I'm generally supportive. There would be a lot of details to figure out, and I have no idea if it would even be feasible or successful in the end. But if nothing else, I think it would be really...
I'm generally supportive. There would be a lot of details to figure out, and I have no idea if it would even be feasible or successful in the end. But if nothing else, I think it would be really useful to at least talk through the possibility in detail, because it would probably reveal some things that need to be worked on or improved.
Let's start out privately—I see the email you sent me, I'll reply to it. We can get some of the basics figured out, and if there are pieces that need more input or feedback we can post publicly...
Let's start out privately—I see the email you sent me, I'll reply to it. We can get some of the basics figured out, and if there are pieces that need more input or feedback we can post publicly about those later.
I just want to chime in and say that academic bible scholarship is not the same as theology, and I think it's a bit of a mismatch to place it as a subcategory of theology. Theology is the...
I just want to chime in and say that academic bible scholarship is not the same as theology, and I think it's a bit of a mismatch to place it as a subcategory of theology. Theology is the philosophical study of the divine and what we can know about it, but it fundamentally assumes there is something that is its object of study (I'm sure @suspended can clarify if I am wrong). Bible scholarship is more the study of the history, traditions, and cultural context that resulted in the scriptures we have today (and the ones we don't!). You could easily be an atheist or agnostic and be a bible scholar, but it would be harder to be an atheistic theologian.
I think that more academic discourse is exactly what Tildes needs in order to not become Reddit. I assume that this would go under ~humanities somewhere, perhaps ~humanities.religion?
I think that more academic discourse is exactly what Tildes needs in order to not become Reddit. I assume that this would go under ~humanities somewhere, perhaps ~humanities.religion?
There's no real rules here per se, other than @Deimos gets final say on everything. At most we have guidelines, but really it's more like a consensus of opinions. But no, I think that's a bad...
There's no real rules here per se, other than @Deimos gets final say on everything. At most we have guidelines, but really it's more like a consensus of opinions.
But no, I think that's a bad name. Taxonomies should go biggest to smallest, and if you've got two terms with equal weight they should be two categories. ~humanities.religion could have a .scholarly or .academic subgroup and then another casual discussion one in order to justify the existence of having such a specific group.
I think what you're talking about would end up more like a label than a subgroup at the moment. I believe Deimos has plans to build out the subgroup functionality over the long-term, but currently...
I think what you're talking about would end up more like a label than a subgroup at the moment. I believe Deimos has plans to build out the subgroup functionality over the long-term, but currently it doesn't really create a subcommunity the way subreddits do. You don't get a dedicated group of mods within it, and all subgroups are shown to all Tilderinos so you'll have the whole broader community watching instead of just interested parties and respondents.
That said, this would probably be a good use case to test out methods for creating subgroups if @Deimos wants to use it that way. I do think if we wanted to skim some of Reddit's more valued uses, subs like AskHistorians or this would be good examples of the good in Reddit we'd want to emulate.
Yep, that's possible, and would make more sense within the hierarchical group structure of the site. As for needing a subgroup like that, I think traditionally we'd usually only create a group so...
Yep, that's possible, and would make more sense within the hierarchical group structure of the site.
As for needing a subgroup like that, I think traditionally we'd usually only create a group so specific if we had a ~humanities.religion already, and askbiblescholars posts were drowning out other content, or needed their own specific place.
As for it being called "askbiblescholars" though, I could be off the mark but I recall reading discussions where some people agreed at one point "ask" groups were a bad idea and we'd rather have ask tags on threads in other categories, meta questions on ~tildes, and things like general surveys and questions on ~talk instead. So, like ~humanities.theology.academic etc, with a tag of "ask" would be normally used for a question thread.
I mean, it's a little bit moot anyway. The groups aren't even super relevant right now. I have no data to back it but I suspect most people are still subscribed to all the default groups, and rarely browse them individually. I'd wager most people just view the front page since we have so little content to wade through.
I think we shouldn't go overboard with hierarchical group names, and consider not having any group hierarchy at all. Wikipedia and Reddit have flat namespaces. They have their problems, but a lack...
I think we shouldn't go overboard with hierarchical group names, and consider not having any group hierarchy at all. Wikipedia and Reddit have flat namespaces. They have their problems, but a lack of hierarchical naming doesn't seem like one of them?
In particular, a hierarchy implies that we are building top-down, or at least planning that way, and I think community is better built bottom-up, with enthusiasts creating groups covering a particular sub-sub field they're interested in without regard to what else might come later. This particular request seems like a good example of that.
Also, being able to name your group for the specific thing you want to discuss seems like a prerequisite for smaller communities to get started? If a group doesn't have the right name then it might as well not exist.
Those being my biases and not wanting to shake things up too much, I would put it directly under humanities.
I'm not really advocating for one position or the other. TBH when the group structure is said and done I'll still only use it occasionally to find things and probably continue to browse the...
I'm not really advocating for one position or the other. TBH when the group structure is said and done I'll still only use it occasionally to find things and probably continue to browse the unfiltered list of all posts.
That said I think the reasoning was because Usenet worked that way? I dunno. Reddit's John Cena subreddit is called /r/potatosalad. There's got to be a middle ground.
I agree that we should have descriptive naming, whether or not it's hierarchical. And a shallow hierarchy isn't so bad, though there sometimes weird corner cases. Descriptive naming can have weird...
I agree that we should have descriptive naming, whether or not it's hierarchical. And a shallow hierarchy isn't so bad, though there sometimes weird corner cases.
Descriptive naming can have weird corner cases too, because what's descriptive depends on cultural knowledge. I'm sure /r/slatestarcodex is a completely mysterious name to people who aren't familiar with the blog, but from another perspective, it's consistent and straightforward to give it the same name as the blog. But I guess we could ask "how would Wikipedia name it" and get a reasonable answer.
Also don't forget we can move these groups around after making them, and change names, so it's not super-important for it to be in some kind of 'final' location.
Also don't forget we can move these groups around after making them, and change names, so it's not super-important for it to be in some kind of 'final' location.
More activity of all sorts is welcome here I think. I quite like the discussions in /r/AskBibleScholars and would be very happy to have them here as well.
More activity of all sorts is welcome here I think. I quite like the discussions in /r/AskBibleScholars and would be very happy to have them here as well.
When I requested the ~humanities group, I saw it as a collection of groups. I knew I wouldn't get a group for linguistics and history and philosophy, so I used the high-level category that...
When I requested the ~humanities group, I saw it as a collection of groups. I knew I wouldn't get a group for linguistics and history and philosophy, so I used the high-level category that included all these sub-groups. The point was to get somewhere for these posts to reside. And religion/theology is one of the humanities.
So, I believe that the function of asking questions of Biblical scholars would fall under the sub-group ~humanities.religion.christian with the tag "ask.experts".
I've been planning for this sort of thing for over a year and a half.
This isn't about whether your experts are Christians, it's about whether the subject matter is Christian - and the Bible is a Christian text. It's the foundation of Christianity. Questions about...
This isn't about whether your experts are Christians, it's about whether the subject matter is Christian - and the Bible is a Christian text. It's the foundation of Christianity. Questions about the Bible are questions about Christianity.
From the point of view of an expert, you're probably right. But experts won't be asking the questions. The questions will come from uninformed lay people. And to them, the Bible is a Christian...
From the point of view of an expert, you're probably right. But experts won't be asking the questions. The questions will come from uninformed lay people. And to them, the Bible is a Christian text. Who is this feature being set up for: the people asking the questions or the people answering them?
However, if you absolutely insist, then it can go under ~humanities.religion. Of course, it won't make sense to the majority of people to separate the Bible from the religion that's based on it. But it's your baby, not mine. I would put it where the majority of people will expect it to be, but you're obviously taking a different approach.
P.S. By the way... you can set up your "ask Bible scholars" feature on Tildes right now, with no changes or updates necessary.
Just tell people to post their questions about the Bible in ~humanities. We can then tag those questions with religion and bible and ask.experts (and christianity for those questions which are specifically about the Christian religion based on the Bible), and that's all that's needed.
No, I'm responding to you in a practical way. I'm pointing out how the real world works. An "ask" function is aimed at people who don't know, but want to learn. They won't know all the intricacies...
You seem to be responding to me in a dichotomous way (all or nothing, black and white, etc.) and this isn't how academia works.
No, I'm responding to you in a practical way. I'm pointing out how the real world works. An "ask" function is aimed at people who don't know, but want to learn. They won't know all the intricacies of whether the Bible is Christian or Jewish or henotheistic. They'll just know that the Bible is the foundation of Christianity, so, in their eyes, it is a Christian document.
Don't build your "ask" feature for the experts. Build it for the uninformed. Look at it from their point of view, not yours.
I notice that quite a few people here have assumed that your "ask Bible scholars" function would sit under religion or theology. Think about that. This is where non-experts will look for this feature: religion or theology.
(I used to moderate /r/AskHistorians, and I designed the structure of their FAQ. I have some experience in running an "ask" function that connects uninformed people with experts.)
Moving forward, I'd like to have preliminary discussions with @Deimos about this.
If he's the only person you're going to pay attention to, you probably should have messaged him directly, rather than ask for public input.
I'm backing you in a corner?!?! The only reason I pulled out the "AskHistorians" card is because I felt like it was the only way I could make you listen to me. You were pushing back on all my...
Why didn't you talk about this with me in the first place? Now I feel that you've tried to back me into a corner for further bullying.
I'm backing you in a corner?!?! The only reason I pulled out the "AskHistorians" card is because I felt like it was the only way I could make you listen to me. You were pushing back on all my suggestions, when I was legitimately trying to improve your idea and make it work - so I felt like I had to show you I had some relevant experience. I don't like to mention the AskHistorians thing if I don't have to.
My point was that your, particular, style of conversation is very fucking unnerving and unsolicited.
I don't understand this. People keep saying it (or something like it), and I just don't see it. I'm direct and blunt, but not disrespectful or rude. I'm sorry that I come across as however I come across. I don't mean to.
Depending on culture, context, and how someone is feeling today, being blunt can feel very rude. Doesn't mean you have to always word things in the most delicate way possible and walk on...
I'm direct and blunt, but not disrespectful or rude.
Depending on culture, context, and how someone is feeling today, being blunt can feel very rude. Doesn't mean you have to always word things in the most delicate way possible and walk on eggshells, but maybe tempering responses based on the context.
If someone doesn't know where to find the "ask Bible scholars" feature, then they won't turn up to be taught. The feature needs to be found by people who don't already know the finer points of...
This attitude would lead to further supporting that misleading belief in those people's minds. It would be best to discourage that, particularly in a setting that is aiming to teach them.
If someone doesn't know where to find the "ask Bible scholars" feature, then they won't turn up to be taught. The feature needs to be found by people who don't already know the finer points of Biblical scholarship - even if that means putting it in the wrong place.
at the least extending moderation should be a conversation to be had before "going right now".
I agree, and I was thinking this as I wrote that comment. However, I decided to focus on the technical issues of getting this function up and running - and with the current sub-groups and tags, that can be done right now, like I said.
The moderation is a different matter. But, you're right - there would need to be some moderation of a feature like this.
It seems to me that the case for intermediate groups is kind of weak. Is there really a navigation problem to be solved? For example, the "health" group doesn't have any intermediate group for...
It seems to me that the case for intermediate groups is kind of weak. Is there really a navigation problem to be solved? For example, the "health" group doesn't have any intermediate group for infectious diseases, and I don't think adding it would make the coronavirus group easier to find.
So it seems like, for now, we only need to create one group, the one requested, and put it directly under "humanities?" The intermediate groups you envision could be added later after the site has grown more, once the need for them is better understood.
This is exactly it. Groups can move, their names can change, and they can have short nicknames so we don't have to type out the whole taxonomic classification to visit them. When nicknames collide...
This is exactly it. Groups can move, their names can change, and they can have short nicknames so we don't have to type out the whole taxonomic classification to visit them. When nicknames collide or become too confusing we can have disambiguation pages just like wikipedia does. Groups might even exist at multiple different points in the hierarchy. Someday we might even move beyond a hierarchy to something else that works better if someone has clever ideas about managing it.
The hierarchy is going to be an ongoing management task that has no finish line, and no amount of human effort is going to be able to prevent that - it's the nature of embedding a complex social system into a technological tool. Just because it'll have a tendency to get messy at times doesn't mean managing that mess has to become a herculean task.
I think having an ask thread for academic discussion like this would be a wonderful addition to tildes! Just as another voice of affirmation, I think you guys are more than welcome here. Tildes...
I think having an ask thread for academic discussion like this would be a wonderful addition to tildes! Just as another voice of affirmation, I think you guys are more than welcome here. Tildes allows for the discussion of a lot of subjects and having more people, especially people who are very knowledgeable in another area, would be great to have!
Just want to comment to lend my support. Would be thrilled if this site became filled with the people the contribute to the /r/Ask[academics] subreddits.
Just want to comment to lend my support. Would be thrilled if this site became filled with the people the contribute to the /r/Ask[academics] subreddits.
I'll echo the others welcoming attitude as I think it would be a good fit here and wonderful addition to our approach to discussion. While not religious by any measure myself I have always found...
I'll echo the others welcoming attitude as I think it would be a good fit here and wonderful addition to our approach to discussion. While not religious by any measure myself I have always found the academic discussion of religion to be absolutely fascinating.
Isn't not understanding that distinction, on those dismissive users though? I mean, you could make every description noob-friendly, but that would make things even more confusing in the end.
Isn't not understanding that distinction, on those dismissive users though? I mean, you could make every description noob-friendly, but that would make things even more confusing in the end.
I'm generally supportive. There would be a lot of details to figure out, and I have no idea if it would even be feasible or successful in the end. But if nothing else, I think it would be really useful to at least talk through the possibility in detail, because it would probably reveal some things that need to be worked on or improved.
Let's start out privately—I see the email you sent me, I'll reply to it. We can get some of the basics figured out, and if there are pieces that need more input or feedback we can post publicly about those later.
I just want to chime in and say that academic bible scholarship is not the same as theology, and I think it's a bit of a mismatch to place it as a subcategory of theology. Theology is the philosophical study of the divine and what we can know about it, but it fundamentally assumes there is something that is its object of study (I'm sure @suspended can clarify if I am wrong). Bible scholarship is more the study of the history, traditions, and cultural context that resulted in the scriptures we have today (and the ones we don't!). You could easily be an atheist or agnostic and be a bible scholar, but it would be harder to be an atheistic theologian.
I think that more academic discourse is exactly what Tildes needs in order to not become Reddit. I assume that this would go under ~humanities somewhere, perhaps ~humanities.religion?
~humanities.theology maybe?
What do you suggest? Perhaps a ~history or some subgroup thereof?
Is their some sort of rule against multi word sub groups? Why not
~humanities.academicbiblical~humanities.askbiblescholars?There's no real rules here per se, other than @Deimos gets final say on everything. At most we have guidelines, but really it's more like a consensus of opinions.
But no, I think that's a bad name. Taxonomies should go biggest to smallest, and if you've got two terms with equal weight they should be two categories. ~humanities.religion could have a .scholarly or .academic subgroup and then another casual discussion one in order to justify the existence of having such a specific group.
I think what you're talking about would end up more like a label than a subgroup at the moment. I believe Deimos has plans to build out the subgroup functionality over the long-term, but currently it doesn't really create a subcommunity the way subreddits do. You don't get a dedicated group of mods within it, and all subgroups are shown to all Tilderinos so you'll have the whole broader community watching instead of just interested parties and respondents.
That said, this would probably be a good use case to test out methods for creating subgroups if @Deimos wants to use it that way. I do think if we wanted to skim some of Reddit's more valued uses, subs like AskHistorians or this would be good examples of the good in Reddit we'd want to emulate.
Good point, I can hardly think of a better use case.
Yep, that's possible, and would make more sense within the hierarchical group structure of the site.
As for needing a subgroup like that, I think traditionally we'd usually only create a group so specific if we had a ~humanities.religion already, and askbiblescholars posts were drowning out other content, or needed their own specific place.
As for it being called "askbiblescholars" though, I could be off the mark but I recall reading discussions where some people agreed at one point "ask" groups were a bad idea and we'd rather have ask tags on threads in other categories, meta questions on ~tildes, and things like general surveys and questions on ~talk instead. So, like ~humanities.theology.academic etc, with a tag of "ask" would be normally used for a question thread.
I mean, it's a little bit moot anyway. The groups aren't even super relevant right now. I have no data to back it but I suspect most people are still subscribed to all the default groups, and rarely browse them individually. I'd wager most people just view the front page since we have so little content to wade through.
I think we shouldn't go overboard with hierarchical group names, and consider not having any group hierarchy at all. Wikipedia and Reddit have flat namespaces. They have their problems, but a lack of hierarchical naming doesn't seem like one of them?
In particular, a hierarchy implies that we are building top-down, or at least planning that way, and I think community is better built bottom-up, with enthusiasts creating groups covering a particular sub-sub field they're interested in without regard to what else might come later. This particular request seems like a good example of that.
Also, being able to name your group for the specific thing you want to discuss seems like a prerequisite for smaller communities to get started? If a group doesn't have the right name then it might as well not exist.
Those being my biases and not wanting to shake things up too much, I would put it directly under humanities.
I'm not really advocating for one position or the other. TBH when the group structure is said and done I'll still only use it occasionally to find things and probably continue to browse the unfiltered list of all posts.
That said I think the reasoning was because Usenet worked that way? I dunno. Reddit's John Cena subreddit is called /r/potatosalad. There's got to be a middle ground.
I agree that we should have descriptive naming, whether or not it's hierarchical. And a shallow hierarchy isn't so bad, though there sometimes weird corner cases.
Descriptive naming can have weird corner cases too, because what's descriptive depends on cultural knowledge. I'm sure /r/slatestarcodex is a completely mysterious name to people who aren't familiar with the blog, but from another perspective, it's consistent and straightforward to give it the same name as the blog. But I guess we could ask "how would Wikipedia name it" and get a reasonable answer.
Also don't forget we can move these groups around after making them, and change names, so it's not super-important for it to be in some kind of 'final' location.
I've no objections at all, Tildes is the kind of place those conversations would be right at home.
More activity of all sorts is welcome here I think. I quite like the discussions in /r/AskBibleScholars and would be very happy to have them here as well.
When I requested the ~humanities group, I saw it as a collection of groups. I knew I wouldn't get a group for linguistics and history and philosophy, so I used the high-level category that included all these sub-groups. The point was to get somewhere for these posts to reside. And religion/theology is one of the humanities.
You'll notice that the various posts in ~humanities are tagged with "history" or "language" or "religion" - this is in anticipation of the top-level group being divided into sub-groups: ~humanities.history, ~humanities.language, ~humanities.religion.
In that context, ~humanities.religion is exactly the right spot for your intended feature.
A while ago, I raised a discussion about the definition and use of "ask" tags. As a result of that, @Deimos and I came up with the idea of an "ask.experts" tag.
So, I believe that the function of asking questions of Biblical scholars would fall under the sub-group ~humanities.religion.christian with the tag "ask.experts".
I've been planning for this sort of thing for over a year and a half.
This isn't about whether your experts are Christians, it's about whether the subject matter is Christian - and the Bible is a Christian text. It's the foundation of Christianity. Questions about the Bible are questions about Christianity.
From the point of view of an expert, you're probably right. But experts won't be asking the questions. The questions will come from uninformed lay people. And to them, the Bible is a Christian text. Who is this feature being set up for: the people asking the questions or the people answering them?
However, if you absolutely insist, then it can go under ~humanities.religion. Of course, it won't make sense to the majority of people to separate the Bible from the religion that's based on it. But it's your baby, not mine. I would put it where the majority of people will expect it to be, but you're obviously taking a different approach.
P.S. By the way... you can set up your "ask Bible scholars" feature on Tildes right now, with no changes or updates necessary.
Just tell people to post their questions about the Bible in ~humanities. We can then tag those questions with
religionandbibleandask.experts(andchristianityfor those questions which are specifically about the Christian religion based on the Bible), and that's all that's needed.You're ready to go right now.
No, I'm responding to you in a practical way. I'm pointing out how the real world works. An "ask" function is aimed at people who don't know, but want to learn. They won't know all the intricacies of whether the Bible is Christian or Jewish or henotheistic. They'll just know that the Bible is the foundation of Christianity, so, in their eyes, it is a Christian document.
Don't build your "ask" feature for the experts. Build it for the uninformed. Look at it from their point of view, not yours.
I notice that quite a few people here have assumed that your "ask Bible scholars" function would sit under religion or theology. Think about that. This is where non-experts will look for this feature: religion or theology.
(I used to moderate /r/AskHistorians, and I designed the structure of their FAQ. I have some experience in running an "ask" function that connects uninformed people with experts.)
If he's the only person you're going to pay attention to, you probably should have messaged him directly, rather than ask for public input.
EDIT: Formatting. (Damned parentheses!)
I'm backing you in a corner?!?! The only reason I pulled out the "AskHistorians" card is because I felt like it was the only way I could make you listen to me. You were pushing back on all my suggestions, when I was legitimately trying to improve your idea and make it work - so I felt like I had to show you I had some relevant experience. I don't like to mention the AskHistorians thing if I don't have to.
I don't understand this. People keep saying it (or something like it), and I just don't see it. I'm direct and blunt, but not disrespectful or rude. I'm sorry that I come across as however I come across. I don't mean to.
Depending on culture, context, and how someone is feeling today, being blunt can feel very rude. Doesn't mean you have to always word things in the most delicate way possible and walk on eggshells, but maybe tempering responses based on the context.
can i gently inquire as to which parts felt like bullying?
i would really like to understand, for my own personal growth.
If someone doesn't know where to find the "ask Bible scholars" feature, then they won't turn up to be taught. The feature needs to be found by people who don't already know the finer points of Biblical scholarship - even if that means putting it in the wrong place.
I agree, and I was thinking this as I wrote that comment. However, I decided to focus on the technical issues of getting this function up and running - and with the current sub-groups and tags, that can be done right now, like I said.
The moderation is a different matter. But, you're right - there would need to be some moderation of a feature like this.
It seems to me that the case for intermediate groups is kind of weak. Is there really a navigation problem to be solved? For example, the "health" group doesn't have any intermediate group for infectious diseases, and I don't think adding it would make the coronavirus group easier to find.
So it seems like, for now, we only need to create one group, the one requested, and put it directly under "humanities?" The intermediate groups you envision could be added later after the site has grown more, once the need for them is better understood.
This is exactly it. Groups can move, their names can change, and they can have short nicknames so we don't have to type out the whole taxonomic classification to visit them. When nicknames collide or become too confusing we can have disambiguation pages just like wikipedia does. Groups might even exist at multiple different points in the hierarchy. Someday we might even move beyond a hierarchy to something else that works better if someone has clever ideas about managing it.
The hierarchy is going to be an ongoing management task that has no finish line, and no amount of human effort is going to be able to prevent that - it's the nature of embedding a complex social system into a technological tool. Just because it'll have a tendency to get messy at times doesn't mean managing that mess has to become a herculean task.
I support this wholeheartedly.
I think having an ask thread for academic discussion like this would be a wonderful addition to tildes! Just as another voice of affirmation, I think you guys are more than welcome here. Tildes allows for the discussion of a lot of subjects and having more people, especially people who are very knowledgeable in another area, would be great to have!
Just want to comment to lend my support. Would be thrilled if this site became filled with the people the contribute to the /r/Ask[academics] subreddits.
I'll echo the others welcoming attitude as I think it would be a good fit here and wonderful addition to our approach to discussion. While not religious by any measure myself I have always found the academic discussion of religion to be absolutely fascinating.
I would suggest ~humanities.theology instead of ~humanities.religion as the former is the study of, while the latter is the belief in.
Isn't not understanding that distinction, on those dismissive users though? I mean, you could make every description noob-friendly, but that would make things even more confusing in the end.
I tried using "theology" as the default religious tag in ~humanities, but everyone preferred "religion". So it's "religion".