I second, no third, no fourth, make that fifth the sentiment. This is a fascinating factoid but it's useless here without some references. You're using secular history (without using any actual history to back it up) to suggest how a sacred text should be understood. I'm totally ok with that but you have to give us the history, then show how it's relevant to interpreting the text. Otherwise it sounds like you're just throwing out wild speculations. — Caleb2 days ago
"It seems like you feel this dogmatic bias in the site’s moderation makes it harder for people who share your views to participate, or even to new users to join. And absolutely I agree with you there."
@Dan "Let me make an entirely positive alternative suggestion: if there were more upvotes of answers that were consistent with the consensus here, such as it is, there's be less issue with the presence of answers that lead to fraught conversation." interesting
@JackDouglas the conclusion ties it up for me: "I'm not saying that Jack is right, or that I agree with his point of view. I'm new here so I don't have enough to base an opinion like that. What I am saying, though, is that if you want to change the current situation, your strategy might be wrong."
Monica and I have this same discussion, I think NPOV-lite or whatever is unwelcoming and will put many folk off and she thinks the status quo does that
I guess everyone knows both are true to a degree
but we differ on to what degree
@Dan no-one thinks that
seriously I've always fully appreciated your engagement
I can't remember if the conversation was with you or someone else, but my bias is coming from a tradition where one actually should not ask biblical life application questions to anyone other than one's priest
Yes this site welcomes all, in the same way that my club analogy welcomes all. But what we're doing is saying "all are welcome -- you don't mind if I blow smoke in your face, I hope".
Promoting minority posts just because they're minority posts would be even worse -- in addition to the loss of integrity, it sends a message of "there there little girl, have a cookie and feel better".
So allow me to clarify where I think I may slightly disagree with @MonicaCellio (and with @JackDouglas): I am acknowledging that neutrality is actually a doctrinal stance and thus is just a difference of 'cigar' vs. 'cigarette' smoke (both are smoke). I am actually arguing for it anyways, while acknowledging that it is a doctrinal stance (pluralism/relativism)
I'm not asserting dogma. I could, you know, but it would feel rude. I'm saying that, knowing that it's contentious, we should both check it at the door.
@Dan I'm arguing for being as inclusive of diverse viewpoints as we can -- by sanctioning none of them.
@JackDouglas so tell me -- how's it working on C.SE? I don't really follow it, but I gather that they take on core divisive issues without the Catholics and the Calvinists and the Orthodox all beating each other up, right? How?
@Dan but if someone from some off-shoot branch started asserting things like that God is actually four not three, or that Jesus didn't die, how would that fly?
You have to understand that there will always be some cognitive dissonance in any system that embraces postmodernity (it is a self-defeating philosophical ideology)
so we will never have a system free from dissonance and outliers
the goal is to include as much as we can without including too much
And that line is easier to find consensus on in the company of a majority of Protestants than it is in a company with Jews and folks from both western and eastern Christian faith
@Dan sure. I'm not saying there won't be cognitive dissonance. I'm saying that how we express those diverse perspectives has a huge impact on how they are received, and that there is no cost other than acknowledging that one isn't necessarily Absolutely Right About Everything in doing it in a qualified way.
@Dan I can see that. And I've said more than once that if this site decides it wants to assume a Christian baseline that's fine -- if it's declared explicitly.
@MonicaCellio and where we would differ is that I think with the exception of the most egregious cases, trying to enforce neutrality in answers is a losing battle (i.e. waste of my time, I won't fight that war)
@JackDouglas what was recorded at the Council of Such-and-Such is a fact. The triune nature of God is an opinion. Both are axioms but one has a firmer foundation than the other.
@Dan while to me, if we can't have some degree of qualified neutrality -- it really is a matter of politeness and respect to me -- in answers, then I'm not interested in helping this site.
@JackDouglas and some new evidence comes to light we can re-examine it. We could discover new elements some day too, but that doesn't mean the scientific community doesn't have some understanding of how atoms work.
@Dan yeah, we need to have a written-up guideline, and then link it all over the place, and recognize that it will take time. But we've got to stop just assuming it's fine now and there's no need to change.
@JackDouglas such-and-such teaches... and "Christianity" is usually too broad except for the core ideas (like Jesus :-) ). You need to be more specific. But it's good for you; don't be afraid of backing up assertions.
@Dan no, I mean delete votes, the things that only something like five of us can cast (and two of those people aren't around much), plus mods who won't.
@Dan I'm not arguing for wikipedia-style NPOV. I'm arguing for being more aware of our mixed context and the need to be polite and respectful to all in the room, even if it means adding some qualifying language around what is obviously True And Important to you. 'Cause we're not all in the same camp here and we want to be civil.
I found a throw-away critique of Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem in an essay about Deconstruction:
The basic enterprise of contemporary literary criticism is actually quite simple. It is based on the observation that with a sufficient amount of clever handwaving and artful verbiage, you can...
@MonicaCellio yes I know, but no one agrees on what that language should be - unless we make it clear that we want it to come from a specific perspective: that of pluralism/relativism
@JackDouglas deletions show up as "deleted by Foo, Bar, and Baz", so yes. That's why I'm asking you to cast the third one. You're a mod but you're also a user.
@Dan everything I know about "postmodernism" comes from discussions on this site. I'm the wrong person to get involved in philosophical nuance on that; I'm after practical, achievable improvement.
whether I like it or not that diamond has weight and I cannot imagine a case when I'd want to cast the third delete vote but not be willing to cast the first
@JackDouglas I'd still like to see some examples to clarify that -- posts that would be handled differently if we did that. I'm having trouble understanding how it improves things just from the description, so if you could illustrate for me...
@JackDouglas so leave a comment? Jon has been the "third user vote" on some posts. You don't give up being a user.
@JackDouglas you might want to do some asking around then. Ok if you're unwilling to act as a user then I respect that, but I don't think what I'm asking (and what Jon has done) is unusual. I've certainly seen it on other sites. I haven't searched MSO for guidance on that, nor asked in TL.
This can be used in "grey areas" where a moderator can choose to give his or her opinion but not make a decision alone.
I don't see the point. Moderators can already leave comments, thus making their opinions known, just like normal users. Moderators can edit poorly-worded questions, just li...
@Dan thanks for looking. I wish the delete queue were as obvious as the review queues. (Also complete; older delete votes are still there but are completely unindexed.)
@Dan it's full of unsupported assertions; it all falls down if you don't understand the answerer's process. But again, I'm not asking for blind votes but that you take a look and consider, which you're doing. Thanks!
They would have to make a racial slur or it would have to be 'not an answer' or something that looks like a person who escaped from a mental ward and spends their entire day phoning into AM radio talk shows about conspiracies posted it
@JackDouglas yeah, the question is bad (hence my DV); there are two good questions that could be asked out of those sources, but he didn't ask either and tying them together is kind of "out there".
@JackDouglas ok thanks. I assume by that that you mean "would be closed by a mod on noticing it", not "would be closed by community", right? That helps. If you can point out a few more that'd still help me. (Doesn't have to be right now; I have to drop off very shortly for Shabbat.)
It's not that amusing if you take into account that postmodernism is so ironically meta-clever that you can be postmodernist by rejecting postmodernism — ChuckJun 8 '11 at 20:56
We're all arguing over whose cognitive dissonance is better ;)
@Dan I, on the other hand, contend that a postmodern cannot reject postmodernism without becoming a modern. The postmodern position (as I see it) takes a humble attitude toward epistemology: this is what I believe, but I could be wrong. For the sake of civility, I will not argue with your a priori assumptions which are equally as likely to be wrong as are my own.
To me, it's fair to point out that we have different presumptions, but it's rude to say that yours are wrong. It's presumptuous, but understandable, to say that my belief framework is correct.
The way to defeat an argument that begins from a set of axioms that are self-evident to the author is not to show that the axioms are wrong, but to show that they produce results inconsistent with reality.