@Shokhet When I've had to use Greek I usually just copy paste letter by letter from the wikipedia pages of the letters. I'm usually only writing one word.
@DoubleAA I see. It's a very good thing that @Yishai posted his answer first, otherwise I never would have been able to figure out how to write that in :P
@DoubleAA I took trig-based physics....I'll probably have to take physics over in pre-med, so I might have to learn all them Greek letters.
I want to change the shaul tag to 'King-Shaul', because the gemarah in Sanhedrin (folio early 20s) says that a great sage was reprimanded for not giving proper respect to King Shaul (even though he is not the true king of Israel) — Emet v'Shalom1 min ago
I'll see what I can do about it; come on over to chat and we can discuss it with the people who have the ability to change it; or raise the issue on Meta. — Shokhet13 secs ago
The other day, I submitted this question about Tzedaka collectors. It was marked as a duplicate of this other question.
The linked question, however, had no answer. I understand the basic idea that the first question asked remains and mine is a duplicate. However, I see a few problems:
How do ...
A: Well, actually, on the way back from Israel, I was thinking about the Hayom Yom I told you about earlier, and how most people don’t follow it. I had the idea of perhaps creating a regular cycle that people can join that will allow them to complete Tanach (except for Chumash and Tehillim, which we complete already as part of Chitas) on a trimonthly basis. At this point, I’m fine-tuning the basic details of the cycle, to make sure that the portions will work out evenly, but I think this can be something that many people will embrace. And for those who fee…
> Q: How would you describe your experience in Israel? A: It was wonderful. All in all, it was a wonderful experience of ahavat Yisrael[love for one’s fellow Jews];everyone was helping each other, sharing study material and tips, and just drilling each other. Everyone knew that one contestant’s gain was another’s loss, but no one looked at it that way, which was beautiful.
So many layers of kiddush Hashem!
@DoubleAA There's room for each community to have a learning program that fits with their goals and morés. OU, Israel, Chabad, etc. I like the idea of the Israel one bringing all the Jews of the world together, but 1) that's admittedly a bit pie-in-the-sky, and 2) I'm sure Chabad feels the same way about some of their initiatives. As long as each program gets the critical mass of people necessary to keep itself going, I say the more, the merrier.
If I would have had the option to, I would have marked the duplicate the other way. You're around to appreciate the answers to your question and mark an answer as accepted; the guy who asked the other question has deleted his account. — Shokhet9 secs ago
@Shokhet I side with the initial question. Why mod-dupe with an unanswered question, if that's not possible through the normal, community-driven duping process?
I've seen before where some questions get closed as duplicates of unanswered(or even closed) questions. Is this behavior that should be encouraged?
For instance, there has been a few times where I was going to ask a question and found a similar question beforehand. The similar question had no go...
I'm wondering if it doesn't make more sense to close the earlier duplicate, if the earlier duplicate is unanswered.
As of now, I think, we close the most recent duplicate, regardless of answered-status.
But that more recent duplicate is listed higher up in the main page ("bumped" to use the wor...
As you may have noticed, Jarrod's been hacking away at some design changes to the "close as duplicate" UI. These are the first fruits of some discussions we've been having internally regarding the "close" UI as a whole, with the goal being a smoother, easier-to-understand experience for all invol...
Today, the behavior of duplicate close votes was changed so that a question can only be a duplicate close vote target if it has an upvoted or accepted answer. I think that this change is not a good one and that it should be reversed, for the following reasons:
The purpose of being able to close...
> The rationale here is that it can be fairly hard to discern whether or not an unanswered question is actually a duplicate, and even when it is closing doesn't really accomplish very much. When searching for a "canonical" answer in particular, duplicates without answers (or with bad answers) are just noise in the results.
I think the bias is in favor of "don't worry so much about dupes, unless they're preventing people from finding the one with a good answer."
OTOH a dupe question that's also low-quality crowds out the higher quality version, making it somewhat less likely to get found and answered, unless it's marked as dupe. So mods can do that.
@Double -- why not mark the dupe the other way around? This question has a higher score, and the OP is around to enjoy the answers, and mark one as accepted. — Shokhet7 secs ago
@Shokhet Actually, there, the dupe question is not particularly low in quality, so I'd be inclined to leave them both open, with cross-comments, until one gets an answer.
@Shokhet I support the closure. The current version is reopenable, but it does not reflect the meaning of the original question, which was about what the receiver, not the giver, is allowed to do.
@Shokhet Its my reopen vote. It's not "add some detail back"; it's "change the meaning back." If OP wants to ask a different question, that's up to him. The original question was clearly Rfפ and mustn't be reinstated as it was. I'll comment to clarify that going back to the original question from the POV of the receiver is fine, but not as Rfפ.
... but I think that votes to reopen the question in its present state are warranted.
One of our off-topic closure reasons is a psak-oriented question. Questions in which a person clearly provides his or her personal situation, followed by a question, are clearly in this category.
However, I have recently been nit-picked on several times by, in my opinion, overzealous users oppo...
I was reading this post about one person's issues with Stack Overflow, and something it said struck me (as I noticed the same thing, but didn't attempt to articulate it):
The "flavour" of StackOverflow today is entirely different than the flavour it had when I started. When I started the com...
@Daniel 1) It sends a strong message to the asker. 2) It allows readers to read our content and not see requests for pesak being answered as such, and therefore not get the misleading impression that we do that.
@YeZ We've discussed how to handle pesak-seeking questions, and I've advocated different approaches for different situations. Here's one where I edited (presumptuously) and commented instead of voting to close. ...
... The question was blatantly pesak-seeking, and on top of that, almost medical-pesak-seeking. However, a) It's from a user who's been around a while and certainly knows by now that we're not into that, so sending a message to him is probably of only marginal benefit, and b) it already got answers, so if he wants to act on what he reads here, he can already. So, I edited, including "I'm going to talk to my rabbi, but in general" to be extra clear, and also commented, finger-waggingly, ...
@IsaacMoses it's one's own problem any time they take psak from Mi Yodeya. I just don't think requiring hypothetical formulation communicates that you shouldn't do that
Looks like you guys already closed the post. I just asked my rabbi and he said if I had none it would be OK but the giver always could have a change of heart and so I cannot have 2 while he has zero and make it impossible for him to do the mitzvah for my simple convenience. It would have been cool to get the halacha behind it but it seems like it's causing a stir here =) — Baruch11 mins ago
OP got his psak. Can it be reverted and reopened now?
I think the details in the original question actually added some useful background. Not sure editing them out is really that helpful here. — Daniel2 hours ago
... The question was blatantly pesak-seeking, and on top of that, almost medical-pesak-seeking. However, a) It's from a user who's been around a while and certainly knows by now that we're not into that, so sending a message to him is probably of only marginal benefit, and b) it already got answers, so if he wants to act on what he reads here, he can already. So, I edited, including "I'm going to talk to my rabbi, but in general" to be extra clear, and also commented, finger-waggingly, ...
"is not necessarily always to close" Sometimes I think letting it sit closed for a few hours or days (before editing and reopening) can be a helpful way of forcing the OP to understand what Mi Yodeya does and does not offer. — Double AA ♦Aug 19 '14 at 3:11
I think you are grossly mistaken in your last paragraph. Questions on MY regularly get thousands of views from all over the place and they will be in place for years and years to come. The OP is in a sense the least of our worries. Just because a question is off the front page doesn't mean it isn't still being viewed. — Double AA ♦3 hours ago
@Baruch, the question can be reopened, but it has to be reworded a bit. I liked the first revision, that had the background and a lot of relevant information, but in order to maintain order around here, we have to make good and certain that nobody uses this site as a place for psak halacha. Why don't you edit your question a little more, and we'll see about reopening it? (you already have 2/5 required votes to reopen) — Shokhet12 secs ago
We've been discussing this in the chat room as well; if you don't want to join the discussion, you can read about it, starting from around here — Shokhet37 secs ago
@Scimonster It's annoying; why doesn't opening the message to edit and then pasting the same link in change anything? ....chat even takes a moment to have those floating squares reload as if they're going to change the message.
The other day, I submitted this question about Tzedaka collectors. It was marked as a duplicate of this other question.
The linked question, however, had no answer. I understand the basic idea that the first question asked remains and mine is a duplicate. However, I see a few problems:
How do ...
One of our off-topic closure reasons is a psak-oriented question. Questions in which a person clearly provides his or her personal situation, followed by a question, are clearly in this category.
However, I have recently been nit-picked on several times by, in my opinion, overzealous users oppo...
I was reading this post about one person's issues with Stack Overflow, and something it said struck me (as I noticed the same thing, but didn't attempt to articulate it):
The "flavour" of StackOverflow today is entirely different than the flavour it had when I started. When I started the com...
