About a week ago, a new user named Bible Student joined and supplied answers to the following questions:
Who was the Beloved Disciple?
Was the Beloved Disciple the author of the Fourth Gospel?
Unfortunately, his answers don't include his answer to the questions. He has a website, TheDiscipleW...
@digitaloday an occasional excellent answer beats 10 hurried ones in terms of benefit to the site, thank you for your effort on that.
@Ami the meta post is generating some good feedback - I suspect it will get a lot more too :-) on the subject of editing posts that came up yesterday, you may find this mSO post interesting:
Though many questions on Meta Stack Overflow seem to come very close, I can't seem to find my question:
Should I (or can I) edit another person's answer to another person's question that has been accepted and upvoted by a majority of voters, when I consider it to be an incomplete an...
(I'm not entirely sure whether this question is in scope of this SE, but this appears to be the SE closest to the issue)
In Poland, there is a region called Silesia, which is inhabited by people speaking a distinct dialect, which can be quite different from the Polish language at times. One of t...
@JackDouglas It skirts the edges. I took it as a translation question. But I tend to be very forgiving about questions from folks who don't seem too well informed about the subject. I like both of the answers it generated.
But if we start getting many of these sorts of posts, we should start closing them.
@digitaloday I really appreciate you jumping in with both feet. My MO is slow and steady, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. ;-)
@JonEricson thanks for the input - I agree the answers are good (Q downvoted, A's upvoted) @Caleb, @Ray do you think we should leave this open or close it?
In thinking about points #2 and #3 of the meta-question about gender roles, I'm interested in getting some opinions on how we should handle pure-opinion sections of answers. In order to (I hope) separate this question from the tricky topic of gender roles, imagine if we got the following questio...
In thinking about points #2 and #3 of the meta-question about gender roles, I'm interested in getting some opinions on how we should handle pure-opinion sections of answers. In order to (I hope) separate this question from the tricky topic of gender roles, imagine if we got the following questio...
Let me take these points one at a time:
The bigger problem with "Feminism" is that it's not really a Biblical concept. There might be support for or against the modern idea, but there is no way any Biblical text directly speaks to the issue anymore than they speak to operating an automobile, t...
On this: "Nothing in the question implies an application, but when answering, I might want to include the following opinion:", I took you to mean an answer that was not entirely application but included some - have I understood that right?
On "We can apply the principles behind the Biblical texts to modern life, but that's off-topic on this site." My meta-question is trying to get at that too.
it seems clear to me that your question arises from the text, rather than from an idea that you went searching around for a Bible verse to attach to :-)
@JackDouglas Ok. So the problem with Lance's answer, to me, is that it includes the loaded term "heresy". Without that, I think I have little problem with it.
Are we asking if Lance's use of the word 'heresy' was offensive, or if the answer would have been improved if it joined the dots between the thinking a bit better?
From the point of view of someone asking the question, I don't think the paragraph added much. But I appreciate why Lance wrote it. In his place, I would probably have done the same.
@JackDouglas Sorry I'm late here, but I agree with @JonEricson on that one in that "it skirts the edges". I was tempted to close+comment on first sight, then had difficulty phrasing a comment that I was sure about, so dropped it. I agree with your analysis that it is a bad question that actually got some good answers.
I definitely think that the answer would have been improved if it joined the dots between the thinking a bit better. I might comment to that effect - if that had been the only problem, a comment is all that would be needed. We obviously need to decide if the word 'heresy' is offensive or not so mods can have a guideline for whether to take action.
Learning a lot about Stack Exchange just by listening. Are you guys all on staff (as in do you get compensated in any way SE), or just interested in bettering the community (or both!)?
The word "feminism" means many different things to many different people in different cultures and different religions...that word has no place in the context of serious biblical exegesis.
@JonEricson, it also depends on the audience. The audience of this site is too broad to use the word, but in a more narrow context where the word is well defined, it may be fine to use.
Keeping all this in mind, the normal way of dealing with an answer you think has problems is downvote/comment (or just comment perhaps). Offensive behaviour OTOH needs mod action.
No. Never change the meaning of someone else's post.
Editing is for clarity -- spelling and grammar fixes, improved wording and formatting, and so on -- apart from Community Wiki posts, where it can be used to add new information.
Comments are for disagreeing, adding minor notes, and so on.
...
If the post is genuinely offensive a mod needs to delete it rightaway and comment to the poster that they can fix and flag for undeletion if it is salvagable
@JackDouglas, If I was able to demonstrate that the way I use "feminism" on a day to day basis is completely different from the way you use the word "feminism" and others use it in various ways, would you still think that the final paragraph adds to the content of the answer?
@Ami but I mostly agree with "unnecessary" and "ambiguous" at least. For me the solution is to engage with Lance and if that is not productive then to downvote.
@digitaloday yup and if we could persuade him to do that... :-)
I will ask in a comment
@Ami what it adds is some application - it does so in a way that is open to misunderstanding - but I actually think most of us do understand Lance in the way he intended us to
@JackDouglas, I'm sure that most people understand what Lance means, but I assure you that I don't...so my experience of his answer is very different from yours.
I can imagine what he means, but its only speculation and I certainly don't know firsthand
Maybe we can replace "feminism" with something concrete. Is Lance worried about woman who want to fill the role of clergymen?
Is "feminism" a synonym for immodesty or sexual promiscuity?
@Ami He means "male headship" rather than feminism. Or perhaps he is referring to the received wisdom (not actually true!) that feminism is always anti male-headship
I'm asking these questions as an outsider who has no intuition about what this "general idea" is...that's what I'm trying to understand here.
In my Jewish community there are woman who want the power to answer halachic (legal) questions, there are woman who want to be Rabbis...is there are an analogous situation in the Christian community?
It seems from this question, its comments, answers, and chat, that the word "heresy" and any of its derivatives can be seen as offensive. We are a non-doctrinal site and so there's no such thing as orthodoxy here. Therefore, anyone addressing some point of view as a "heresy" is not making a val...
Above all, I would never judge or label a person, or risk using hurtful language against a woman who authentically feels disenfranchised or excluded from the Jewish community.
Let me take these points one at a time:
The bigger problem with "Feminism" is that it's not really a Biblical concept. There might be support for or against the modern idea, but there is no way any Biblical text directly speaks to the issue anymore than they speak to operating an automobile, t...
I'm only now starting to understand why I reacted strongly to Lance's paragraph.
I feel that the words "heresy" and "feminism" are just two symptoms of an intolerant sentiment that comes across in that paragraph. I wouldn't stand for dismissive language like that in day-to-day conversation and I don't see any way it could possibly be tolerated on a site that wants to be a beacon of objective and rigorous textual analysis.
About a week ago, a new user named Bible Student joined and supplied answers to the following questions:
Who was the Beloved Disciple?
Was the Beloved Disciple the author of the Fourth Gospel?
Unfortunately, his answers don't include his answer to the questions. He has a website, TheDiscipleW...
Though many questions on Meta Stack Overflow seem to come very close, I can't seem to find my question:
Should I (or can I) edit another person's answer to another person's question that has been accepted and upvoted by a majority of voters, when I consider it to be an incomplete an...
No. Never change the meaning of someone else's post.
Editing is for clarity -- spelling and grammar fixes, improved wording and formatting, and so on -- apart from Community Wiki posts, where it can be used to add new information.
Comments are for disagreeing, adding minor notes, and so on.
...
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