I tried to use examples from my questions and answers since I don't mind being picked on a bit. I know that I'll have a lot of work to do if this goes through.
I think that the examples should come from whoever does the actual posting. I can do that or Caleb or you. It doesn't really matter, I suppose. What's important is that there are good solid examples (preferably from the original poster).
I used myself in this initial draft just to make sure that I didn't come across as picking on anyone.
Another option we could do is to include examples from multiple people. But the post is already huge, so maybe not the best idea...
Suggestion break this into 3 posts. 1. We see a problem 2. Suggested New Question guidelines 3. Suggested New Answer guidelines Link all three posts together
One option is that we could post a "problem" post and then lock it immediately. It would just be referenced for back-reading for those interested.
Thinking it over, I agree that we should have guidelines on both questions and answers. This would allow the moderators to be able to close questions based on one post and delete answers based on another. These posts would be useful for explicitly directing people to the relevant content.
@waxeagle So, I fully agree with this. But I like the idea of locking down the problems post. (There has been a precedent for this on Prog.SE, I believe.)
I ask this question on Area51, but I have re-posted here since this site is now open...
For example, here in the USA, there are many evangelicals that do not consider Mormons to be Christian, even though they will argue against that intensely. And there are a (small) minority of Protestants that...
I don't think locking is a good idea right off the bat, it might br read as pretty dictatorial. The problem is likely to be mostly agreed on anyway it's the proposed remedy that might be hard to swallow.
Also I really think a lot of focussed posts at the way to go ... See my breakdown in the doc with all the question headers.
I was thinking that if we created three separate posts that the first post would solely be background. That one (the background post alone) would be locked. The other two would just reference the background post to help explain the reasons for the suggestion (and show why it's needed).
@Caleb I can really see going either way with this. So if you want to go that way, I'm all for it.
Also breaking up the a questions and putting up the points in answers will help people follow along. Also give people a chance to pitch it their own solution
In my mind, if we write a post saying that we have a problem, it will almost automatically suggest the solution. For example, since the problem is "unfocused questions", the solution would be "require greater focus for questions".
OK, let's start ripping that post apart and try to get it down to an initial first post. (We can leave the stuff that we rip out below the next version of the question for later use, if desired.)
OK, I've created three separate posts: Problem / Suggestions for Questions / Suggestions for Answers. (Basically throwing lines down the middle of the original post).
I guess my question is: what is the purpose of the "problem" post? Is it purely for background or will there be something in there that others can agree or disagree with?
There are two ways to help in the cleanup effort that is beginning on Christianity.SE.
Join us in the specially created chat room
Comment on our google doc that we are using to work out some of the upcoming meta posts.
This effort, while currently in its infancy, will hopefully help this sit...
@ElendiaStarman not sure. That section is specific to doctrine, I assume its getting at trying to define doctrine and practices in the intended contexts
ie prove that some church outside of just you believes this....but I'm not sure
@MarkTrapp In that case, my answers (and several of Caleb's and Richard's) may have been thrown out.
Also, I don't think we want to be that stringent.
user2334
@ElendiaStarman That's correct. A question that solicits original synthesis is one that's untestable. I could just as easily answer it with stuff I made up off the top of my head and still be technically correct
@Caleb When you come back on (tomorrow?) could you answer that for me? If I can get an idea of the goal or expected responses, I can move forward with editing that first question.
@Richard Yes, bones. And sorry about earlier, mobile keyboard, distraction and internet were all not cooperating.
user2334
@ElendiaStarman Sure, why not? Take this question. "I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you." Well see based on this passage, if you're being poisoned by snakes or scorpions, they're not actually snakes or scorpions but some other creature. This passage clearly shows current scientific taxonomy is clearly wrong
user2334
Or even take an ostensibly legitimate answer like this one. It's all well and good, but how do I know it's actually a legitimate interpretation of the passages mentioned?
@waxeagle Yes indeed, and deserve to be eaten. The family (older couple, retired professor) I've got living with me at the moment was busy having a food fight with them at the table behind me and I decided I should snag a couple for proper consumption.
@ElendiaStarman Some of mine need to be either re-written or thrown out. We might not want to be super strict on this but that doesn't excuse the fact that answers that do some kind of synthesis on the spot are not as good as ones that reference something.
@ElendiaStarman Actually with a little bit of creative licences you can support just about any crazy doctrine you want with personal exegesis. That's part of the problem. Peer review/voting should weed a lot of that out. Actually you can probably find pre-manufactured doctrine for almost any crazy thing people want to say, but the quality is still going to go up even if wrong content is still going to get posted.
Reading through our early post drafts in the gdoc, we have a lot of "we" language going on. Have we considered posting these CW and (may the SE overloards forgive me for suggesting the idea) signing them with SE user badges or something?
@ElendiaStarman Did we figure this out? I really did mean research, not doctrine. The point of that little section was for answers that are non-doctrinal and not about application of doctrine/scripture, but purely about facts. Questions about bible translations and history, etc. Those need external support without new research.
@Caleb user badges?
@Caleb I figured we had to go with the "we" language since this really is a group effort. Also, I think that this is a great idea for a community wiki, since that's their purpose.
@Richard Obviously CW doesn't work very well with how rough we started out but when we get a little farther in the doc and put it out there for folks to start perusing CW will reflect how it got written anyway.
@Caleb worth a thought. @Shog9 any thoughts on caleb's idea?
@Caleb its meta, the only thing CW accomplishes is 1. less certaintly of authorship (shows group ownership). and 2. lower editing threshold. 1 is probably a good thing IMO, 2 may or may not be a good thing
I think I've finished a read-through. Good job guys. (@Richard and however). If I've got a go-ahead I'm going to try to hack on it a little bit to organize it into posts/answers.
@Caleb Please do! That was originally one big post, but we're trying to break it into multiple posts. The first one doesn't stand on its own and I haven't touched numbers 2 and 3.
@Shog9 This, I think, would be a big change. I think we need to get the community to buy in on this.
Rather than simply up votes/down votes for a proposed answer, posting the suggestions as a question to get feedback on them. (I guess that would be the discussion format?)
Then I suggest you just get one person to post each proposal as a question, tagged [discussion] [scope] etc. and leave answers open for addressing concerns.
@Richard Right. It's the Meta equiv of a normal forum (with the caveat that SE tends to be ill-suited for that, so if there's a lot of back and forth it'll have to move from comments to separate meta questions to chat and back again)
2 suggestions for the first post. 1. a link to this chat room for further discussion (could be a comment) and potentially a link to the document to solicit comments on the future meta posts
@waxeagle We could just add a link to your first meta post...
Actually, a link to that meta post would be the best idea since that meta post could be referenced from all the other posts and as we progress we can update that meta post.
@Richard good deal, that is the breadcrumb trail we need. When this is posted I will update my meta post to link back to the new one...(or someone else can do it if it goes up tonight)
@Richard yes, all of these meta posts should be referencing each other so there is an easy link trail to follow from where you are
@Richard Ok. Maybe we could each follow up with some answers that say "yes me too" and include some examples of our own that point to the quality issue being related to focus (qusetions) and referenced doctrine(answers).
See monster chat-log above and the brainstorming notes (not complete, only the bits that survived refinement) in the google document we used to write that meta post.
I guess what confuses matters in my mind is: If BH.SE has it right, then why have C.SE at all?
If the answer there is, because C.SE is more broad than BH.SE, then why not merge BH.SE into C.SE?
It seems that we're likely to have one of two outcomes: 1) Lots of duplicate questions, 2) No traffic on C.SE, because all the "good" questions will be asked on BH.SE instead.
That's not to say there aren't possible good questions that fall within the scope of C but not BH.. but are there enough to keep the site running?
@Flimzy Because the scope of BH is radically different than C.SE and will never include a lot of the things we have going on here.
@Flimzy Lots of people have suggested that but it comes with some other issues such as the difficulty of attracting real hermeneutics experts to a general christianity site. This has been discussed ad-noseum on the BH proposal and in various chats. And is still unresolved :) We (us here right now) are trying to make the best of what we have to work with.
@Flimzy I don't think the duplication issue is so much of a problem when you realize that the scope is actually rather different. Even if both sites keep exegesis as on-topic they will approach it differently. See:
I would like to suggest a place we could draw the line between Hermeneutics.SE and Christianity.SE.
Before I do let me note that this is a brainstorm idea, not one I'm overly invested in. In fact, I still think having two sites is arbitrary and not a useful distinction. However, that's not my ca...
@Flimzy We don't know the answer to that. We're concerned but going to try to rally the troubles and give C.SE the best shot at a good life that we can. Hence all this effort into figuring out what makes questions good for THIS site.
This is what I see as a C.SE expert: Someone who is an expert in the denominational doctrines. (Providing we accept these new guidelines). These new/refined guidelines allow us to attract experts because they define what an expert is.
I think that's a critical question to any SE site: identifying your experts. So far we have yet to do that. These guidelines are an attempt at doing that. (In my opinion.)
So is that, in effect, changing the site definition of Christianity to be "Any group that self-identifies as Christian, and is large enough and cohesive enough to have experts?"
It won't be hard to find groups that agree with all sort of doctrines, but we need to curb the making stuff up off the cuff (that even I am guilty of).
So then John Doe who says "Yeah, I'm a Christian. I went to church once when I was a kid. I think Jesus is a cool guy." wouldn't really count as a Christian (I mean, not that we would forbid him from participating on the site, but we wouldn't accept his answers as meaningful)
It's mostly about identify what those doctrines are and who they belong to.
@Flimzy He as a person is still in scope as a "Christian" but the site definition (not changing) but an answer that starts with "I think" will probably miss the mark on the quality guidelines we're suggesting.
And just about anything that asks about "Christianity" as a whole is going to be too broad.
@Flimzy That would be a survey question, which isn't ideally suited for this format. It's like asking "how big is an int on all the various computer platforms?" on SO.
Christianity is quite different from SO in that people who ask Christianity questions often don't know which "language" or "platform" they're using--they just want a good answer.
If I'm concerned about whether it's a sin for me to get a Tattoo, then I'm not really interested in knowing the 1001 different doctrines on it... I want to know the principles behind the doctrines, so I can decide which makes sense.
I could ask about mennnonites, or presbyterians--the two denominations I happen to attend...
@Flimzy And that's fine. But generic questions should be closed until they can be refined to determine what tradition they are asking. We need to be very careful to separate this from Yahoo answers as well as GotQuestions.
To me, it's not asking for a survey of beliefs, but a list of principles that apply to the belief. maybe there's not much difference, though, in the context of this site
@Flimzy Which I think is what the end-goal is here. Questions of the form, "How do I open a file programatically? <no language or platform specified>" do get asked, and do catch flack. There's a certain minimum amount of research expected to ask even the simplest questions.
@Shog: The difference is that with Christianity, a person may be asking, with the willingness to "adopt" whichever language/platform applies. Note that I'm not saying that makes it a good question... just that the nature of the questions is often quite different.
@Flimzy I agree and understand. However, how does that attract experts? How does that draw in good answers? Most importantly, how can any SE site survive without experts?
I think it's important to be able to ask "Is it a sin to get a tattoo". But I don't think that this format is well suited for those types of questions. The GotQuestions site is well suited to that format (and indeed, that's where the question originated).
@Flimzy Even on SO, you'll run across questions from folks who honestly have no vested interest in any particular language. Because they're not programmers. If you tell then, "Download FORTH, and then type this, that's how you open a file on a computer.", they might actually do it.
Which is horrifying. Even though I rather like Forth.
@Shog9: There's still a fundamental difference that when somenoe is asking how to open a file, they have a reason that transcends the need to open a file--which makes context inherently important. When someone asks if getting a tattoo is a sin, that is all they really need to know. The question is the complete context that matters to the one asking the question.
Again, I understand it's still hard to answer that question :)
@Flimzy Well, it's hard because you - as the answerer - are tasked with fabricating background information. Imagine answering, "How should I recover gracefully when the file I'm trying to open doesn't exist?" without language or platform: first you need to identify all the possible ways in which this failure could be problematic, then you need to consider all possible meanings for "gracefully" in the context of a program you have no details on, then you need to write up lengthy treatments...
That said, there are contexts on SO where platform is irrelevant: if you ask for an efficient algorithm for picking prime numbers, that can be answered without regard for language or platform. But here again, for the asker to recognize that this is an algorithmic problem takes a fair bit of preexisting knowledge.
@Shog9: The difference is that in the context of SO, the asker knows the context, and can, if they desire, provide it. In the context of "Is X a sin?", the asker often does not know the context, other than "I want to do the right thing."
None of this is to say that we must allow such questions... Even if the asker's perspective is logically valid, that doesn't necessarily make it a good fit for this format.
I just think it's important to recognize the implications of forbidding such questions... it's not as simple as asking the asker to relay more context, because more context may not exist.
@Flimzy They do know the context though. Assuming it's a real problem. It might not be the sort of context folks on the site want (pastoral advice), but if there's a reason for asking beyond idle curiosity, then there is context.
@Flimzy And that's for y'all to decide. I'm just saying, there are more similarities to SO than you might think. Non-programmers do ask complicated questions on SO, made all the more complicated by the fact that they lack the background to ask informed questions.
Shog9: I disagree. I think the only context necessary for "Is getting a Tattoo a sin?" is "I am a Christian." Just because I attend a Baptist church doesn't mean I consider every view Baptists have on tattoos to be the final word on whether it's a sin. I want a much broader view.
And asking 1001 unique questions, "Is getting a Tattoo a sin according to X tradition?" doesn't really solve the problem... although it does result in 1001 easily-answerable questions, it doesn't really help the asker.
Of course, a better question would probably be "WHY is getting a tattoo (not) a sin according to X?" But I wouldn't expect someone asking that question to have enough info to ask that question in the first place (without first having asked the former question)
@Flimzy So why are you asking? Do you want to commemorate a loved one? Does your biker gang require it? Do you have cancer needing radiation treatment?
@Flimzy We don't expect all aksers to give us a perfect question the first time, that's why we are going to have to prompt for directoin and help edit them into shape.
@Flimzy In the case of such a simple yes/no doctrine it might be reasonable to ask for the arguments for both or to ask for what theological frameworks lead to which answer.
@Ray Well, in theory yes. But in reality... not really. We might end up being elected as full time mods when/if the site goes public. But if the site goes public (or the users revolt) it's possible for us to lose our positions. We really do want to do what is best for the community. (And we want community support for it.)
@Ray If people like you speak up on this issue we won't have to :) We are still representatives acting on behalf of the good of the community as a whole.
@Richard Or convince us that we are wrong and that there is a better way to fix the problem. (If we are wrong and there isn't a problem, we might not be interested in hanging around ourselves.)
Although I would argue you don't want everyone to be on board. Personally there are some here who I wouldn't mind if they decided the site wasn't worthwhile with the restrictions
@Ray And there are some good answers to bad posts. Because of all the noise, it was quite a challenge to try to figure out what "good" and "bad" meant in context of C.SE.
Well I appreciate the effort you folks have been putting into it. It is clear from the Google Doc alone that this has been a ton of work and though poured into it
@Flimzy Thanks. We're going to keep going and propose some specific guidelines and there will be no shortages of things that need to be edited to bring them up to par. Just fixing my own questions and answers is going to be a daunting task.
Alright I think I've done all the editing I can for tonight. I did a complete rewrite of the question/answer guideline suggestion posts. I used a few tidbits from feedback we've gotten from the first post. I'll be back around in ~8-9 hours and continue that process.
There are two ways to help in the cleanup effort that is beginning on Christianity.SE.
Join us in the specially created chat room
Comment on our google doc that we are using to work out some of the upcoming meta posts.
This effort, while currently in its infancy, will hopefully help this sit...
