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Dan

03:51

@JackDouglas seemed fine to me, guess it's irrelevant now

@JonEricson you are correct, I can't really find a good term to use. Any ideas? You're better versed in philosophy than me and I have (somewhat knowingly) been using terms incorrectly here

15 hours later…

Jon Ericson

18:30

The fifth panel also applies to postmodernists.

Don't know the right word for this, but "overly-clever" or "intentionally obscure" might fit.

Dan

@JonEricson assuming this was meant in a nice way (not so sure it was), I'm still at a loss for how to express what I believe should be our site worldview. The perspective I'm trying to advance needs a better label

Jon Ericson

When you get right down to it, postmodern is more about rejecting an idea (that we can have a unified vision of the world) rather than an embracing of one.

Dan

@JonEricson true

Jon Ericson

@Dan As a self-labeled postmodernist, I can laugh at the comic and nod in agreement. My view requires some flexibility.

@Dan I'm not yet sure I understand the perspective.

I'm writing up an answer to this question:

Q: What was wrong in the question about Jesus' family?

This question was closed because "it is primarily opinion-based". At the moment it is much edited so it has lost its original content. I don't understand why this is "opinion based". It refers to the Bible but only as a primary source of everyday life of people. I don't ask if Jesus was a Messia...

Dan

@JonEricson that's because I'm not a true adherent of my own perspective, I just think it best for this site

Jon Ericson

18:37

@Dan That's always a difficult place to start.

Could you look at the meta-post on history I just linked to and let me know if the original version of the question would fit on this site?

Dan

@JonEricson based on current standards as enforced, yes. But to make me perfectly happy, I'd add references after the first sentence: (Matthew 13:55 & Mark 6:3)

then it would clearly be about a text

Jon Ericson

@Dan Right. Me too.

Let me finish writing up my response and then I'd like to talk about it. I think it will reveal a bit of the differences in site philosophy that are important to why I love BH so much.

Dan

@JonEricson to address this again, though - I do believe the site has multiple worldviews that can coexist even though they may conflict (pluralism)

from an OP's perspective (OP of a question), the site worldview is always subjective and relativist

Jon Ericson

@Dan Pluralism is a good label. Postmodern relativism is one strategy for making that work.

Dan

but from an answerer's perspective, one does not need to acknowledge relativism, even though their answer will be evaluated in a relativist framework.

Frankly, even the person asking a question doesn't need to acknowledge relativism, although failure to do so would be an irony I could laugh at :P

because when they accept an answer....

meta for the win

@JonEricson maybe I need to drop the whole worldview argument altogether and just start arguing that we need to close questions that make unsupported leaps of logic

But not necessarily answers (although I recommend DVing them into oblivion if commenting doesn't turn them around)

Jon Ericson

18:46

@Dan I'd just start doing it, if I were you. Close first, edit if you can, and defend your actions in meta if necessary.

Dan

so edit/close questions heavily, let comments and votes handle the answers

@JonEricson I think you're right

Jon Ericson

@Dan A winning strategy. As the site grows, y'all need to be more free with downvoting.

Dan

@JonEricson I'm already pretty free with it

@JonEricson in fact I'm becoming a culprit for DVing first time users without leaving comments, which I need to not do

But I have a standard - if it looks like they somehow mistook us for a forum (generally their rant is only a paragraph or so), then it is an automatic DV

We have an about/faqs page, they'll figure it out

but if it looks like someone with some knowledge who may be a great asset to the site, I'm happy to bend over backwards to help them adjust to site standards

Jon Ericson

@Dan Works for me. All the "anonymous downvotes are ruining the site" arguments are predicated on the idea that everyone who comes to the site could be an asset to the site if only they were given a chance. We know that's not true.

Dan

@JonEricson bingo

Jon Ericson

18:59

One caution: it's hard to tell from a single post which camp a new user will end up in.

Dan

@JonEricson I agree, I'm always hesitant to DV a user whose score is anything other than 1 or 101

But when I see those two scores, I don't mind

1 because it doesn't really hurt them anyways

101 because they should often know better

but if their score is 2-100 or 102+, I generally look at their profile to see previous activity first

If they have one other post littered with DVs, well....

@JonEricson there seems to be a strong bias that the Bible is not a reliable historical source over at History.SE

(and yet if we apply similar standards to other ancient texts, we soon have NO reliable history)

Jon Ericson

@Dan Yes. I'm going to address that very issue in my answer. ;-)

Dan

@JonEricson excellent

@JonEricson are you familiar with David Bentley Hart?

Jon Ericson

@Dan No. Hmmm...

Dan

@JonEricson you would probably enjoy reading amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashionable/…

amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashionable/…

worthy of a one-box

The book is published through Yale

Jon Ericson

19:07

@Dan A sample is on its way to my Kindle. ;-)

Dan

And I only found out later that DB Hart is Orthodox, which made it that much better :P

But the guy is a brilliant philosopher

And he does not tow the Orthodox party line by any means (he's not too fond of institutional religion)

so no worries about hearing the Orthodox 'mantra' in this book

It is an original essay, well-written, well-reasoned

@JonEricson it is a great critique of modernism and modern revisionist history

Dan

19:25

@JonEricson please post a link to your response on the history meta question once you finish

Jon Ericson

@Dan Of course. ;-)

2 hours later…

Jon Ericson

21:40

A: What was wrong in the question about Jesus' family?

Some topics are known to cause flamewars on the Internet. A history site needs to handle a number of classes of question with care: Politics (in the sense of answers having implications in current political struggles) Conspiracy theories Perceptions of minorities Religion (especially when touc...