IMO, we should somehow "link" C.SE and BH.SE, as their subject matter is similar... so there could be quite some overlap between the two...

Time and time again I've seen hermeneutics questions pop up on C.SE and every time they get poor treatment unless one of a select few people step in and contribute. I really think that more in-depth hermeneutics questions should be here and not there, unless someone is looking more for general advice.

@Richard, are you referring to

whoops. Are you referring to exegesis of specific texts? Or questions of hermeneutical principals? The two concepts seem to be confused on this site more often than not

I personally wonder how many real-life experts BH.SE has now, in private beta, and how many there will be.

Here... take a look at this question. It's the most recent example.

C.SE would be much better with more experts, but it's not easy to attract them (I've tried some personally).

@dancek Real-life experts? Probably very few.

I could be wrong, but it feels kind of like a sinking ship.

I see what you mean. And it seems like this site is mostly taken up with these sort of specific exegetical questions as well

I think C.SE might survive with just a bunch of hackers, but hermeneutics really requires expertise.

which is sinking? C or BH?

C.se.

Like I said, I could be wrong. It may end up going live.

Agreed... it could be saved but it really is lacking focus

@Richard frankly I hate to see the top-rep user and a pro-tem mod say that...

Hehe. :) Yeah. I just look at the expertise levels on other SE sites and it seems like it's just not there on C.SE. We're not attracting the experts that we need to be and we're attracting all the trolls.

I agree C.SE doesn't fit so well with other, mostly technical SE sites. But I think it's a much better venue for questions about Christianity than any other site.

Who is C.SE? Spillover from stackoverflow?

Christianity.stackexchange.

I thought you were part of that...

@Ray Wait... maybe I don't understand this question. You've got 1k rep over there!

Yes.. what i mean is, who are the people who make up that community

That's who I am.. a software developer who found out that there was a Xianity site starting up

Aah, I see. I was a DBA.SE user who found C.SE I think it's mostly spillover at the moment from other SE sites. There are some new users that don't seem to have network accounts, though.

And I suppose the target audience would have a stronger representation from pastors and/or theologians

in top 20 by reputation there's one person with no other SE accounts

@Ray To an extent, yes. But I think the target "experts" would really be people who are willing to make statements, back them up biblically, and write full and complete answers. I would love to just have that!

my personal experience from the university world is that people who study technology or theology are interested in the more difficult questions about Christianity, while others are not.

@dancek, this sounds like stackoverflow vs cs.se

@Richard Could the problem be we're not dealing with the trolls and low quality / off topic questions well enough for it to be an attractive place to be?

@Caleb Oh, that's quite possible! I've often wondered if we should take a more hard-lined approach. However, that's usually when I run across something that ruffles my feathers and want to go about wielding my giant hammer of destruction. When I step back and calm down, I realize that we probably do need to address the questions and answers of these semi-trolls.

I don't know. It's a tough call. (One that we should really involve SE and the TL on.) I would love to be able to clean up the site to make it more expert friendly. But if we do that, I'm afraid we'll bring down the wrath of the community (or a good part of it).

@Ray Definitely. The problem is that occasionally these trolls come up with good (even excellent) questions. Then they gain huge rep so that all the downvoting and closing doesn't really hurt them. And the trolls seem to feed off each other as well.

Yet, either way, I don't think I want to be the hammer-wielder.

Yes, I think our job there would be to start a serious education campain on meta, call out a lot of the specific issues we see, maybe do a few of them by example, and rally some community support to keep the ball rolling.

@Richard Never-mind their rep. They can have high rep but if bad questions eventually get closed (and really onerious ones deleted) then we'll can raise the bar on what new stuff gets accepted.

The rep / privileged system alone isn't enough to self-police a community. That's why there are mods in the first place. If we get discussion and consensus on what is and isn't acceptable we can enforce those rules no matter whos breaking them.

@Caleb Yeah, I think that's the key.

Also, how did I end up being the highest rep user here without answering a single question?

You've got some really good questions so far Caleb!

How did you get to be the highest rep user without having mortarboard already?

@Richard I got like 95 the first day and the rest was today. The beta didn't start until 3/4 through a day, so the first day was kind of limited.

Aah, true. Yeah, I joined on with only five hours left in the day..

@Richard And you were way ahead of me.

@Ray There are more where those came from. I have and idea I'm going to have a problem with SE's standard question rate limits.

I guess when I run into that I can start asking them on C.SE and migrating them here :)

Haha. That actually brings up a good question... are hermeneutics and exegesis questions expected to be migrated here, and are they off-topic for C.SE? Without them, C.SE is definitely weakened

@Ray This answer on C.SE meta deals with that. Essentially, they won't be migrated until BH.SE is out of beta.

Ooh... breaking out the Nephilim question.

@Richard You don't we got tired of that after all the bounties on C.SE? Why not save it for when we have more experts?

It just attracts gawkers if you ask me.

This site already has more experts than C.SE! Also, I don't expect this question here to draw as much attention as it did on C.SE.

But I know that it will be asked at some point, so I figured I might as well ask it. (Not the best logic for this early in Private Beta, but I tried to word it appropriately.)

@Richard, but the usage of Ratsach in the context of the Ten Commandments does imply that the killing talked about there is intentional.

so you're probably right

(continued from a previous conv. in the comments of: hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/77/…)

@Ami Looking at blundin's answer, I think it's a bit more open than that. Also, I found in my searching that it could mean accidental killing, but it wasn't used very often in that context. So, I ignored that. ;) Mostly I just shot off a quick answer since I needed to keep my fingers moving.

@Richard, in your question you ask whether "kill" is a valid translation for Exodus 20:13. Blundin's sources show that the word is fundamentally ambiguous throughout all of the OT and may mean different things in different contexts. It's reasonable to infer that it means "murder" from within the context of the Ten Commandments.

@Ami Actually, that's a really good point. God wouldn't have said "You shall not accidently kill someone."

@Ami You really should write an answer!

I'll try

What do you guys think of this one? hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/85/…

Seems to be pushing the bounds of scope a bit

Hi, can someone help me understand what is on-topic here? I want to know if I can post a Q that is an exegetical question?

sounds okay so far.

What's the question you want to ask? It seems that if the question is related to the text of the Bible or to the translation or interpretation thereof, it's probably on topic.

@Richard If I post it now can you tell me if you think it is ok and I'll delete it if it isn't?

@Richard here's the question

Yeah, that's true. If you post the question, it'll be voted to close if it's off-topic.

@Richard I'd rather delete it myself to save embarrassment if I've completely misunderstood the point of the site :-)

Wow, that's an interesting question! Even if the community decides it's off topic (which I personally have no idea), I think it'll still gather a few +1s.

@Richard Ok, thanks for the encouragement - I'll leave it up and see what happens

@JackDouglas, I would say it is on-topic, though, perhaps, a bit broad

@Ray ok, interesting, thanks

If this is the kind of answer BH keeps attracting, I'm a fan!

Yeah, I've been highly impressed by this community so far.