site that is fact-based and weed out all the opinions that are floating around.

Caleb

Nov 19, 2011 18:30

Also although I supported (and continue to support) what everybody has come up with, I can hardly take credit for originating or being the only one with the idea, so if you are going to call the idea ridiculous I'd appreciate not being singled out as a culprit. This has been addressed with links before but I wasn't even the first voice.

Caleb

Nov 19, 2011 18:19

I also disagree with the idea we can "build a thriving community first, then work the bugs out" ... that's what we're doing now is working the bugs out so the community can thrive.

Peter Turner

Nov 18, 2011 14:04

That was an interesting read: I feel like I've entered christianity.wikileaks.stackexchange.com

Mason Wheeler

Nov 17, 2011 23:00

I think that's kind of a strange question. When you get down to it, opinion-only answers are all you can have. Even if you cite sources, that just means someone else out there has the same opinion. It's not like SO, where you can plug the opinion into a compiler and run it to see if it's objectively correct.

Mason Wheeler

Nov 17, 2011 22:48

I do. I think that at the moment, the biggest thing hurting the community is not bad questions or bad answers, but over-moderation stifling both questions and answers.

Mason Wheeler

Nov 17, 2011 22:41

Our goal isn't to have answers with external support; our goal is to have high-quality answers.

Mason Wheeler

Nov 17, 2011 22:21

Verification can be a really tricky thing, so if we're going to have rules about it we've gotta be careful to get them right.

Mason Wheeler

Nov 17, 2011 22:04

I look at that and see a different problem than the one you seem to see: If you're trying to impose a different model on the community than what the community is trying to build for itself, then you end up in conflict with the community instead of building it up, and that drives people away.

user2334

Nov 17, 2011 21:51

@MasonWheeler Every site has an explosion in the first month, then drops to level off. The first month is when people care more about asking a bunch of questions than actually figuring out what the site is supposed to be.

user2334

Nov 17, 2011 21:43

@MasonWheeler 8th in traffic, 3rd in new 200+ users, 7th in questions per day, 4th in users, 7th in questions, 4th in answers: I'm happy with our ghost town. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Richard

Nov 17, 2011 20:21

Solution statement All answers must be supported and/or verifiable by external sources (possibly with exceptions--to be discussed). Questions must be of the type that can be answered by using supported answers (to be discussed).

Richard

Nov 17, 2011 20:14

Granted, I supported the crap out of it, answering all possible questions.

wax eagle

Nov 17, 2011 20:03

@Richard IF and only If we have standards that are easily enforceable I would be ok with case by case. However, if we can't come up with a simple "this type of question requires sources, this type doesnt" then we need to require them for all questions. It has to be a simple enough policy that users can enforce without much effort.

Richard

Nov 17, 2011 19:52

Problem statement We have too many answers that are unsupported and purely opinion and we have no way to get rid of them without some standards.

Richard

Nov 17, 2011 19:52

Thesis If we set some standards for answers, we can reduce the unsupported answers and eliminate the opinions.

wax eagle

Nov 17, 2011 19:49

@MasonWheeler no. I guess my point is "If you're looking for Christ you're probably in the wrong place"...

Refocusing Christianity.SE

Refocusing Christianity.SE