The Library - 2013-10-06

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12:12 AM

@Dan yeah, some of the newer answers on the site-direction question leave me scratching my head -- I mean, who could disagree with "be nice" (part of Mike's), but we already have that guidance and yet people are disagreeing about what we're doing. I left comments asking for clarifications from a couple answerers.

1 hour later…

1:28 AM

@MonicaCellio that's why i think some kind of polling system would be good, even if a third-party tool had to be used

1:44 AM

@MonicaCellio @JonEricson @JackDouglas @Caleb do any other SE sites have clearcut guidelines for questions and/or answers aside from the basic topics that are on/off topic? I.e. specific language or means of communicating being regulated/banned, etc.? I'm trying to determine if the current resistance by mods here to any form of clearcut guidelines that can be referenced and enforced is a sitewide decision (all of SE) or just the personalities here.

(not that this is a complaint against current mods or anything like that, I've made it clear that I'll go in whatever direction the community wants - I just think it will be a shame if we go in a direction that excludes most non-Christian perspectives on the texts)

2:12 AM

@Dan on the subjective-tending sites I frequent, a "back it up" or "show your work" principle seems to suffice. (Apparently it does not suffice for us -- or we disagree on what needs to be shown, or something.) On The Workplace unsupported-opinion answers routinely get deleted. I'm not aware of SE guidance to the effect that such answers should be kept.

2:24 AM

4

A: How widespread is the "back it up" principle?

This list was initially compiled from other answers and comments. I'm making it community wiki; please update so we can have one comprehensive list. Please add links to the places where these expectations are spelled out. The following sites have some form of a back-it-up guideline/policy/rule...

@Dan ^^^ related. And also of possible interest (it's a tangent but one that this discussion sometimes touches):

35

A: What are the most effective ways to guide new users?

Obviously not all new users are alike, but which of these positions are best supported by what we've seen happen in the past? What is the best way to guide new users whose posts need some work? As the other answers - and your own experiences - have probably shown you, there is no script for ...

2 hours later…

4:16 AM

@Dan A very few of them do. Skeptics is the primary example.

@Dan I agree, but it's also happened that the first couple attempts work like that, but the real issue is that people haven't been educated as to what the issues/options are, and once that happens a little better it's easier to get clear consensus. Figuring out how to communicate the issues is more than half the battle.

@Jon, than I'm still confused about what position you're advancing in this answer. Sorry, I'm confused, not confrontational. What does "respect the question" mean? Do you mean that questions should specify their desired scope and answers should fit within that? (Almost no questions currently specify scope, so that would be a change.) — Gone Quiet 20 mins ago

@MonicaCellio: I'm not saying that we need to change the way questions are asked (in general). We have that nailed down pretty well.

But an answer that says something like: "this is the way it is" stifles (or potentially stifles) future answers.

@JonEricson right, that's why we tried to focus in this question on answers. And I'm confused about what your answer means with respect to answers. Can you help me understand?

@JonEricson ah.

I haven't looked for that pattern on this site, so could be -- we do have questions with multiple answers, some truth-asserting, but I haven't paid attention to the order in which things happened.

One of my problems with that kind of answer is that it pretty much must lead to arguments in the comments.

Similarly, requiring answer meet standards that aren't demanded by the question seems dishonoring to the question.

And supressing those comments is wrong in that environment.

@JonEricson most of our questions are of the form "what does this mean?". What kinds of answers dishonor that?

(Just moment. Babies.)

I think this answer is an excellent case in point:

7

A: Was the tower of Babel a ziggurat?

Well, the reading of the ToB as a Ziggurat is more or less an example of the duck test: if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... Stepped pyramids were essentially the only really tall built items of the ancient Near East. (Egypt is not in the field of view here.) So, if you are going t...

It's a great answer. It respects the question as written. So why are the comments challenging the answer?

The are applying a standard that the question did not ask for. It didn't ask for any framework at all. So those comments should be answers instead.

If someone answered from an allegorical framework (assuming it made a complete argument from the text, which is often the problem), I would expect that commenters not challenge the framework, but the argument.

That's the problem that the "bring your framework" addresses.

4:39 AM

@JonEricson I agree it's a great answer. I find the comments puzzling.

Do you have an example of something that doesn't respect the question?

@JonEricson I agree on the usual problem there. Yet, we have many such answers (with upvotes even!), so apparently somebody disagrees. :-(

@MonicaCellio Well, the comments come from a place of putting answers (in this case unwritten ones) over and above the question. Curiosity is denied because, well, the assumed Truth that the Babel story is history.

Sorry, having trouble parsing. Who is denying curiosity, the answerer or the commenters?

Let's try this: the DH approach to Genesis has a tendency to trump questions. Rather than answer the question as asked (and most questions about Genesis assume that one part fits with the other logically) DH answers often attack the question itself.

The theory devours questions because almost anything odd about the Torah can be waved away by saying that P wrote that bit and J wrote the other. It assumes the text is not unified.

Ok, that's a good example. So in the frame of your meta answer, those DH answers are bad because they are "attack" answers. Is that because they're DH or because people who write DH answers are sure they're right and everybody else is wrong? Is it the framework or the truth assertions?

@JonEricson it challenges the implicit premise of all questions (unless they say otherwise) that the text is coherent and meaningful?

Now, by the same token, we do accept (and sometime upvote) DH answers. But only if they approach the question with humility and suggest that different authors could be the cause of confusion.

We can't block DH answers on principle because... well, we don't hold any praticular view of the Truth as a site.

4:54 AM

Ok, now how about a different example of answers that devour Tanakh questions: reading Jesus into it. Same problem or different? Does that get a pass because site scope includes Christian books too, or is it still shutting down a question and thus bad?

@JonEricson I agree. So I think we're both saying that the problem is the truth-assertions, the pomposity, the presentation. Right?

@MonicaCellio Right. An answer (even the correct answer ;) must come hat in hand and offer itself to the question.

@JonEricson thanks, that helps my understanding of your post. Would still like to hear your thoughts on the Jesus-ification case.

@MonicaCellio "reading Jesus into it"? Well I suppose that shouldn't be encouraged. But many of us see Jesus in the Tanakh. We can't help it because of who we are (or what our framework is).

@JonEricson and do you see how, to me, that looks like a contradiction? DH (e.g.) has to come hat in hand with humility, but seeing Jesus in the Tanakh can be asserted?

You're free to see it -- if you apply the same humility and openness and acknowledgement of your own position that you would call for in the DH answers.

@MonicaCellio I see that.

@MonicaCellio Let's go back to our old bugaboo:

7

A: Ecclesiastes 4:12 A cord of three strands is not quickly broken

Metaphors are a pithy way to express truth, and as such are heavily employed in proverbs such as this one, and indeed in all of wisdom literature. This metaphor should communicate strongly to anyone familiar with rope (or, interestingly, in our own day, cable). A rope woven from two strands is so...

I know you can't see the humility there, but even the first version is admirable humility when you consider that many of us (to our very core) see the Trinity in this verse.

The question is seeking an answer and while yours is very good, I think the questioner was more satisfied with the answer that added Jesus into the mix.

5:08 AM

@JonEricson (For the record, I haven't downvoted that.) If the trinity part there were couched in something like "as a Christian I can't help but see a trinity reference here" I'd be ok with it; that would be a qualified assertion. This author has said he won't do that, but maybe others would.

@JonEricson which will often be true with our demographics, and is something I'll be aware of when choosing what to answer (assuming I answer in the future, which depends on this meta discussion and the implementation discussions to follow).

BTW, I see that three people upvoted my comment saying this would be stronger without the trinity stuff.

Well ok, to really be ok the answer would also need to dial down the preaching in the last couple sentences. I didn't DV, but I also wouldn't UV with that stuff still there.

@MonicaCellio Uh? It's a fine answer. A person could upvote it on its own merits. Why should not those three people also upvote the trinity answer?

@JonEricson I meant my comment on kazark's answer. Three people upvoted that.

@MonicaCellio Ah.

(I may yet DV kazark's answer, after further consideration. But not right now; it's after 1AM and while I'm enjoying this discussion, I'm going to need to drop off and pick this up again tomorrow.)

(I do try not to DV answers on questions I've answered unless those answers are total crap. Kazark's isn't crap but the refusal to qualify his language for the sake of politeness rankles.)

@MonicaCellio Eh. People get excited about the Bible.

5:16 AM

@JonEricson Kazark kept it down to a couple sentences at least. Contrast with some more-recent users here. :-(

Bed-time for Monica. TTYL I hope!

@JonEricson I'm really thankful for you.

@MonicaCellio Exactly. As we grow we'll encounter more people who have never really studied the Bible, but just learned about it at church.

@Soldarnal Oh?

@JonEricson I just appreciate your patience in explaining things and trying to build consensus, working towards unity, etc... and overall being a moderator and now as part of the community team.

@Soldarnal Thanks. It's a good thing I (mostly) enjoy it. ;)

I have to think about this more. There is a fine line between pluralism with pseudo-neutrality vs. censorship masquerading as neutrality.

5:33 AM

@Dan Indeed... this is my biggest concern on this issue

I find myself agreeing with my own position, @MonicaCellio @JonEricson and @JackDouglas simultaneously in many cases. I think my actual goal is probably closest to Monica's in how it looks as a final product but not on how to go about it

2

Plus I differ in that I'd like to see a heavy hand on questions but mostly just use votes and comments on answers

I think good questions will provide the best framework for good answers, and then it will be easier to identify bad answers which can then be DV'd

10 hours later…

3:22 PM

@Dan removing content would skirt the censorship line; adding qualifications does not.

@Dan comments get deleted (sometimes arbitrarily), and not enough people DV yet. Bringing examples into chat to campaign for DVs is not sustainable (nor, probably, healthy); we need natural behavior here, not prodding.

(Hmm, what just happened there?)

f we're going to allow unsupported low-quality questions we have to at least be much, much more willing to use post annotations than we currently are. And get them moved above the comments. But that tool is designed to be rare.

@MonicaCellio did you not delete your own comment?

If not, then that's the second time I've seen that happen recently

.

@GoneQuiet My thinking is more along the lines of Dan and rhetorician: "group x believes" is an unqualified assertion. "X is true" is an unqualified assertion. They are just asserting different things. Worse, if you qualify the former (here is a link to a reference supporting "group x believes") you are getting away from the text and into frameworks, whereas if you qualify "X is true" (here is why I think X is true from the text), you are getting away from frameworks and into the text. — Jack Douglas 5 mins ago

@Dan, @Frank this comment above gets to the heart of why I think insisting on 'qualified truth statements' is bad for the site. I'd love to have the chance to try and persuade you both that ultimately what we need to consider is tightening up 'show your work' rather than going down the pseudo-relativism route.

.

@JackDouglas I was trying to see yours, didn't get the drop-down, then tried to get the drop-down on my own as a test (occasionally chat gets wedged), and never saw it -- but then my comment was deleted. I certainly never saw, nor clicked on, a delete link.

@Jack, "group x believes" or "scholar y teaches" etc is a second-order assertion (not about the text itself). It's like any other statement: "greek word X means" or "archealogists have found Y" or the like. But "this text means X" with no qualification is a first-order assertion about our primary topic here. It should be supported or qualified. — Gone Quiet 1 min ago

I posted this there after Jack's comment here was deleted. I'm not trying to have the conversation in two places; I thought your chat deletion meant you wanted to move it there.

@MonicaCellio sorry no, I wanted to raise it with Dan and Frank as I think it is a persuasive point

I wonder if 'bring-your-own-framework' should be changed to 'bring-your-framework-to-the-text', as the way I see it, this option is the one that is the least 'pro-framework' and the most 'focus on the text' of them all.

The point being basically that you will bring your framework to the text anyway, but lets not waste space talking about frameworks when we could be talking about the text

3:40 PM

@JackDouglas I feel like you are trying to divert my concerns to "implementation detail about show-your-work" when it's clearly much more fundamental (and we never actually deal with those implementation details anyway). I don't appreciate that disruption of the philosophy question we worked so hard on together.

@JackDouglas I disagree. "Avoid truth assertions" (in favor of actually showing an argument from the text and cited sources) is as text-centric as it gets.

@MonicaCellio Maybe the fact we disagree on that is why you feel like I'm trying to talk about implementation details?

We all have frameworks, and if you're going to answer based on them -- whether the dogma of Christianity or of atheism or of young-earth or whatever -- then say so.

@MonicaCellio Do you think you can write an answer that is not based on your framework?

@JackDouglas are you asking "am I capable" or "am I willing"? The answer to the former is yes. It's like writing a literature survey for a thesis (only smaller).

(gotta drop off; back in an hour or so)

Perhaps it would be better if we both tried to persuade others in the community rather than trying to persuade each other: I respect your views, but I don't agree with them. We need to see if there is any way as a community we can come to broad agreement, and that may well include discussing the issues we disagree on with others?

but fwiw I think the idea that you can answer from outside your framework is an oxymoron. Your framework may include the thought that it would be good to write a survey and be as even-handed as possible, but can't step outside your framework to do it, because wherever you step, that is an evolution of your framework. It's like your shadow, you cannot escape from it, even if it is not fixed in time and space.

2 hours later…

5:26 PM

@JackDouglas to me this sounds like playing games with semantics, not a real response. If you're going to say that no matter how somebody answers he's doing it from a framework because "desired answer approach" is a framework, then there's nothing constructive to be done there. I have been talking from day one about religious frameworks that state assumptions/opinions as truth, and I'm not going to be sucked into a semantics game.

@JackDouglas that's the point of the meta post, no?

@GoneQuiet you are being unjust: I have never, to my knowledge, opposed deletion. My order of preference is: improved (ie 'show your work') or deleted. The point of difference is that I think adding 'Group X believes' makes an answer worse not better. — Jack Douglas 2 hours ago

@Jack, re ^^^, I would appreciate it if you would either remove the (unsupported!) attack on me ("being unjust") or demonstrate your real (not theoretical) support for deletion through action. Being "in favor" but unwilling to act on a site that's too small to have real community-deletion support doesn't mean anything.

Sep 27 at 22:17, by Jack Douglas

we need mooare delete votes!

I encourage users to use their delete votes

I've also deleted plenty of posts

@JackDouglas easy to say. How many users who come here regularly have that privilege?

border-line cases I prefer to leave to the community: that is not that same as being against deletion

@JackDouglas NAAs, but not for what we're talking about, right?

@MonicaCellio that's not something I even think about

5:35 PM

@JackDouglas please take a look. I think it will be eye-opening for you.

@MonicaCellio no, I mean I consciously don't consider that

And remember that you are a user too, and casting the third delete vote is for you a user action, not a mod action. But you have nonetheless declined to do so because of your diamond.

@MonicaCellio on this, it is news to me that you mean religious frameworks, and helpful to know, though I'd be interested to know what that means eg in this case: "User R states: 'the Bible is rubbish and was written by liars'" is this a religious framework speaking?

@JackDouglas it wouldn't matter on a fully-functioning, graduated site. Betas don't emerge ready to go there. That's why pro-tems are expected to do things that elected mods aren't expected to do.

Look, I know we disagree on this too, I don't see how it is helpful to go over the same ground again

5:38 PM

@JackDouglas maybe we are using "framework" differently. Every example to which I have objected (and I include this one there) is a statement of a dogmatic opinion that someone could reasonably object to that is unsupported. It's divisive.

@JackDouglas do you think it is reasonable to expect our community to delete problematic answers with no mod assistance?

Community as it stands today, I mean.

@MonicaCellio it's happened a few times

20

A: Add a way for moderators to cast a normal, non binding vote

This can be used in "grey areas" where a moderator can choose to give his or her opinion but not make a decision alone. I don't see the point. Moderators can already leave comments, thus making their opinions known, just like normal users. Moderators can edit poorly-worded questions, just li...

^^^ this is why I don't pretend my 'delete' vote is a normal vote even if it is the third

@JackDouglas it has happened a few times, and always as a result of a herculean effort to coordinate people in chat. Is that what you want? Thereare answers where you have said you would case a vote if you were a regular user but won't as a mod, but you are a regular user too. Shog's answer supports doing that.

@MonicaCellio fwiw the word 'framework' in 'bring-your-own-framework' is not intended to mean 'religious framework'

@JackDouglas right, so you should be willing to cast that vote if you think an answer is bad.

@MonicaCellio I would never be willing to cast the third vote unless I was willing to cast the first

5:44 PM

@JackDouglas yeah, but I don't think it's so broad as to include "answers should show diverse perspectives" either. That's something people may do but it's not a framework.

@JackDouglas so nothing in the delete queue is delete-worthy in your opinion?

@MonicaCellio I am no closer to understanding where you draw the line

@JackDouglas nor I to you. Apparently this is not constructive.

@MonicaCellio the 'answer' is to get more users with the privilege

@MonicaCellio to me 'bring your own framework' is an intentional tautology

@JackDouglas sure, but during the many months it will take for that to happen, we need to do something.

framework="your frame of reference" regardless of whether it is 'religious' or anything else

@MonicaCellio we need to do something on borderline posts?

5:47 PM

@JackDouglas without a much larger explanation that is pretty meaningless to me.

what we need to do is be sure as a community what we actually want: we can't fix the 'deletion problem' until we can agree on what constitutes a bad answer

@JackDouglas you say they're borderline; I say they're doing damage. Should I start linking them in here and calling for people to kill them? That doesn't feel like a very welcoming use for this room.

@JackDouglas I'm talking about specific answers, not the broad problem. Review the queue please.

and it looks like we aren't any nearer to deciding that than we were last week

@MonicaCellio it's my job to handle flags: I review the queues sometimes too, but you have no particular right to demand that I do so right now

your high level of activity on the site and in the queues is one reason why you are a great BH.SE user: but others who do less should be valued for what they do do

@JackDouglas my "demand" was a request that to understand the cases I'm talking about, that you look at the queue instead of me dragging it all in here. Not all imperative statements are "demands" that you do something outside your "job".

@JackDouglas I value them for what they do. I'm pointing out that we don't have enough people to muster a community deletion without extraordinary effort, and you as a user who cares about the site too should be willing to volunteer some of your attention in that direction until that changes.

@MonicaCellio And I'm saying that is the least of our problems until we can agree on what content is welcome

as soon as we all agree on that, we can go to town on the content

5:52 PM

@JackDouglas parallel processing. The meta discussion and its followons will take a while to resolve; meanwhile we have specific cases right now that should be dealt with.

"Going to town on the content" would involve a broader sweep; I'm just talking about the things that have already been raised.

Apr 4 at 3:22, by Shog9

Editing, voting, post notices, deletion... You're never gonna be able to agree on any of this if you can't first agree on what's allowable, what's ideal, in answering. If you think NPOV is the ultimate goal and no one else agrees, it's just going to be frustrating for everyone. It has been frustrating for everyone.

I don't really do parallel processing, I'm single-core

@JackDouglas by that reasoning, nothing should be flagged, edited, voted on, annotated at all until we finish this. I doubt you would agree with that.

@JackDouglas you are missing an important tool, then.

@MonicaCellio maybe that is why there is more than one moderator?

@MonicaCellio I more or less do, apart from obvious trash or spam.

(and apart from the 'voting' bit)

Shog's comment above was 6 months ago, even I'm getting impatient that we find something we can all agree on

@JackDouglas but only one who is routinely available. As we've discussed. I'm not criticizing the others; I'm saying they have other demands on their attention that take them away from the site for extended periods fairly often.

@MonicaCellio sure, but it's not my job to fix that

whatever the fix my be

I'm more worried about the fact that the top answers are +7/-1, +11/-5, +5/-1, +9/-6. My impression is that's indicative of a deeply divided community.

6:01 PM

@JackDouglas on the sites where I'm a mod, I understand it to be part of my job to help "cover" when someone else isn't available.

@MonicaCellio sure, but I don't

@JackDouglas we are deeply divided, yes. Now what?

I'm around when I'm able and not when I'm not

@MonicaCellio It'll be interesting to see how the votes pan out on Jon and Jas3.1 answers

apart from that, I have no idea

@JackDouglas I see that. So from my perspective the mod coverage on this site is kind of broken. That's on the com team to fix, not you, but I would hope that y'all would try to work together to address that somehow, not just wait for "someone else" to act. But whatever; I obviously have no power to effect change there.

@JackDouglas Jon's answer is a second dimension but not really an answer to the core question. Maybe if he updated it after last night's discussion here...

@MonicaCellio Whoever is responsible for that, it is a distraction from the community division

6:03 PM

Watching Jas's will be interesting.

@MonicaCellio I voted Jas's up, but after some thought, I want to reverse that

I didn't quite grasp what a seismic change it would be

I don't understand the seismic change you see. To me it seems like a milder form of yours, something between the original two answers, but you think it's even more extreme than yours. Can you help me understand that?

@MonicaCellio I think 'mine' is the least extreme, just carry on as we are (but tighten up 'show your work'), yours is in the middle and Jas's is the most extreme

…

the yardstick I am using is how much the focus of the site will be deflected from the text towards frameworks

so Jas will have us end up like C.SE where frameworks are king

Is a hermeneutic method (like historical-grammatical) a framework?

the NPOV-lite solution is a mild distraction from the text in my opinion

@MonicaCellio a framework (to me) is the entire bubble of an individuals perspective, so it can't exactly be named

…

6:08 PM

You say that "yours" is closest to current practice, which is true, but it does not follow that "yours" is closest to the text. We have lost our text focus because of all the dogma/opinions/assertions.

Or rather, we have shifted the focus from text to text+dominant theology.

the key is: "I don't care what your framework is, or what it is called, I only want you to explain enough of it to communicate to me how you have joined the dots from the text to your conclusions"

@MonicaCellio I think we still have our text focus, I know we differ on this assessment too. I base mine on voting patterns

@JackDouglas people vote for all sorts of reasons.

And I don't try and guess

@JackDouglas ok I can see that.

@JackDouglas but you make an implicit assumption that voting patterns indiciate text focus. You don't know that.

But it is very striking that most of the answers you dislike I dislike too and they are often negative or far behind the top answer in terms of votes

@MonicaCellio My reasoning is still that the SE system has that built in

6:11 PM

@JackDouglas but this is also a site about hermeneutics; "how does such-and-such method work" is on topic.

the focus is acheived by upvoted answers floating to the top

Upvoted answers aren't always good answers where strong personal opinions are involved. It's very hard for some people to vote against something they agree with (even if it's badly presented), and vice-versa.

@MonicaCellio that is true, I'm not talking about those question (they are a small subset of the questions on the site and rarely contrversial)

@MonicaCellio I've yet to see an example of that

we have had rubbish answers accepted before

that is a different problem

the only solution there is a community deletion

Caleb asked me a while back how I thought my answers had fared here, and I compiled a list assessing them (including how they fared against Christian answers, which he asked about). I offered that info to him but he hasn't had time; is that something you'd like to see?

@MonicaCellio have you any answers that are not upvoted? I'd be interested to know that

6:13 PM

@JackDouglas sure they're small now; it almost sounded like you wanted them to be even smaller.

@MonicaCellio no, I think they are an important part of the site, my comment referred to the normal kind of question

@JackDouglas I had one but deleted it. I have a bunch at 1. I have a bunch that I consider to be under-valued (about a quarter of them).

@MonicaCellio so do I

I don't find that surprising though

I have a minority perspective

the SE system isn't perfect, it's just better than the alternative

@JackDouglas how many of yours fall below ones espousing a theology you disagree with?

Voting isn't perfect and I'm not trying to say "wah wah they don't like my stuff"; I'm saying there are pathologies that are more likely to arise on subjective sites at all, and even moreso when people's strongly-held views about life and death and eternal salvation and so on are involved.

And that my contributions (and presumably others from my perspective, though I didn't analyze that data) suffer thereby.

found it

2

A: What does "image" in Genesis 1:26-27 mean?

This is a difficult question because of the temptation towards Eisegesis as our desire to be of value can intersect with this text. It is useful to include verse 28 when looking at the verses you quote: 26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dom...

6:17 PM

I'm perfectly fine with having a well-argued Christian answer beat mine; I upvote those when they happen too. Many of them come from Jon, Dan, and Frank.

this sums up my minority perspective: (from my POV) I am pathological about not reading anything into the text

@JackDouglas I upvoted that. Rereading now.

I doubt any 'Christian' here would ever agree with me saying that being made in the image of God is specifically about authority and specifically not about 'value/worth'

@MonicaCellio Yours is the top answer, accepted and has far more votes, but while I often get value from your answers, in this case the connection between your answer and the text is not clear to me. This may well be because of my unfamiliarity with your framework: this is something I hope for earnestly in my interactions here, that I might gradually understand others frameworks and so expand my own.

@JackDouglas but you bring Christian scripture (presumably written by Christians :-) ) to support your argument.

@MonicaCellio my motive for bringing it in is the opposite to what you think I suspect

6:23 PM

In my answer I focused on what seemed to be the core question, "does this mean physical?". It would have been better to also cover other approaches, as other answers did. This question is a case where several answers are good and partial.

I wanted to pre-empt the usual Christian "Sure is says that in Genesis, but look at the NT, the NT makes it all clear…"

which in this case is in my view entirely without legs

anyway, whatever the reason, I got +2 for a load of work and I'm completely fine with that: I'm surprised I got +2 tbh (not so surprised that at least one vote didn't come from a 'Christian'!)

3

A: Who were the Hellenistic and Hebraic Jews of Acts 6:1?

Hellenism arose in Judaism during the time of the Greek empire, particularly under Alexander the Great. Initially the Greek and Jews seemed to get along well, but eventually religious tensions among Jews arose over the matter. Rabbi Ken Spiro gives an overview of the history: [After Alexand...

Compare this to the accepted answer (+4/-1), which is probably incorrect. The statement about Jews giving their lives over to Jesus as Hellenism is certainly problematic.

@MonicaCellio Your answer is far superior would you like me to upvote it or do you want to preserve it as an example?

btw it's pretty hard to usurp an accepted answer that's been there for a year

@JackDouglas it's now part of the chat record, so feel free to upvote. Serving as an example should take second place to serving the internet.

@JackDouglas I know.

@MonicaCellio I think if you'd answered at the same time there'd be no competition: as I said, the SE system isn't perfect…

6:33 PM

2

A: Why was the priestly exam of a woman suspected of adultery not applied to men (Numbers 5:11-31)?

Under torah a woman does not have standing to bring a legal claim against her husband, nor can she initiate a divorce. It seems to follow, then, that she could not initiate the sotah ritual against a straying husband. (Note that if there has been adultery, then this means the other man's wife, ...

@JackDouglas a new answer bumps a question to the front page (and notifies the asker, though of course that doesn't mean the asker still cares). This one ^^^ is also a later answer, one that I feel sticks closer to the text and history. I admit that I've never fully understand the top answerer's "promised seed" motif. If he'd left out the Christian stuff (that has nothing to do with the sotah) it would be a better answer -- but I suspect that content got him some votes.

@MonicaCellio this was Bob making a lot of effort: I suspect he may have got some generous votes for that

(and I'm not saying that is right)

(also, I need to get back to work I'm afraid :|)

(my server woes are not yet over)

@JackDouglas probably. But doesn't mine deserve more than 2 for its focus?

1

A: What was Noah thinking when he sent a raven from the ark?

As noted by Luther quoted in this answer, and also rabbinic literature I've seen but can't now find, when the raven flew "to and fro" it was feeding on the bodies floating in the receding floodwaters. The raven is a carrion-eater and the flood had provided it an endless buffet. The raven theref...

^^^ Here the top answer is good but I think mine is also good, and there is but a two-point difference between mine and a pretty bad one (a bad one with 2 upvotes).

@JackDouglas oh joy. Good luck with that. (DB servers, I assume?)

7:27 PM

@JonEricson after further consideration I have downvoted this. As I said, if the trinitarian reference were qualified I wouldn't do so, but this author has refused to qualify his language, seeing it somehow as an abrogation of his religion.

@JonEricson or people who have studied the bible but not with any rigor, only through the doctrinal lenses they were taught. If we let those answers stand uncorrected or unchallenged, we invite more of the same.

7:52 PM

.

-1

Q: Was Adam's partaking of a wrong tree an act of physical death?

And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [are], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever (Revelation 20:10) But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers...

revelation death

^^^ This question and every single answer on it is downvoted. What should be done with it? Is it a real question?

4 hours later…

11:39 PM

0

Q: Does Christ return to Heaven after the thousand year reign, and then return to earth after the seventh trumpet?

After the thousand year reign is over we read in Revelation 20:v7-8 When the thousand years are over,Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth-Gog and Magog-to gather them for battle The scriptures that interpret the a...

This question seems like more of a question about systematic theology than about exegesis

But apparently you can't VtC once a question has a bounty.

@Soldarnal bounties block closure, yes. Also, previously-expired close votes block new ones (ref the question I asked about before yours).

@MonicaCellio The title of the question makes it seem like it fits, but the contents of the question as written do not seem to fit our site

@MonicaCellio Can you VtC now that I've added mine?

@Soldarnal yeah, and it feels like there are two possible answers; (a) "the first death, duh" and (b) opinion survey.

@Soldarnal no - "you have already voted to close" (but that vote is no longer there). :-(

@MonicaCellio Ideally the question should just be rewritten to focus in on Genesis. "It says, 'In that day you will surely die', but then they don't physically die right away. What gives?"

@Soldarnal that would be an on-topic question. It sounds familiar, though; we might already have it.

11:47 PM

But of course it already has a stream of negative vote answers that make it ugly even if it were reworked

I haven't read the 19 comments on that question, either.

@Soldarnal right, once a question has answers you shouldn't rewrite it in a way that invalidates those answer -- though since they're all bad and downvoted, a case could be made for deleting the answers and rewriting the question.

@MonicaCellio Yeah, copious comments on a question itself are probably not a good sign.

The SE equivalent to a code smell

3

@Soldarnal generally a bad sign, yes. Sometimes it means there are obsolete ones that didn't get deleted after edits, but in this case I'm not confident that that's the case.

Ok, a bunch of those comments are in the chat link and so can be safely deleted. As for the rest, Dan has a couple that should stay after that, but a lot of this could be cleaned up.

But there's no point in bothering unless we're going to try to salvage the question, and I'm not sure that deleting the whole thing and letting someone who cares ask a brand new question isn't the best approach.

@MonicaCellio I'd agree

@Soldarnal should we flag instead of waiting for four more close votes to amble in, followed by the requisite delete votes (which takes forever)?

BTW, if you haven't looked at the list of posts with delete votes lately, you might want to cruise through there. Since you can only see votes up to 30 days old and there's no review queue you have to remember to go do it every few weeks at least. I'd suggest that more frequent is better. :-)

11:57 PM

@MonicaCellio I forget to go through the delete ones from time to time because they're on the Tools menu instead of the Review menu (which gets close votes)

@Soldarnal yeah, I wish there were a "delete votes" queue like for close votes.

But I just voted earlier today to delete the two posts that were on there

The tools menu (and then delete sub-menu) is hard to notice.

@Soldarnal there should have been more than two; I saw half a dozen yesterday and I haven't gotten any of my DV rep back yet.

By default it only shows you "today" (or 2 days, don't remember). SO there's a third sub-menu, for "30 days". Try that.

@MonicaCellio Oh you're correct

I had it defaulted to Today

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