@Waggers: Re your comment in the GoogleDoc -- We weren't sure what to do with those because they don't really fit in any specific place in the posts we've planned but we found it useful for ourselves to have them around so we were all using the same definitions while writing together. What do you think about writing a reference meta post that just tries to give some definitions like that that can be used in common across the site?
@Caleb I can see that going two ways. If we can agree on some definitions it would be a helpful resource to make sure we're all on the same page. But agreeing definitions could be a can of worms, as we've already seen with arguments about the site's definition of "Christianity".
Of course, people could voting to choose the definitions they most agree with. The trouble is that the set of definitions with the highest votes isn't set in stone since there's no time limit etc on voting
@Ray No, but if we're looking for community agreement I'm not sure the original poster, whoever he/she happens to be for that particular question, should have the casting vote
I could ask a question, answer it with my own weird definitions, and accept it. That wouldn't make my definitions standard for the site - or at least I certainly hope it wouldn't
@Waggers right, we are looking more to build consensus, gain support, be shown we are wrong etc.
essentially out of this we want to build some guidelines on questions an answers (the next post) solicit opinions/comments/quarrels etc and modify, update them.
@Waggers I don't think these others terms would be nearly so hard. Also consider that terms like 'exegesis' and 'doctrine' are not very widly understood even inside Christianity. People that don't know what they mean typically don't use them. A little education would help those people arrive at a working knowledge of what is meant, and the people that know what they mean anyway and have their own ideas about how to use them are a probably also well aware of the OTHER possible usages.
@Caleb right, and lets not forget we are supposed to be an expert site, expert sites should use expert terminology (correctly with some agreed upon definition obviously)
I don't think it's likely we're going to want to define terms we don't have tags for
I've proposed a change to the doctrine definition (I don't have tag wiki edit privileges so it's in the queue). The current exegesis definition is quite comprehensive so I'm leaving that alone for the time being. It could probably do with shortening at some point though, I doubt many people will want to read all that
@Waggers What I was getting at was more that once you get concensus, you can accept an answer and worry a bit less about other answers getting more votes over time
I think definitions are important. However, I added them just to make sure that everyone understood the context that we are referring to when we say "doctrinal" versus "exegetical" questions. The line gets very blurry and so we had to come up with a very clear explanation. The source of this has been meta posts on BH.SE and discussion here.
I don't think that these definitions are good or valid for use outside of these discussions. Furthermore, I think they are quite invalid. However, we need to be able to say "This is a non-doctrinal exegetical question" and be understood by everyone. So, I added the definitions in order to be clear.
Sorry if this is old ground.... I fully support the drive to up the quality and attract experts to the site. But is there a risk that in doing so we might alienate the casual enquirer who just (genuinely) wants to know more?
The risk is there and we haven't talked about it much. But some things that we should definitely be doing. 1. Be friendly about it. help new users edit their posts into shape 2. Remember its an expert site.
(Trying to think of another awkward yes/no question....)
Arguably it's harder to attract experts than (not sure of the right word here - "uneducated" sounds completely demeaning) enquirers, so our efforts should definitely be on the former. No question there
@Richard Excellent comment in meta by the way... " there are three types of questions: What is the belief or application of X? (doctrine) What is the meaning of the Biblical passage Y? (exegesis) What is the difference between ESV and NASB? (factual) All expert quality questions must fall into one of these three categories"
There's a holy trinity joke to be had in there somewhere
@Waggers It's a distinction that took us a day to hash out. We saw that we wanted to refine things to doctrine, but then realized that we wanted personal exegesis to be on topic as well (which we've back-pedalled a little bit on). Finally, we accepted that factuaion questions (ESV-vs-NASB, historical, etc.) must be on topic as well.
Truthfully. I expect that there's some small genre that we're missing out on. Hopefully lumping everything else into "factual" is a flexible enough guideline.
Once we get some examples in there, I am fully supporting the current version of the next post (Suggested Questions Guidelines).
We need to get examples and so we probably should use examples from whoever posts it. I don't care who decides to post it. I can, if you'd like, but I think we agreed that each person should post one of these. So, either @Caleb or... someone else (I guess @waxeagle posted the initial question).
* rather that each post should come from a different person here.
I don't have time to work up examples from my posts at the moment but I could do the next post if you like.
@Richard I like your examples in each catagory but I do think those would be better served in an answer. I want to keep this one a little bit on the shorter and readable side so it makes a good long term reference to link in comments.
Without the examples, are we go for post on this? @waxeagle @Richard?
In response to Can we reverse the trend on low quality posts? we would like to propose the following thoughts on what defines a good focused question.
The primary focus of this site is a place to ask questions about Christianity. We have identified a couple of key aspects of constructive questi...
@Caleb Actually, this makes an excellent point that we don't need to have the examples in the question. If we remove the examples, I'm good to go with it as it is.
@Waggers basically its intended as more of a forum type post. Discussion/dissent/assent are encouraged. Possibly finding examples from your own questions of good or bad questions.
Also suggestions for modifications and improvements are welcome in answers
@Waggers For now answers that agree or disagree and present examples / case studies are encouraged. Suggestions on how to improve these guidelines are also welcome. Eventually there will be more of a call to action in editing new questions and cleaning up old ones.
Voting up is a good start though, we can't move ahead with making these proposed guidelines actual guidelines if it's not clear the community is onboard.
@Ray this doesn't work if its the 5 of us trying to impose our will on you guys. Its your site. Plus this is going to be a lot of work to get it cleaned up, and if our top users don't buy in and commit to doing some of it its too much for the mods...
@Ray If we're going to make this work, community buy-in is critical. The moderators can't manage a change of this size on their own. We have to have community support.
@Ray yes. Although that hasn't been discussed much
we haven't really talked about how to implement changes. We don't want to break the front page, but there are probably 100+ questions that need to be closed/edited/improved
@Ray right the question will be which of 3-4 different paths are we going to take
1. Close old stuff until OP or caring comm member returns and edits into shape (can then be flagged for reopen) 2. Compile a list and gradually go through and edit 3. Ignore old stuff unless it resurfaces and then clean it up Whatever we do as soon as we reach some consensus that these are the guidelines to follow they should be applied to all new questions.
@Ray Yes, as we gain some consensus on what the goal is we have some ideas on how to get there if people are willing to pitch in and do some of the work. There will be lots of commenting, editing, flagging, VTC/VTR etc to be done.
We can't just tell people to go get to work without some relatively stable guidelines to work from tho.
@waxeagle I don't think #1 should be an option; its a bit overkill. #2 seems most reasonably. #3 largely defeats the purpose of what we're trying to do
@JustinY basically a combination of all 3 is really what I see as being teh best solution. 1. Close the egregious stuff, bikeshed questions and whatnot. 2. compile a to fix list and start on it. 3. if stuff that is down the list comes up to the front fix it while its on the front page anyways...
Just catching up on the 'new focus' effort if any of you went through this on programmers.SE you'll know how annoying this can be if you hold a minority opinion. I'm glad we're requesting adding 'doctrine or bible' backup to everything, but could we just switch it to 'scripture and tradition'.
That's essentially what we mean. We've often used the phrase "doctrinal tradition", since we're trying to encompass everything from traditions of a denomination to the YEC movement.
I'll add an answer to the questions post about this.
For reference, I think it's important to define our terms:
Doctrine - the body of beliefs established and supported by a group of people
Doctrinal Questions - Questions regarding the beliefs and practices of the group of people.
NOTE: For the purposes of this discussion, these questions in...
@PeterTurner That's just different words for the same thing. Your "tradition" is doctrine -specifically established church doctrines- and scripture/bible are interchangeable anyway, although I do like scripture better.
Not to rehash these questions:
Should history questions be on topic?
What are the limits on history/historical questions?
Are questions on what Christians have done in history on-topic?
But in refocusing to be Christian-Doctrine-and-Biblical-Basis.SE have we ignored the limits we previously s...
@ElendiaStarman the former was valid language, but confusing. And we can't afford to confuse people...its bad enough we didn't do this a month and a half ago :)
@ElendiaStarman true, but honestly we knew the question quality was bad...BH.SE showed us just how bad. And how untenable situation we were in if it continued
@Richard I haven't read in a while but unless it's been majorly re-written since I did yesterday there probably isn't much for me to object to or add :) I'll give 'er a quick read but I'm trust you guys :)
In response to Can we reverse the trend on low quality posts? we would like to propose the following thoughts on what defines a good supported answer.
In order to give a valid answer about Christianity, it will almost always be necessary to reference a specific doctrine, biblical passage, or oth...
@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.
In response to Can we reverse the trend on low quality posts? we would like to propose the following thoughts on what defines a good focused question.
The primary focus of this site is a place to ask questions about Christianity. We have identified a couple of key aspects of constructive questi...
For reference, I think it's important to define our terms:
Doctrine - the body of beliefs established and supported by a group of people
Doctrinal Questions - Questions regarding the beliefs and practices of the group of people.
NOTE: For the purposes of this discussion, these questions in...
Not to rehash these questions:
Should history questions be on topic?
What are the limits on history/historical questions?
Are questions on what Christians have done in history on-topic?
But in refocusing to be Christian-Doctrine-and-Biblical-Basis.SE have we ignored the limits we previously s...
