I noticed that some of the tags that are made up using transliterated Hebrew words are not spelled consistently. For example, some of the tags in the general category of "hasidut" are spelled with an "h", and some are spelled without the "h".
Is this intentional? Can it be fixed?
Question about learning nevi'im: can anyone here recommend any good English books that provide a moderately detailed of each of the sifrei nevi'im?
this is for myself; I started a project to review (and in many cases learn for the first time) nevi'im, but I'm finding that reading inside—even with meforshim—is too much "in the weeds" to get a real sense of what's being conveyed
@eykanal Check out also the Tanach sections at YU Torah and the VBM
With Tanach, every commentary has a different style, and not every commentator has written on every book. So don't be afraid to try lots of different things.
@eykanal Create your own summaries. I had a great class in high school in which we had to write 5 line summaries of 5 Perakim per week. We were then quizzed each Friday, and nearly everyone did surprisingly well - and at least I retained most of what I learned. We did this for Neviim Rishonim only, but hey, once you get through that you might find yourself able to continue on or modify your style to better suit the more esoteric Nevuoth of Neviim Aharonim.
Does anybody feel up to cleaning up the yeshivish jargon in this question? We've asked this poster to be more careful about that in the past in comments and I think he honestly doesn't realize he's being cryptic, but I'm reaching the point of "downvote for incomprehensibility" and I'd rather not because I suspect there's a good question in there.
So (a) can someone address the instance and (b) what should we do about the general problem? (Or is it really just me?)
The answers to this question mention that the 13 attirubtes of God are not said in selichos when davening without a minyan. If one is saying selichot without a minyan, exactly what parts constitute the 13 midot which are skipped?
Is it just the attributes them selves Hashem, Hashem... v'nakei? D...
^ Looks like a dupe of the Q it links to. I think the asker (of the new Q) should post a bounty on the old question in stead of asking this one. Thoughts?
@MonicaCellio I've edited; see what you think. This particular asker tends to write with some jargony terms. Perhaps equally importantly, he tends to use some yeshivish syntax/usage ("by the seder" instead of "at the seder"), which can be difficult for the unused-to-it to read.
@MonicaCellio Curious: did you get lost in "after bracha" (sans hyphen, looks like a prepositional phrase)? I had to read that twice the first time, myself.
@MonicaCellio Anyway, that's (a). I haven't touched (b), you'll note.
@msh210 yup, noted. I don't know whether we should go specific (is it this poster in particular?) or general (is it time to remind people about jargon?).
@msh210 that tripped me up a little but I know what an after-bracha is so I inferred the hyphen. And some of it I could puzzle out (I mean, I know bidieved, kos, etc), but it was the combination of all of it that threw me -- gratuitious jargon (augmented by translit differences sometimes), yeshivish grammar, sheer volume of it...
All: There seems (based on votes) to be rough consensus at meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/q/52 about how to handle jargon on the site. Basically, the consensus seems to be that the jargon policy should be what @IsaacMoses posted in the question, with a few tweaks as mentioned in the answers and comments. That's difficult to link to or cite as a policy, though, and I think that there should be a new Meta post [cont'd]
[cont'd] like these that formally delineates what the community has agreed to regarding jargon. I suppose what we should do is that someone should create such Meta post by copying and pasting parts of the Q, A's, and comments at the old Meta post. But that might lead to machlokes (disagreement) about what was actually agreed to there. [cont'd]
[cont'd] A way to avoid such machlokes would be to post a new Meta post asking people to communally edit a new jargon policy based on the old Meta post -- but that seems like overkill and may result in no actual policy post ever getting written. I'd welcome any ideas about what to do.
... cc @Daniel @DoubleAA @eykanal @HodofHod @Michoel @MonicaCellio @SethJ (MY regulars who've been in chat recently).
@msh210 Any jargon policy will then have to be enforced. What I've tried to do generally is take the liberty of editing and dejargonifying. I think that's the best approach overall, with or without a jargon policy. If someone doesn't know how to tone down their jargon and write in clear English on an English-language site with international readership with varying backgrounds, then a policy won't help them. It'll be our duty to advise and assist whenever necessary/possible.
@SethJ That's a good point, and I've edited posts also. (Especially questions, it seems to me, though I'm not sure why I focus on them more.) But it would be nice to be able to say "see [URL] for info on how to write better for this site", which we can't currently do. (Well, we can, but the URL we link to now isn't a very good one to link to.) People may be willing to write more clearly but unsure of just how their writing is unclear: the page at that URL will help.
@SethJ @msh210 I think there's a space between "rule that must be enforced" and "guideline (a) by which to edit and (b) that people can be pointed to". I'd like us to do the latter, but as already pointed out, the current meta post is not set up well for that.
I don't want to impose new requirements on posters; I want to help teach them, and also to invite/encourage those who know how to translate to edit those posts.
@MonicaCellio Yeah, I agree. I was taking @SethJ's "Any jargon policy will then have to be enforced" not as meaning "We must strictly enforce any jargon policy!" but as meaning "There's no point in having a jargon policy that we don't use, and there's no point in having a jargon policy if do use it without its even existing". (Maybe I misunderstood him, though.) And I was disagreeing with the second half of that.
@msh210 I did not entirely mean the second half. There is certainly a value in having something of a standard, but like you said, that would become very muddled very quickly. Like, immediately. The value may be less in the form than in its very existence.
@msh210 By being able to point to a policy, even if it's vague (and/)or even if it does not define what jargon is acceptable and what jargon is not (or how much is acceptable or how much is not), helps to draw a poster's attention to the fact that whatever they're writing is somehow too jargon-y.
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@msh210 And then we'll have to do what we currently do, which is either advise them or edit for them.
@msh210 Final thought: Part of the jargon problem may be one of self-discipline among us regulars. I use it when it suits me. Maybe it's because I'm not a mod and I can sort of say, "well, let the mods and community decide if/how it needs to be edited." And maybe that makes me a bad person or a bad contributor, but I'm not the only one.
@msh210 yeah, that makes sense. Over on another much-more-contentious site right now there are arguments about what it means to have "a policy" or "a rule", and I just wanted us to be clear that we're looking to guide posters and improve posts, not wield a big hammer -- which I know you know, but just to be explicit and all...
@msh210 I recommend one person doing their best at making a new, clean, faq post that incorporates all community-accepted elements of the discussion post, linking to that from the FAQ, adding a link to it as a new answer to the discussion post, and adding a comment or note to the FAQ post inviting comment at the discussion post.
I need an exhaustive list of all of the pesukim in tanach that contain the words דבש xor חלב (NOT both in the same Pasuk) with sources. Can anyone help me out?
@IsaacMoses @DoubleAA "How can I" is an interesting question. So is "Is there an existing list", but that will usually (i.e. maybe not for this pair of words but for most pairs) be a clear "no".
I need an exhaustive list of all of the pesukim in tanach that contain the words דבש xor חלב (NOT both in the same Pasuk) with sources. Can anyone help me out?
What is the site policy on using Hebrew terminology and other jargon in questions and answers?
