@HodofHod, I'm just having a hard time understanding that if Hashem doesn't want us manipulating nature and rather understand that he is in charge, why would it matter what side of the coin I'm using. My gut is telling me there must be a distinction in whether or not I am manipulating nature- which would answer the question differently. But I'm an am haaretz in this area. If you had a source for your distinction, I'll buy it.

@YDK I don't have a concrete source for you, this is really a compilation of lots of different things I've learned over the years. Here's the important parts to remember:

A tzaddik can manipulate nature in a permitted way. This is straight from the Gemara. By definition then, when a tzaddik manipulates nature, he does it for the sake of G-d (or else he wouldn't be a tzaddik.)

It's not the manipulation of nature that Hashem doesn't allow (although in my understanding He wants it to be used sparingly), it's the manipulation of nature to the detriment of G-d's wishes

This then, is magic and sorcery (the "zeh l'umas zeh" of miracles).

I'm looking for sources, but I'm finding only secondary ones.

@YDK, Aish has an interesting article that touches on it:

aish.com/sp/ph/48938547.html

search for "Good Magic, Bad Magic"

The aish article wasn't helpful to me. it sort of sounded like miracles are euphemistically labeled magic acts. But what I understand you are trying to say is that the goal of miracles/kabbalah is to uphold an implicit or outright mitzva despite circumventing nature, whereas magic is circumventing nature to my benefit (or something along those lines).

@YDK Yes, that is one of the key ideas.

@Alex @msh210 that's only one of the two puns.

@IsaacMoses "I want". How did I miss that.

@MonicaCellio @HodofHod done, thanks for your input.

@msh210 I know it's unconventional, but do you mind leaving it undeleted for a few days so I can finish discussing the first comment?

@DoubleAA Are you referring to judaism.stackexchange.com/a/4234? Discuss it here.

Weekly topic challenge 5772-25 (week of Tzav 5772): Book division

@itzy, welcome!

Oh, @msh210, got some time?

@GraceNote If you don't need my undivided attention.

That meaning you are multi-tasking, or that you don't have a lot of time at the moment?

@GraceNote Well... the former. I have ~four hours: but I'll be multitasking during those hours. (I'm at work, and have work to do.)

Well, I wanted to discussing tagging on Judaism. Namely, meta.

@GraceNote Sure. What about it?

Is it a holdover from back with mi yodeya?

@GraceNote No. (Fuller explanation in a moment.)

I see.

@GraceNote These questions are in-scope for the site. But they also relate to the site. It's like (not the best analogy perhaps) if someone read the source code of the engine driving SE and asked a question about it on SO.

Oh, I think the tag belongs.

The categorization is good and useful (and your analogy is exactly what I used in an earlier research point), but I think that the label of the tag is honestly terrible and confusing.

@GraceNote Well, not a holdover in any negative sense. Did that tag exist back on m.y? Yes, I believe so. (And it was used for truly meta stuff, but that stuff's been moved to meta.J now.)

@GraceNote Maybe it just needs a better excerpt/wiki?

For example, this question, while Stack Exchange is an example, it's only that, an example.

@GraceNote That's true.

But I think that it deserves to be in the same categorization of questions as the ones that are SE-specific.

@GraceNote So you think we should have an "online forum" tag (whatever it ay be called) rather than a "meta" tag?

Maybe. Maybe even just internet, like on this question.

That way, we as a site are still very much covered in the tag's scope, and it's also not as confusing as to whether it belongs on the main site versus the meta site.

@GraceNote That makes sense. But internet has 71 questions, and the meta tag is useful for search (categorization). So perhaps just merge meta -> online-forum (or whatever it's to be called) is better.

@msh210 That sounds good

@GraceNote Thanks for bringing it up. No rush AFAICT, so I'll leave the situation as is until early next week to allow people to comment further here, in case someone has a better idea (or in case people think meta should simply be merged into internet as you suggested).

Thanks. Feel free to start a meta thread if you don't get enough eyes here in chat.

Anyone: Please read the above conversation, starting at chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/4019402#4019402 and ending here (only 21 posts total), and comment if you disagree with its conclusion, have a better idea, can think of a better tag name than online-forum, or, well, anything.

@msh210 Is online-forum designed to deal with questions about other online fora? (I don't think it should be and therefore don't particularly like the name.)

@DoubleAA If that's its name, then it'd kinda have to be. Can you think of a better name if the tag's to be only about SE?

@DoubleAA Not directly. We can, of course, undelete, comment, and delete.

@msh210 I haven't looked at the 71 posts tagged internet yet, but my gut reaction is to retag/merge in that direction. If it had occurred to me to look for an internet tag when I posted the question @GraceNote cited, I'd've used it.

Sorry about all the excitement here. I had no idea what I'd be setting off...

@MonicaCellio Fun times. :-)

@msh210 let's see if this one is a little more tame. :-)

@MonicaCellio :-)

@msh210 though it'll be ironic if it's so narrow that it generates a Tumbleweed. :-) (Speaking of which, I had no idea those were awarded on meta!)

@MonicaCellio It already got two 'answers' in comments. Well, the same one twice.

@msh210 What about judaism-se?

@DoubleAA Maybe. Or just stackexchange?

@msh210, I just got a "1" in the top left of my icon here and when I clicked on it it told me there were spam/offensive flags, but there weren't. I'm not a mod and chat has never told me about such notices. Any idea what tha means? (Did something I posted get flagged and it's telling me? If so I'd like to know what.)

@msh210 do we need a tag specifically about SE (or J.SE)? How many questions would that apply to, besides the "does J.SE count for learning torah?" one?

@MonicaCellio All the meta ones, no?

@msh210 thanks

@msh210 oh I see. Some of those are SE-specific, like voting and rep. Some aren't, like the 2 ask-a-rabbi questions. So we might need to do some cleaning up.

The rep/voting questions were asked about SE, but do they apply to other sites like reddit? (I don't use other sites with voting so don't know the landscape.) That might argue against making it an SE tag. Or not -- just thinking out loud here.

Have I mentioned recently that tagging systems are hard? :-)

@MonicaCellio I think they've been tagged meta if they (a) relate to, or (b) arose out of, J.SE concerns. Do you think we should restrict to (a), then?

@msh210 I'm leaning that way, with the non-SE-specific ones getting retagged as internet.

@MonicaCellio :-) I don't know whether you're familiar with Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sister dictionary Web site. It categorizes its entries (the same way Wikipedia puts its articles in categories, listed at the bottom of the article, as you may have noticed). One way it categorizes is by topic of the referent: if the referent of the word in question is a cat (e.g., the word 'cat' or 'Persian'), [cont'd]

[cont'd] then it may be in a "Cats" category. Many have been the arguments over how fine these topical categories should be, whether they should be allowed to overlap (Cats and Mammals?), whether (e.g.) "Mammals" should include 'hair', etc. (Just an interesting (I think) parallel.)

@msh210 interesting, thanks. I've followed the occaisional link to Wictionary but not spent a lot of time there.

A fundamental problem with most tagging systems, in my experience, is that they're not hierarchical. If tags were hierarchical then you'd tag something "cats" and still get it when you search "mammals"; with a flat tag system you end up multi-tagging, which can get out of hand.

@MonicaCellio Yeah... that is a big difference between our tags and Wiktionary's categories (and something I greatly miss about our tags).

I can't think of any other system I've used that used non-hierarchical tags as extensively as SE does.

@msh210 Unfortunately it makes finding the right tags hard too, either for search or for tagging a question. I've occasionally wondered about the feasibility of assembling a pseudo-hierarchy in a meta post or something, just to help with mapping the tag-space, but it seems daunting. I try to tag questions well and often feel like I had to just punt and wait for someone to help. :-(

@MonicaCellio Ditto (wondered about assembling a hierarchy in meta); and ditto (try to tag well and sometimes seek help).