text:
Is this an exclusively theravaden forum?
We can downvote questions and project our wrongview onto those questions of other Buddhists ?

The answer to the question in the title is "no". I don't understand the question in the text.

The main site is for question about Buddhism. Questions and discussions about the site are hosted separately i.e. here on this "meta-site" -- see also the Help section titled What is "meta"? How does it work?.

To answer your question directly... Yes, we can all downvote questions or answers as we see fit, based on our understanding and conscience. Sometimes — yes — that means we project our own 'wrong' views onto a question, but that is the nature of the human beast. We all have 'wrong' views until we manage to rid ourselves of them, and on this forum (at least) there is a reasonable expectation that people will work with our misunderstandings in a kind and generous manner, so that we can start to rid ourselves of 'wrong' views more quickly and easily.
However, there is a difference between 'views' and 'attitudes' that's important to consider. Someone might have an absolute 'right' view — a perfect intellectual understanding of the dharma — and still be far from the goal because they adopt an attitude of anger, bigotry, fear, self-centeredness, or what you will. Attitudes of this sort often have to be moderated, because these attitudes are infectious: rage will bring out rage in others, fear will bring out fear, bigotry bring out bigotry. Even the best question or answer might be closed and removed because the person who wrote it loaded it with triggers and traps that might set the unwary off.
I haven't read enough of your posts to know exactly where you are coming from, but phrases like "[...] project our wrongview onto those questions [...] like a Mahayana" is a slap in the face to anyone who follows a Mahayana path. You don't have to like the Mahayana paths, or respect their teachers, but active disrespect of this sort says less about their practice and more about yours. No Theravadan teacher I know of would condone his students indulging in such snark both because it hurts the student's progress and because it reflects badly on the school and lineage. If you don't believe me, ask someone in your tradition whose opinion you value.
Be calm and clear. Post from an attitude of compassion and peace, not from righteous indignation. That is easier said than done, I know, but it is best for everyone.

Yes sir. Thank you for your instruction. There is a lot to be understood. The one who will understand exists in time and This One walks on Earth patiently waiting. You bring up a good question of my lineage? And if they have not revealed themselves? The One who self cherishes has saught Them out but it appears they are in hiding or sick. Regardless, yes wheels of time keep turning and we keep learning every day and hopefully the one who self cherishes will bring joy to her elders.

@4N4G4M1N:  Well, I tried...

I think I've understood the question now.
No this isn't an exclusive site.
Someone people (users) study one school, some another, and some several.
We (the community of users on this site) don't want sectarian arguments between schools.
So a question like, "what does school A think of school B?", is difficult to ask on this site -- not quite impossible but those kinds questions are quite rare and carefully asked.
Generally if you ask about school A's doctrine, then you should be asking for school A's view of that doctrine -- i.e. don't ask what school B thinks about school A's doctrine.
Often any question might be answered from the perspective of several schools (which I think is nice, one of the benefits of this site).
But sometimes, when a question is about the specific doctrine of a school, then it should be answered from the perspective of that school only.
Those questions might be tagged using a tag like theravada or mahayana or tibetan-buddhism or zen or a number of other tags.
If you see a tag like that (for example "theravada") then a purely Mahayana answer would be off-topic, not an answer to that specific question (and downvoted/deleted).
That is, more or less, how all the several school of Buddhism can be represented on this site -- they coexist, without sectarian arguments.
See also:

The Hostile and Broad Comparisons reasons in the Moderation policies for Questions
The Minimizing controversy section/topics of the FAQ index (summary of site policies).

In theory this isn't a Buddhist site -- instead it's a site about Buddhism, and it's mostly for Buddhists but for others too. But please respect Buddhist sensibilities -- so for example here, "Belittling the shravaka vehicle" is behaviour which you should avoid (according to Buddhists), and, must avoid (according to the "rules" of this site). See also the Code of Conduct (as well as "Be nice"] which applies to every site on the SE network.

Yes okay thank you for taking the time to moderate today. Hopefully by pushing back the presence of the one who self cherishes there will be less discomfort rising to you. May your good fortune increase three times by next Tuesday!

Have you read the Dhammapada? The Pali scriptures are long and a bit difficult to read -- the Dhammapada is quite a good introduction IMO -- accurate and cheerful. Your mentioning "self-cherishing" reminded me of Chapter 10. I don't want to push back the presence of beings, but I want to see people sharing nicely with each other (and being harmless), posts which fit the Q&A format (on this site) -- and ideally something like right speech. May you be well.

It feels wrong to read translated texts. It feels as though if one would study such profound teachings they should understand the original language. The one who self cherishes has read some translated texts and will read chapter ten as compassionately advised by The Wise. Thank you

Several web sites that can help, e.g. to study the Pali side-by-side with an English translation -- especially suttacentral.org, also buddha-vacana.org -- and a lot of the questions on the main site ask about that (e.g. there must be a hundred questions trying to ask exactly what anatta means, and other questions asking about all the various other Pali words). I imagine that most people don't try to learn Pali, and that no-one would unless they were already quite interested in the text for some reason.

Still it takes a while to learn a new language, a good English translation is better than nothing. :-) Also there are different/several translations of the Dhammapada which give slightly different English words. Anyway I think the Dhammapada is used (in Buddhist countries too) as a popular classic or summary -- and introduces various themes. This edition of the Dhammapada has the Pali as well as English, if you're curious, and the "origin stories" too (those stories aren't considered "buddha-vacana", but the verses are).

Dear kind one, the sentiment in your last two comments brings tears to they eyes of the one who self cherishes she cries on Earth. Because the one who self cherishes does not deserve the regard of The Wise Ones, is not owed anything by them, the gifts they give bring tears. Priceless gifts richer than any gold or diamond. Given to a wretch. Such behavior only highlights the endless mercy of The Wise.

It is more soothing to listen to such profound teachings being read aloud by one who loves what they read. Like when listening to yuttadhammo their voice adds dimension to the texts and magnifies what is already present. Andrei the moderator must sound similarly were he to read aloud for us to hear.

Yes we're fortunate to be able to access the doctrine (the "dharma"), and the people who worked and still work to make it accessible seem heroic and kind, one might be grateful. I used to read to my wife in the last year of her life, I think we both liked doing that.

I don't know whether this answer really fits, but because I've just only a couple of days ago downvoted one answer of you, I'll add my remark.
In that "answer" in question I downvoted not because you were critical or something about Theravadins/Theravada (the contents of your contribution), but because how you formed it as a ridiculation (because style - you were "downvoting" the Theravada by some private perception of some stupidity of the others). However I had even added a comment to my downvoting explaining shortly why I downvoted and also flagged that contribution of yours for moderation to put attention on this.
Some more explanation: I've been active member in a german buddhist newsgroup from 2002 to about 2010 and the pattern of putting the style of comments towards "the others" completely blocked any positive evolution in the newsgroup. Even trolls made fun out of this by inducing this style of "conversation" to trigger other (usually peaceful) people to engage in this a-social style of conversation.
Later in the evening, when I came back to BSE here, I noticed moreover that nearly every question on the screen was signed with your icon - maybe it have been 20 contributions in 9 hours, and I really suspected that "4n4g4m1n" might be such a troll-account: who would be able to contribute to so many threads in such a short time with serious content?
Well, I'm not often here in BSE currently, so this all might have been an unlucky accident and the style of conversation which I've critizised has become more a norm nowadays...
So - I do not really know whether this all concerns here your question/complaint. If not, let say me I'm sorry for wrong guess. But at least for supplying a possible context for the other readers here my recollection might be useful.

Yes the answer which you flagged was this one -- and you were right to flag that and to comment IMO, thank you. I think that "style of conversation" is abnormal still, on this site. 4N4G4M1N is a new user and has posted prolifically but starting only very recently.

@ChrisW - many thanks for your confirmation! Hope things still go well here (for the sake of ours and our contemporaries) :-)

Thank you Gottfried - the pure motivation you describe is interpreted as love to the one who self cherishes. Unworthy of anything you have to give. Grateful for what you have already given.


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Suggestion: Required tag for tradition
I would like to suggest a required tag on all new posts to indicate the tradition being asked about, or none/any/whatever wording you like. This would save time on back-and-forth info-gathering for questions, as well as filtering and searching by tradition. For example if I'm a new Buddhist looking for information on the precepts, I'm confronted with 36 pages of results; if I can be sure that filtering by [mahayana] will get me results that make sense given my location/local temple/whatever, that would be helpful. Another example would be questions that mix Pali and Sanskrit, or questions that could be answered by any school, but the asker was really looking for a specific perspective.
I think it would also be useful to set a limit on granularity, unless the Buddhism SE grows significantly. Meaning, maybe only mahayana, theravada, vajrayana, secular-buddhism, and an unknown/any type of tag would be required-tags, not something like thai-forest, chan, gelugpa, etc.
Related questions and answers: dealing with different traditions, specifically the last section of this answer; this one on a possible schism on the site, this one about trying to enforce tag usage, and the fact that this feature apparently exists (I don't know how it works on the moderator side, but the API also lists required tags, and this Meta SE has them, so the feature seems to work).

Thanks for caring enough to suggest an improvement.
I found this -- it's old, but so far as I know it is still up-to-date (I asked with no answer to the contrary):

Can meta-style 'required tags' be implemented on non-meta sites?

In summary it says that:

Yes, it can be configured
No, it never is
It would have to be the SE team that configures it, not moderators -- and they wouldn't, so don't ask
There are reasons why it's not a good idea

So I can't do it, and I don't think they would do it if I asked.
As for whether it's a good idea, I don't know.

Some questions may not don't fit neatly
Some people asking questions may not know enough or care to specify one tradition

We currently use those as optional tags:

If it's specified, the user only wants answers from within that tradition, and other answers to that question would be off-topic (deleted)
If it's not specified, then answers from any tradition are welcomed

I think that works quite well, usually, at least for beginners like me.
And if you want to limit the replies when you ask a new question, you can already.
That doesn't solve the problem of filtering or sorting already-posted answers. When I first joined this site I went through all the meta-posts, to re-tag them, make some sense of their tags -- but even then (several years ago) I didn't try to do that to the posts on the main site -- too big a job and not one I think I could do well (i.e. both thoroughly and accurately).

Fair enough! I'm not a moderator on any StackExchange so I've never seen the tools page, and didn't realize that change would have to come from the actual SE staff. A default value of "any" would solve the "I don't want to choose a sect" problem, but as far as I can tell that functionality also doesn't exist (even for meta sites). I'll trust your judgement that it's not a great idea to pursue.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Should moderator act political?
It appears that the Russian moderator, "Vollkoffer", dwelling in US is already total corrupt and makes use of power here to even oppose his own kind, parents and father. Censure and act for war and conflict. Encourages to harm and spams for political objectivity.
How dear can this enviroment of fools tolerate such, incl. the owner? Thats simply criminal like the rest of this google and facebook dictatorship of Brahmans.
Long enough has this fool misused BSE for his political and biased ways and speading of Adhamma and played double-agent for his Rave and belly.

A seria of manipulating and fool actions questions had been raised for trying to misuse good:
False Virtue and True Virtue
Is Buddhism a teaching of ethical neutrality
later hide by closing.
A wise person leaves SE, google, facebook, twitter and co. as well as leader with baseball caps or trainers... and avids association with Jewish behind or what ever social nationalists behind.
So the answers show clear (by avoiding to answer but turning to biased politic of slaves): One is encouraged here to parttake on this rebellious political undertaking, and of course, everybody with basic faith in the Gems will suddenly avoid the place like greatest enemy.
It's sad that even potential criminal are even promoted by modern media, as under his countries law he would face up to 15 years prison. Nobody should actively associate with punks and rebels, since it's the straight way to hell.

Do you really want an answer to this question? I mean do you want me to spend time answering it? Because perhaps instead you posted this to make a statement about your view, not to ask a question?

Simple: idiots gather with idiots. Without moral, shame, and full of corruption. Using the Gems to maintain their house. Agreeing and supporting corruption they are subject to slavehood. Foolish punks.

Simply the lowest kind to be found, people without moral shame and principles.

You are welcome to visit my house Johann, have dinner with me and my family, talk about life, and see for yourself. As of right now you are making a lot of guesses based on little knowledge.

The moderators of this site are also "users" or "members of the community", not only "moderator".
And rules apply to all users (including moderators), for example:

The site is for Questions and Answers (Q&A) about "Buddhist philosophy, teaching, and practice" only.
Posts about "politics" are off-topic (unless they are Q&A about Buddhist philosophy, teaching, and practice) -- should not be posted on the site and may be deleted.

But there are 4 places where a user can post more-or-less whatever they want to:

In the About section of their User Profile (text)
In their choice of icon (sometimes called an identicon or gravatar)
In their choice of username
In a chat room

I looked for SE's policies about what restrictions there are, on choosing icons and names (see links below).
In summary I decided neither the icon nor the name are "offensive" -- they're not hate speech; not insulting race or religion -- and so they don't appear to contravene SE's rules.
It would be nice if other users (perhaps yourself) didn't take it as an opportunity to "create disruptions that moderators must deal with"

As a moderator, how do I handle a potentially inappropriate profile picture?

Our stance on this is simple, but quite subjective. It's first worth
reiterating that within reason, a user's profile page is their own
domain.
Avatars are much more visible as we show them under every single post
that you write, and as such, are open to a tad more scrutiny. If the
avatar:

Depicts or promotes hate in any form
Insults, is insulting to or negatively objectifies those belonging to a certain race, gender or religion
Otherwise creates disruptions that moderators must deal with

... then we're probably going to require you to use another avatar.

Possibly offensive usernames
This was about using swearwords (like "shitburg").
There's a history of SE users changing their names to campaign for something (e.g. "Reinstate Monica"), and the so-called "owners" of SE overlooking that.

Common law would probably recognice such as "Staatsverrat" and in many areas such would one cause to be executed at war times. But play on, as you fools think it's just an internet game... no need to comment in regard of letting respectless fool moderate on the Juwels. Nobody can help you. Wait another week till effects arrive also in your living rooms...

To put the like always mindless and moral-less idiotic statements into light, leaving here with "state what you like"... in the avatar.

Speaking of Staatsverrat I think it is illegal, within Russia, under current Russian law, to speak against the war -- but it's not my responsibility here to impose those laws on other people.

Simple: Idiot, but impose moral-less...  Go on and promot wrong doing for your 'freetime' joy (probably most of you steal the time, payed..." The answer is clear: no Dhamma, but householding, politic, with all it's ugly and corrupt means, not seen by fools... Just wait some weeks to see the stupid arrogance rippen at homes door.

Unless it's a public call an ad hominem agains even a president by moderators... This sentence is so correct and truth, but a mental handicapped, sick, can not see. Who the hell, you slaves, do you think are you? Not dare to beat father and amuse your self with mother...

But mental handicapped isn't even arware when killing parents, Arahats...abuse Noble Ones. No way to help lost and future victims of war.

@StopassociateBSEmeritsmost I don't understand why you think that saying "Stop war" is equivalent to "killing parents" or "acting for war and conflict". I understand the phrase "Stop war" as being pacifist. And if the current "leader" of your "mother country" or your "fatherland" wants war, I see no moral obligation to support them, on the contrary it may be right to voice opposition. And in ethnic or national conflict (i.e. war) I doubt that "nationalism" is moral, i.e. choosing to take a side in the conflict based on where you were born -- that is not what "supporting your parents" means.

@StopassociateBSEmeritsmost AN 3.95 - "And what is a divided assembly? An assembly where the mendicants argue, quarrel, and dispute, continually wounding each other with barbed words. This is called a divided assembly. And what is a harmonious assembly? An assembly where the mendicants live in harmony, appreciating each other, without quarreling, blending like milk and water, and regarding each other with kindly eyes. This is called a harmonious assembly. When the mendicants live in harmony like this, they make much merit."

The moderators here are tasked with trying their best to maintain a harmonious assembly (AN 3.95).

I came looking for this meta post because of an encounter I had with someone down in the main stack. The question here (as written) is a mess of reactivity, so I'm not surprised that it's been downvoted and rationalized away by most answerers. I'm not even going to try to parse the content of the question itself, because that seems pointless.
But... I agree that screen-names like 'Stop Putin Stop War' are ill-advised. The mere existence of this angry, ranting, discombobulated meta-question should be all the evidence we need that these kinds of monikers are ill-advised. Buddhism is in the business of easing and releasing dukkha and tanhā, not prodding them into flaming excess. When one picks a name that one knows will divide people into camps then one is actively opposing the dharma, and that is not a good look for a Buddhist Q&A site.
Arguments I don't care about, just so it's said:

Yes, I'm aware that it's not against policy or the terms of service. Many things that are legal by the letter do not sit right with the spirit. This isn't a moot court, where legalism trumps ethics.
Yes, I'm aware that all users have the right to speak freely. But everyone seems to miss the point that freedom entails responsibility to the community. Discretion matters.
No, the name itself is not overtly offensive (at least I don't find it so, and tend to agree with it). But it is overtly divisive and antagonistic. This isn't the place for that.

To expand on an example I used in the linked discussion, this is a bit like walking into a dharma talk at a meditation center and discovering that the monk giving the talk is wearing a pornographic t-shirt. Now, it may be the case that this monk is deeply concerned about attachments and inhibitions to sexuality within his community (or western culture more generally), and wears the t-shirt as a statement. But that rational-intellectual explanation doesn't do a lot to counter the sheer ridiculousness of the act itself. Who is going to learn dharma when they cannot suppress an involuntary eye-roll in the presence of the teacher?
One must pick one's battles, and the battle here is against ignorance, not against Putin. Is Putin ignorant of the dharma? Is the entire Ukraine situation a demonstration of brutal ignorance on a massive, bloody scale? Sure, and sure... but we will never prevent those wars out there unless we win the metaphysical battles in here.
As you know, it's perfectly possible to create a stack-specific moniker, so feel free to be 'Stop Putin Stop War' in other stacks. But please don't bring your big pointy stick in here, where all it will do is poke people and stir up hornets.

The other moderators of Buddhism SE have reviewed the updated user profile photo, username and user profile description of moderator Andrei Volkov and have determined that there has been no violation of the Stack Exchange Network Acceptable Use Policy and the Public Network Terms of Service, in our opinion.
If you find that any questions, answers or comments posted by any user is in violation of the Buddhism SE Code of Conduct, please flag it and the moderators will look into it. To understand how moderators evaluate the appropriateness of a Buddhism SE answer, please read this Buddhism Meta SE answer.
If you disagree with any specific moderation decision, you may post a question here on Buddhism Meta SE.

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text:
How to deal with personal opinions in contrary to the doctrine
Should personal opinions contrary to doctrine (held by any school) or the Tripitaka (Pali, Sanskrit or Tibetan) need qualification as this is a personal view and not what the Buddha preached? A casual reader may be mislead from these type of answers.
One way would be to add an answer but again a reader would be confused as to which is true doctrinal position. What are the ways to address this so this site does not become a vehicle to propagate false views but as  vehicle to propagate the right view.
I am not saying personal opinion is not OK but there needs to some separation saying so and so is my personal opinion and this is not especially if the personal opinion flows against something directly in the Tripitaka.
Also how does other sites deal with non doctrinal opinions or content not based on a doctrinal underpinning?

How to deal with personal opinions
Some suggestions include:

Post a better answer.
In this case, "better" might mean "with references" ... and it would be up the reader (not just the OP but every reader and voter) to decide how much weight they give to a referenced answer, compared to the unreferenced answer.
Vote down.
I recommend (in order to avoid any mere sectarian bickering) that you don't do this, if the answer is clearly from a school of Buddhism whose doctrine you don't understand or agree with.
I recommend you prefer to vote down, instead of arguing, if there's probably nothing you could say which would persuade the poster to change/improve their answer (and you might have an opinion about that based on the way in which that person has reacted to previous comments of yours) then it's better to just downvote and move on -- that's what voting is for, it's why voting exists:

Voting up a question or answer signals to the rest of the community that a post is interesting, well-researched, and useful, while voting down a post signals the opposite: that the post contains wrong information, is poorly researched, or fails to communicate information. The more that people vote on a post, the more certain future visitors can be of the quality of information contained within that post – not to mention that upvotes are a great way to thank the author of a good post for the time and effort put into writing it!

Post a comment to ask for a clarification.
I recommend you don't use comments for arguments, nor for discussions which cannot eventually result in any improvements to the answer; therefore avoid comments like the following:

This answer is wrong.
Where did you get this stupid idea from?

It hasn't been policy to say that every answer must clarify whether it's opinion or reference.

When a question is explicitly referenced, that reference is usually obvious.
When a question is implicitly based on a reference (e.g. if someone mentions "the four noble truths" without referencing a sutta), do you worry that someone might be confused about whether that's doctrine or opinion?
In a case like that I think it's usually fine to post a comment like, "Thanks for your answer. Can you give a reference to where I can read more about 'X' which you mentioned in your answer?"

If it's one of my answers and you see a problem with it, then please tell me: I want to know if an answer of mine is wrong or unhelpful, how it can be improved, whether it's better deleted.
I can't say that everyone else will welcome your criticism on their answers. In fact if anyone posts a comment to one of your answers, and you don't like that comment, then instead of answering it or leaving it unanswered you may flag it as "not constructive" or something, for a moderator to delete.
Also how does other sites deal with non doctrinal opinions or content not based on a doctrinal underpinning?
I suspect that other SE sites don't allow opinion (they might say, "all answers must be referenced"); or they only allow theoretical, not practical/pastoral questions (because often everyone agrees on theory but the difference in "opinion" is in how to apply the theory to specific practical questions); or they only allow practical not theoretical questions (e.g. if the question is how to solve some software problem, then I could try all the answers, to 'see for myself', which answers actually 'work' in practice).

One ideal or theory is that all answers should be either referenced or based on personal experience (not just personal opinion).
If an answer is just opinion then perhaps the question is at least partly to be blamed. For example a good question might ask for a reference, or ask something which requires some experience or expertise (not just an opinion) to answer. I can think of lots of questions which I wouldn't ask because I think I'd just get a lot of opinions in reply. Site policy is to permit most types of question, however.
My main concern is when is Buddha has said x somebody saying Buddha said not x.
If your concern is someone saying something specific such as, "the Buddha has said X", then you might post a question as a comment to ask for clarification, for example a comment/question like,

Would you add a reference for saying that the Buddha said X? In reference Y, the Buddha said Z.

Referencing can solve this but how much referencing can you enforce.
I think I can't enforce any referencing at all.
A few people seem quite averse to moderators trying to "enforce" a policy.
The upvoted/accepted answer (and other answers) to the meta-topic, What about providing sources? defined a policy of references not being generally required/enforceable.
You could try for a change in that policy (suggest a new policy, and see whether your new proposal has consensus from a broad majority of the current site community), but IMO that's not a current policy which moderators can enforce.
Hypothetically we could have a policy which allowed people to challenge answers ("Your answer seems wrong, to me: so you must either add references to justify it, or your answer will be deleted") but that's certainly not current policy, and perhaps wouldn't be popular and/or beneficial. It might be difficult to apply to all questions, too, so either it would have to be defined as applicable to some questions but not others, or it might limit the range/type of question that could be asked.

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text:
Should we merge the two sutta-related tags (i.e. suttas and sutras)?
There are two sutta related tags which perhaps need to be merged:

suttas
sutras

After they are merged it needs to be tested is both can be used but maps to one tag.
Similarly some of the other tags could also be merged, if both can be used.

I wonder if they have the same use in practice. In my experience, Mahayana Buddhists tend to use 'sutra' and Theravada Buddhists tend to use 'sutta'.
Although it wouldn't seem incorrect to me to call discourses in the Pāli Canon 'sutras' it doesn't go both ways. One example of a different extensional usage would be, e.g., the Lotus Sutra. I have never heard anyone call it the 'Lotus Sutta' (same for Heart Sutra) and that seems like a really weird thing to do. So, it might be useful to have separate tags for these reasons.

I would say yes. The best thing would be to use synonyms in my opinion. High rep users such as yourself can suggest them but to be honest since we are a smaller site they never get enough users to approve them. Mods can approve them with one vote though - happy to do it if you think it's a good idea.
Cheers

Let's wait for others to chime in and perhaps do it. There may be some other similar tags also which can be merged. One Pali version and another Sanskrit version. Perhaps you some of the mods can do it?

We had a meta question on Sanskrit vs. Pali as preferred language for tags and questions, and while I was in favor of Sanskrit as a more linguistically complete language of the two, a decision was never made.

It looks like it pretty was decided in this topic 8 votes to nothing (though people could change/remake that decision now if we no longer like that decision).

Alright, let's standardize on Sanskrit then and add Pali as synonyms.

I updated my answer.

I think further discussion is unnecessary if the tag looked like this
Suttas/Sutras
This removes any complication that can occur. By the way i do not see anything wrong with that merge.

Very good idea. sutta/sūtra also maybe better. Also there might be tags which might not use the special characters which all can be edited as a par of a tag clean up exercise.

According to this FAQ, What are tag synonyms and merged tags? How do they work? we have two choices:

Synonym: for when both tags mean the same thing, they both continue to exist, and it doesn't matter which you use when you search (if you search for one you get search results for both)
Merge: one is deprecated/obsolete, and no longer exists; if you try to create it by adding it to a new question, the question will get the other tag instead.

A merge is irreversible (existing questions are retagged) so if we're not sure it recommends trying a synonym before doing a merge (probably because, on a mature site, users can define synonyms without moderator intervention/oversight); but "All good tag synonyms should eventually be merged".

This answer, What language should our tags be in? suggests "Sanskrit rather Pali" because people use Google to search for the Sanskrit more often that the Pali (although I guess that existing users tend to use Pali more often, in the text on the site).

To anyone who is interested in this topic, would you help to define what that tag is supposed to be used for, when it's supposed to be used, when it's not supposed to be used, what it does and doesn't mean?
For example Theravada is using it on almost all their questions. Is that a correct use of the tag?
See also the comments under this question:

Why did you add (what was your reason for adding) the sutras/suttas tags to this question?
Because i wanted to find any Sutta reference that might deal with close subject matter

Is that correct usage? If you use this tag, should that mean you don't want answers which don't contain a reference to a sutta? How does the tag compare with reference-request?
Alternatively should the sutta/sutra tag only be used when you're asking a question about a specific sutta/sutra i.e. when you already know which sutta/sutra you're asking about?
Alternatively should sutta be allowed to stay (distinct from sutra), for reference request questions which are only interested in a reference to a sutta and which don't want, for example, answers based on the Abhidhamma?

Update:
I defined the synonym.
This page defines all synonyms (there are some other existing synonyms)
I defined suttas as a synonym for sutras (so 'sutras' is the 'master'). I don't know whether we can (but I think we probably can't/shouldn't) define it both ways, with each as the synonym of the other.
Apparently the change (the synonym) I suggested didn't take immediately: I also had to approve the change; but, I was allowed to approve my own change.
Now a search for suttas is redirected to become a search for sutras -- and a search for sutras returns all topics which are tagged with either, with sutras and/or with suttas.

We should use synonyms then.

I updated my answer.

"I don't know (but there might be) topics which are tagged suttas but not tagged sutras, and which the searches will therefore no longer find." - why? Isn't this what synonyms solve for us?

I think it's OK now, for example this search is returning this topic which was only tagged with 'suttas'. After I defined the synonym a search returned 67 results, now it it returns 80 results; I guess it just took some time for the change to fully come into effect.

Great. Perhaps we can do a similar tag clean up if there other tags needing cleanup.

@SumindaSirinathSalpitikorala If you do then it might be a good idea to post on meta as well, because I don't know yet whether a synonym suggestion is is visible in our/my review queue. Defining a synonym requires upvotes, by people who have some reputation for those tags (see e.g. Does the tag synonym suggestion system work? and see also this comment).

@SumindaSirinathSalpitikorala I'm not sure how each tag is supposed to be used, and so I can't really clean them up. See for example my questions in the answer above (about what the 'sutra' tag is or is not meant to be for), see also my answer here. I don't think I have enough time at the moment to really understand and fix all the tags (but I can approve synonyms that you suggest, if those synonyms seem to make sense).

What I mean is we should do something like this: http://meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/7285/structured-tag-cleanup-initiative-phase-ii

@SumindaSirinathSalpitikorala If you can begin to do that then I might try to help to review what you do. I chatted a bit with CrabBucket when he retagged all the meditation questions.

This is a sectarian preference, thus merging indicates preference for a sect. Bad choice imo, unless Buddhist Stack Exchange wishes to relabel itself Mahayanna Stack Exchange.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Does SE have a policy about linking to one's own research, sites, and blogs?
Is there a policy SE again citation or posting related external link one's own blog or research as opposed to a link written by someone else?

Following is reference on links and citation given to me by SE staff: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/attribution-required/

That reference means that if you want to republish StackExchange content on your web site, you may do that (because StackExchange content is "cc-wiki" licensed), but your web site must link back to StackExchange (including links to the StackExchange topic and to the StackExchange user profiles).

What I asked them was for the other way around, but what said is this is what is there at the moment.

Assuming that you're asking about links in answers (rather than asking about questions), I think that the policy is the same for links to your blog as it is for any other link, i.e.:

It should be in reply to someone else's question

It should be directly relevant to your answer, which must be relevant to the question

It should be a specific link to a specific article on your blog. You mustn't just link to the whole blog.
Linking to the whole blog (i.e. to the top-level page of the blog) would be like linking to http://youtube.com or http://wikipedia.com or http://google.com -- your answer is supposed to tell the OP exactly where to find something (not tell them where to go and search for something).

It should include a summary of or perhaps a quote from whatever you linking to. This guideline (quote or summarize as well as link) is as true for audio/video links as it is for links to text articles.
Anything else is called a "link-only answer" and is discouraged. People should find your answer interesting and readable even if they don't follow the link you posted. The quote or summary should demonstrate why and how the link is relevant to the answer to the OP's question.

It should include the title of the linked article in the hyperlink. For example, Sabba Sutta: The All (SN 35.23) is a better-formatted hyperlink than http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.023.than.html

Answers must not end with a generic signature or advertising (for example a 'signature' which says something like "Thank you, and be sure to READ MY BLOG for further information!").

In general if what you post is not specific to the OP's question, if it's something you could post in answer to every or any question, then it's not an answer to this question and you shouldn't post it.

I know link only answered are not accepted. Also tag line. Where are the links to the rest though they sound right? Policies cannot be pulled out of thin air. E.g. Where is specific information followed by more general information to like citation to a blog invalid? Can this be grounds to deletion when most of the answer meets that the OP is asking for?

Sorry, I didn't understand, didn't make sense of, this question: "E.g. Where is specific information followed by more general information to like citation to a blog invalid?"

"Where are the links to the rest though they sound right?" If they sound right to you, then you can upvote this answer to show that you agree with it. See "What is "meta"? How does it work?" An answer posted on meta might become the site-specific policy, if and when "the community" agrees with it. In this case I'm posting my own understanding of what the policy is (and/or what the policy ought to be, and/or has been, and/or is on all other StackExchange sites).

This should be defined before hand, if some one cites something as a policy. What is defined before is what needs to be applied. You cannot say XYZ is a policy when it is not defined before hand or defined later than applied or there is not reference to it. This is my take on it. Do you agree? I agree with most of what you say above.

"Defining it before hand" is what we're doing now i.e. while the site is in "Beta". Is there any specific item (bulleted list item) in my answer which you disagree with, or which is unclear, or which you'd like to see more justification for?

Simply if there is not policy defined, can some one say XYZ is a policy out of think air through others may agree to it later? Is this the right way to do it? There should be some precedence in which it was defined at least through Meta discussions. Once defined it is valid, but not before and no body can say this is the policy when there is non defined and non exiting at a particular point of time? Am I right? Can you retro actively apply it? If it s policy there should be some previous discussion?

Also if some one mentions something is a policy if requested the person should be able to give a citation right? Especially if some one has given this as justification for some action on the site?

I posted this answer to try to address your comment? It references a FAQ against appending a promotional "signature"  to every answer, which is something I'd previously told the OP repeatedly.

This answer defines the Meta SE policy on this topic.
I quote it below:

In my experience, posts with links are not downvoted if all these
conditions are met:

you paraphrase the content of the linked item (possibly omitting details or examples)
you identify the author (yourself, MSDN, etc)
someone could benefit from the answer without reading the linked item at all
you include information to let the reader decide if clicking the link is worthwhile

For example:

You can use the CircularLabelsStyle
custom property for this, for example:
  chart1.Series["Series1"]["CircularLabelsStyle"] = "Circular";

I blogged
about this last year, with some sample
code.

The other extreme, an answer that says nothing more than "here" or
"read this" or "please read" and is a link, I will not just downvote
but flag as not an answer, and I don't care whether it's the
definitive documentation from the owner of the technology, another
question on the same SE site, or just a blog you wrote yourself.

My other answer is about how to use any/all links, regardless of they're links to a site that you own.
SE's policy for linking specifically to a site you own is described in the Help: How to not be a spammer.


text:
Is [the-buddha] tag misleading?
I am aware that many people who do not know (much) about buddhism usually refer to Gautama/Shakyamuni when simply saying "Buddha" or "the Buddha" but is this reason enough to have a the-buddha tag?
Originally coming from a Pure Land/Mahāyāna tradition I learned much more about Amitābha than Gautama and so the latter was way less important to me and calling him "the buddha" would have confused and mislead me.
So why not have a proper gautama tag that is used for him?
The only "downside" I see would be that people don't properly tag (let's say they would otherwise...) , but retagging is imo the simplest form of editing and least work. So even this argument won't really hold.
It is rather an argument for changing. Imagine someone using the-buddha and then seeing that it was changed to gautama. When wondering why that happens OP will probably educate him/herself a bit more on why there isn't "one Buddha".

I don't think it is terribly misleading - Wikipedia notes that the historical Buddha is generally understood to be "The Buddha"; Straight Dope says the two terms are synonymous, etc.
I wouldn't think gautama appropriate, since that is a clan name.
historic-buddha might work, but it's still a bit confusing, since there have been lots of Buddhas in the past.
Maybe gautama-buddha would work in cases where the asker is specifically talking about that particular Buddha, but I think for most people the tag the-buddha simply means Buddha, in a general sense, rather than specifying one. For example, what should we tag a question about why all Buddhas are born with 32 characteristics of a great man, besides the-buddha?

I endorse using [tag:gautama-buddha] as a tag since it is clear, unambiguous, and will be easy to fill out a wiki for without confusion.  As a second preference I'd go with [tag:the-buddha], I dislike [tag:historic-buddha] since–as yuttadhammo points out–there have been a lot of them.

Personally, first time I saw the-buddha it was not immediately apparent to me what it was referring to. In this sense, gautama-buddha or historical-buddha would be more obvious, except I would flip the two parts, to help the autocomplete function as the user types the tag: buddha-gautama. The other buddhas and buddha in general could be tagged as buddha-a or buddhas or buddhas-of-the-three-times or buddha-eternal.

As far as I can see, we don't need it to be flipped for autocomplete. For example typing in "budd" under tags brings up [tag:tibetan-buddhism] [tag:chinese-buddhism] etc.

awesome, did not test that :-P
So shall we rename the-buddha to gautama-buddha then?

Currently the description for [tag:the-buddha] is "For questions about the Buddha (Siddartha Gautama) as a person - his life, sayings, actions, etc." Does it make sense to just add a tag for Amida/Amitabha-buddha?

We could do that, but where is fun in that, boys like to be precise ;) Why is Gautama Buddha "the" they ask, and indeed, perhaps the Eternal Buddha or the Primordial Buddha are better positioned to be "the" than a mere nirmanakaya:)

I would suggest to use a tag historical-buddha. It would still have Buddha word in it, but it would also imply that we mean a real person rather than a Buddhahood or some specific Buddha form.

Good idea! Tbh I don't know how meta discussion work, should I wait for more responses?


text:
Interpersonal problem questions
There are some questions appearing on Buddhism SE, that seem better suited to Interpersonal Skills SE (IPS SE).
How should these questions be handled?

Leave them as they are, being the compassionate Buddhist Q&A site that we are
Leave them as they are, since they are a kind of Buddhism-in-practice questions
The moderators can request these questions to be rephrased in such a way that it appears more on-topic
Consider them off-topic and propose to move to IPS SE
Create some guidelines on our help page to draw the boundary between Buddhism SE and IPS SE

The IPS SE help page states:

using or understanding interpersonal interactions to resolve specific problems or prevent problems from occurring with a specific
  goal in mind. This includes interactions with family, friends,
  work/school associates, acquaintances or strangers (or anyone else).

Here are some examples on Buddhism SE:

Am I feeling pity or compassion?
I want to leave my mother
Is it wrong to wish you could die?
How to have a relationship
Help! I'm in love with enlightened man

Well yes you're right: there is an IPS SE now.
Still I think that these questions have a (different) place on this site:

"Am I feeling pity or compassion" is a reference to the fact that dhamma defines "pity" as being a "near enemy" of "compassion" -- so this is a question about "how to apply or understand (an aspect of) dhamma in my life?" and thus on-topic to this site.
"I want to leave my mother", and other questions, received different answers on Buddhism than they would on IPS (answers which could have been off-topic or inappropriate on IPS)

For these reasons I agree with ...

Leave them as they are, being the compassionate Buddhist Q&A site that we are
Leave them as they are, since they are a kind of Buddhism-in-practice questions

... and don't automatically agree with:

Consider them off-topic and propose to move to IPS SE

As for this ...

Create some guidelines on our help page to draw the boundary between Buddhism SE and IPS SE

... do you have any guidelines or boundary to suggest? Do you think we ought to at least make the OP prove they know there is such a thing as Buddhism or dhamma, or something ... some kind of barrier to entry or shibboleth?
As for this ...

The moderators can request these questions to be rephrased in such a way that it appears more on-topic

... I'm reluctant for two reasons:

If someone's troubled and asks a question they care deeply about, it might be painful for a moderator to pick on their wording and imply their questions is unwanted or not good enough
I think it's established that (and users on this site ought to know that) the topic of this site is always Buddhism no matter what the question is; so if someone asks a inter-personal question here they are implicitly asking for a Buddhist perspective, whether or not they say so explicitly in the question (e.g. I was once required to edit an answer of mine which didn't sufficiently reference Buddhist principles).

Another topic might be, how can we ensure that answers are Buddhist? What if you think that someone's answer is just selfish and non-Buddhist and might as well have been on IPS instead of here?
And I think the answer to that is that it's difficult and problematic to enforce orthodoxy on answers, and that if you disagree with an answer all you can do is:

Downvote
Post a single, polite, specific comment under the answer to identify what your disagreement is

Similarly I suppose you could do that to a question, e.g. post a comment like "I think this question would also be on-topic at [IPS.SE](https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com), if you're also open to non-Buddhist answers to this question."

Sidenote: you can use the magic link like [interpersonal.se] instead and it will be expanded automatically to [interpersonal.se] with the site name and URL.

You might want to create a tag, like interpersonal oslt, for this category of topics; but there might be too many of them, e.g. every question tagged metta and so on.

There seems to be a relationship tag..


text:
how do you report someone abusing power on this site?
it seems as if a member of this website (which is not a community) is abusing his power. how do i bring it to the attention of the site directors to potentially ask them to suspend his privileges?

By "someone" I assume you mean a moderator, since you said abusing "power".

I assume you are talking about me closing your question, Why might having a pet be inappropriate for an Upasika visiting a monastery? as "primarily opinion-based", and then closing its exact duplicate (now deleted by you), Why might having a service animal be inappropriate for upasika training? which you posted several hours later.
A closed question can be reopened by another moderator or the community cast of 5 votes. Please do not try to circumvent the moderation system by double-posting questions.

my question was not opinion based. it was a valid question. perhaps you should meditate on you animosity toward the facts and perhaps it would benefit you to consider why you are assuming so much. who are you anyway?... what credentials justify your desicion making abilities on buddhist subject matter?

and another moderator... Yuttadhammo admonished you for closing it. Your aversion to it becoming public has nothing to do with my question and therefore gives strength to the theory of power abuse. Whats your problem dude?

"primarily opinion-based" means that "answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise." As an elected moderator I'm acting on behalf of community, keeping this site clean of garbage questions. My whiskers, paws, and tail -- these are my credentials :)

that is entirely presumptive of answers that have not been given. You are assuming you know things you do not know... this is delusion. elected officials have proven over time that the election process is flawed. neither do you had whiskers paws or a tail. it seems you are the one giving all the opinions.

@david... perhaps judging andrei isnt the most skillful way to help him see the error of his ways or to practice for your own enlightenment. though i would tend to agree that he is not a valid choice for moderation!

@ANonimous said "that is entirely presumptive of answers that have not been given" I'm sorry, but this is how SE sites work. If question looks inappropriate, it can be closed before it receives any answers. Ideally, questions should be closed through community voting, but  because our community is still too weak to gather 5 votes, moderators have to step in.

@ANonimous just for the record, I wasn't admonishing Andrei, I was disagreeing with him. I hope it is okay for moderators to disagree. I respect his decision and will wait for the community to decide on the validity of the question.


text:
Should we have weekly or fortnightly topic challenges?
As suggested by Suminda in this answer, I think a weekly or fortnightly topic challenge might be interesting, though I'm not sure how much participation would be generated.
Please read: How do weekly topic challenges work?

pick one of the proposed topics and post a question on meta challenging users to ask questions on that specific subject

This meta question, and this top level meta question from another SE site shows a good example.
Example topic list:

Parents and children
Brahmaviharas
Speech
Emptiness
Riddles #1
Mindfulness
Nationbuilding
Life of the Buddha
Similes #1
Monastic order and lay people
Enlightenment
Impermanence
Buddhist traditions
Intention
Health
Parables and anecdotes #1
Happiness
One sentence teachings
Daily life
Five Aggregates
Similes #2
History of Buddhism
Finance, business and economics
Samatha and jhanas
Food
Riddles #2
Three Poisons
Humour
Social discrimination e.g. racism, sexism
Actions
Anatta
Charity
Time
Parables and anecdotes #2
Dependent Origination
Renunciation
Desire
Teacher and student
Precepts

Would you like to reread [meta-tag:book-of-the-month] to see what people had to do to organise that? I don't remember the details of how to organise such a thing -- and I'd like to cooperate with your trying to organise it but I don't think I should take it all on myself at the moment.

@ChrisW OK. In the mean time, I'll just let this sit here and see if it gathers any interest.

One possible drawback to this idea is that e.g. Ven. Yuttadhammo said he's not enthusiastic about 'seeded' questions -- and this proposal might be (or might seem) similar. Not that you don't want to ask the question and increase the value of the site, but see for example this comment,

Religious questions are not "info only" questions. These questions are "life direction" questions. Every question, if possible, is crucial to the asker.

When I researched Proposal: Self-answering questions is welcome a consistent bit of advice was the questions should be well written:

What's the question?
What research have you done already to discover the answer?
How was your research not enough?

This answer was well-written on that subject, and implies that it's good to know whether and why and how much a question is important to the person asking it -- it includes,

This is a fantastic quotation on how to judge whether or not to ask a question in the first place. "How much do you care about finding out the answer?", "Does the answer nag at you silently as you go about your day?"

Perhaps that kind of insight, into the intent of the person asking, helps to direct a good/specific answer (as well as providing a motive or incentive for answering at all).
See also Yuttadhammo's,

Personally, I find seeded questions irksome; it's generally easy to see that the asker isn't really looking for an answer, so there is no sense of accomplishment in answering.

So one thing that worries me about this proposal is that the following maybe aren't genuine reasons for a question:

"Because it's a topic of the week"
"Because I want to increase the site's average number of questions asked per day"

I mean they're not bad reasons but perhaps they're only interesting to meta-users who are interested in the site itself.
One the other hand I can see there's a possible counter-argument -- i.e. perhaps there's a good way to use the  topics-of-the-week initiative, that is, as a way to encourage people to think of important, useful questions.

@Ruslan Sure, go ahead and vote -- agree with my answer and/or post a different opinion. Do you think there's any minimum number of users who you'd need, to agree, before you start doing this?

Shouldn't we separate this into Yes and No answers? This answer can be No. Then another answer can be Yes, with the "on the other hand" comment in it.

@ruben2020 Yeah I don't get why people are voting and doing nothing else. I'd expect some comment, like, "I'm interested", or, "Count me in", or something. Still I think that everyone who voted disagreed with my reservation (except MAGA2020 who agreed) -- so I guess you can carry on unreservedly. I don't think I want to participate myself though, at the moment, for me this month is super-busy.

@ChrisW Actually I see a lack of interest. Only 3 votes without any comments.


text:
Someone is Editing my Answers by Randomly scratching out words and Another User is just Approving it?
Please see The Review for "Buddhism Cure for insecurity".I appreciate editing any answers as long as it makes sense.This user just scratched words randomly then another user just approved it i think because he didn't read it.I don't know how else to flag this.Please Read reviews before you approve.Thank you.

Are you talking about this review? If so, the editor wasn't scratching out the words - just adding spaces between sentences. The review does make it look like words were getting scratched out, but I don't think that's what was happening there.
The review ended up being rejected, probably due to this misunderstanding, but I believe it was an edit in good faith.

oh...okaay....i didn't know.. it looked like on the left it was scratched out ... sorry about that..

@Orion: No problem. I can see how it looked super alarming at first!

I think it is more reader if the spacing is corrected as in the suggested edit. (I am not the editor)

When you look at https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/2375 there are two buttons (near the top left), which are named "rendered output" and "markdown".
To better see what was changed in an edit, I recommend you use the "markdown" view instead of the "rendered output" view.


text:
New to Buddhism
I'm very new to Buddhism. There are many things I don't understand yet. This forum seems to be geared towards people more advanced in their understanding. Can anyone recommend a forum more conducive to new people? Perhaps one that I won't feel stupid for asking a seemingly trivial question or perhaps a little more welcoming?

Well, just ask a simple question, one at a time. Looks like you haven't tried yet. Answers need to be expert answers, though.

BTW I'm a Westerner who got into Buddhism in 2011, just for the fun of it. I didn't find the Internet very helpful in the beginning, except for Wikipedia. My University library was very helpful.

Can I just add some encouragement for you to post. Give it a go. We do really try to be welcoming and if you are not feeling it then that is something for us more established users to think about. Really some of the most interesting questions can be very simple. The worst that can happen is that the question will close.

As a veteran of a few different forums I found that they tend to be dominated by the top posters. This is true for all forums and the smaller Stack Exchanges. You pick a forum to participate in, you are personally picking those 10 people to interact with-- so review their posts & profiles.
Stack Exchanges (outside of comment threads) make it difficult for people to get into the long discussions that often turn into flamewars as someone finally says something they think is polite and necessary to say, and in fact comes across as hostile. And then flame wars ensue and people blame individuals instead of the failings of the social technology. I personally think SE came up with a pretty good technology solution.
DhammaWheel, DharmaWheel and NewBuddhist (google them) are not too bad, but all of them have flamewars from time to time. All of them have relegated vegetarianism to a single thread because of the sectarian warfare that shows up when it is mentioned.
After you pick a form of Buddhism you like, (or not), you'd want to pick a specialist forum (e.g. specifically Zen or Dzochen or what have you). I often felt like I got into unproductive discussions on general Buddhist forums because they were giving an answer from, say a Vajrayana viewpoint, when I was looking for an answer from the Chinese or Secular viewpoint. Learning about all the branches is great, but no one is helped by being reminded that one branch of Buddhism thinks the very premise of your question is, oh I don't know, either superstition or contemptible scientism. And some branches of Buddhism like to lump everything into "arrogance"-- e.g. you got a problem? Ah, it's your arrogance that is the problem, the details of your question are irrelevant.-- Maybe true, but not useful and not what I look for in discussions or answers.

If there's a question which you're not sure whether you should ask at all, you could check here on Meta first: you could ask, "Would it be on-topic to ask about YXZ?"
FYI the following are the list of all the reasons why a question might be closed:

off-topic because...
This question does not appear to be about Buddhist philosophy,
  teaching, and practice, within the scope defined in the help center.
unclear what you're asking
Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to
  highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it’s hard
  to tell exactly what you're asking. See the How to Ask page for help
  clarifying this question.
too broad
There are either too many possible answers, or good answers would be
  too long for this format. Please add details to narrow the answer set
  or to isolate an issue that can be answered in a few paragraphs.
primarily opinion-based
Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert
  experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost
  entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific
  expertise.
duplicate of...
This question has been asked before and already has an answer.

So conversely, if a question is ...

About Buddhist philosophy, teaching, and/or practice
Clear, and specific (i.e. answerable)
Fact-based (not too subjective or personal)

... then it's on-topic.
Note that "seemingly trivial" is not a reason why a question is likely be closed.
The Help page says,

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.

So if it's a genuine question, whose answer would benefit you, then it's certainly on-topic: answering questions like that is a reason why the site exists.
FYI, here is the list of sample questions which were suggested when the site was first being proposed; they include many beginner questions, for example ...

Is it necessary for a Buddhist to believe in reincarnation?
What should one do during meditation?
How do I know which type of Buddhism is for me?
What is the main purpose of meditation in Buddhism?
How do I become a Buddhist?

... and many others.

While I don't know of any forums that would be helpful, I can name some great teachers.
Yuttadhammo is a great teacher from the Theravada tradition. I highly recommend his Ask A Monk, Monk Radio (1), (2), (3) and How To Meditate series.
Ajahn Brahm's YouTube videos and Thanissaro's MP3 talks are also very inspiring and informative.
In the Mahayana tradition, Thich Nhat Hanh has written some very accessible books.
Finally, to a beginner I suggest: Take it slowly, one bite at a time. Buddhism has 2600 years of history and intersected with many different cultures so it's not easy to sum up quickly.


text:
On down voting and the Buddhism SE
Hello Buddhism SE community
I rarely downvote answers, when I do my reasons are simple :

Inaccurate information
Does not address or answer the question

I want to know

Are there other reasons where downvoting should be utilized for answers on the site?

As for questions, I also rarely downvote
Reasons for that would be

Question is not about Buddhism
Question has clear agenda
Question unclear

Same as above, are there other reasons when downvoting should be utilized for questions?

With these I always provide a comment on how to improve if possible. Minus the agenda one, I don't have time to be pulled into those dramas.
With the answers a comment will be provided if I think the user will actually edit or improve the answer.
Now I don't want people to think I'm the downvote master, I use them sparingly. 250 upvotes to 22 downvotes is around a 9 to 1 ratio.
I do think as the site grows, and gains members, downvoting, and the community ideals around it should be solidified.
A third point of discussion on down voting in general

Do we as a SE downvote enough?

One might wonder why I ask this, well, after going through some questions that would be considered controversial (In the sense that answers take sharp contrast, depending on what school of buddhism you belong too.) and there are hardly any answers with controversy. A few were spotted here and there, but most were all upvotes and no down, or all down and no up.
Now this might be a testament to  the accuracy of the answers, and the few that did have both up and down voted (7^ 3v, 12 up 5 down, etc) were indeed controversial. There were some with only upvotes and no downvotes that I wondered how no one voted down. Though after reading I myself did not think they needed a downvote, but know of Buddhists who would disagree with me.
I am interested in reading what the community thinks on these 3 questions.

Possible duplicate of How do you vote?

Just my 2 cents, which is really not different from how I vote on other SE sites.
I vote down if it would improve the sort order of answers. Sometimes a mediocre answer has lots of votes and floats to the top because it was answered early in the questions life and now a better answer exists.
I refrain from downvoting if it changes the sign (from 0 to -1) unless I want to send a signal to the person answering the question that they did something wrong and I hope that they will fix it.

Giving an answer a negative score makes it a candidate for deletion.


text:
Should moderators refrain from closing any questions?
Perhaps it would be agreeable to give questions something of a grace period after they are asked, to see what sort of response they garner.
So for instance, no moderation intervention, except in extreme circumstances, for 48 hours. The community could still down vote or vote to close.
Just an idea, thank you.

Edited the title. Hope that's ok. Please rollback if not. Cheers

So the suggestion isn't just that moderators should refrain from closing them, but that everyone (the whole community) should refrain? In theory the questions that would normally be closed are ones described in second half of Moderation policies for Questions (off-topic, polling, duplicates, hostile, and/or comparative religion). In practice the questions which were actually closed in the last 30 days are listed here FYI.

Plus there's the practice of moving questions which are about this site to Meta (which isn't closing them).

No, just that the moderators wouldn't instantly close them. The community could still vote to close. In this way, perhaps a question that would otherwise be closed instantly would have a chance to be answered in a way that a moderator who would otherwise instantly close it would not have thought to have approached the question.

@Ryan You can answer the dukkha question now, by the way: the community voted to reopen it.

I think in an ideal world moderators would only rarely close questions. There would be enough members of the community to cast the 5 close votes required and close down the question. However as we are a relatively small SE site even notably poor questions wouldn't quickly attract the required close votes to shut them down in a timely manner. Hence the moderators intervene more than they would on a site with heavier traffic. That said I could think of a few amendments to the process we could consider

Unless the question is clearly spam then the moderators wait until there is 2 or more close votes already there
Moderators don't act to close questions unless someone feels strongly enough to flag the question for moderator attention
We continue as is but open up specific questions that the community want to reopen in a specific-question discussion on meta
Continue as is but we revisit what we believe are acceptable and unacceptable questions in the site policies

Or we do the 48 hour grace period. I'll be honest I don't like this. Once 48 hours are up then the question is push out of view often. It's unrealistic to expect the moderators to scour the question lists to spot ones that are poor but 48 hours or more older. I wouldn't do that for instance. The other moderators might be willing though.

It doesn't have to be 48 hours. Any reasonable amount of time to allow the question to possibly be answered. The point I was making, what one moderator may deem a "poor question", someone else may see in a different light and might have something useful to offer to the questioner. Thereby this would allow such perspective to be shed on topics that would otherwise be immediately squelched.

It's not that I disagree with this but I won't actually vote for this as-is because it argues for the status quo and/or it suggests 4 possible amendments to the process, so it's not clear what that would appear to be voting for.

I think it's unnecessary and potentially harmful (though it would be a new direction or experiment) to introduce as a new policy.
To start, few questions are closed.
120 new questions were asked in the last 30 days, of which 11 were closed -- of which, most recently:

2 were closed (i.e. the ones about "Jesus Christ's teaching", and about "what is suffering")
1 of these ("suffering") was reopened by the community (which proves that it's harmless or reversible if a moderator makes a "mistake" which the community disagrees with) -- but no-one has since answered it (and in this comment you described it as a LMGTFY question) so maybe closing it wasn't such a mistake after all.
Plus there were 3 which were migrated to Meta (which is not the same as 'closed')
Plus there were 2 others (including this one) closed (or rather, put on hold) temporarily until they were edited and reopened by a moderator

Furthermore the question which was most recently closed (about "Jesus Christ") ought to remain closed. I deleted a comment of yours, which you posted because you thought it was an answer to that question. Your comment (which I deleted) contained two sentences, the first sentence was about the Buddha and the second sentence was about Jesus Christ, and it was because of its second sentence that I deleted it. There's been a lot of discussion on Meta about religious arguments (i.e. that many people don't want them), and I am disinclined to "wait and see what sort of response they garner".
Furthermore the moderators were more-or-less elected by the community. It doesn't IMO make sense to take users, make them moderators, and therefore deny them any vote. Moderators are (I think I can probably say this for all of us) already conscious of the fact that we have a single-vote-to-close and are therefore already inclined to refrain or hold back, to see what other people think, if we have doubt.
Furthermore some suggestion here that moderators should do more to delete things 'on sight' on their own initiative, "regardless of being flagged". If one respected user says we're too slack while another compares us to a "totalitarian regime", moderators already practice a balance between extremes.
Furthermore introducing new rules (e.g. a rule which says that moderators are not permitted to intervene) isn't necessarily skillful.
I hope you will read A Theory of Moderation. It includes statements which support your position, for example:

community moderators do ... as little as possible!

Note the conclusion:

A lot of the moderation work is extremely mundane, almost janitorial. It's deleting obvious spam, closing blatantly off-topic questions, and culling some of the worst rated posts in various dimensions.
The ideal moderator does as little as possible. But those little actions may be powerful and highly concentrated. Judiciously limiting your use of moderator powers to selectively prune and guide the community -- now that's the true art of moderation.

Note too some of the other bits in the middle of that article. Asking the moderators to do nothing is pointless, IMO, because they already do next to nothing. Asking the moderators to do literally nothing no matter what the question sounds like an "interesting" experiment but irresponsible, i.e. moderators are expected to moderate moderately and there's no point in having them if they don't. This is not an unmoderated site.
If you look back in history (e.g. this answer and this answer) you'll see that you have been in favour of closing (and in favour of moderators' closing) some people's questions in the past. Moderators are expected to have learned from history/experience what kinds of question (and even what kinds of motive for questions) are problematic, and better avoided before they get out of hand ... and lead to endless debate. (sigh)
The Moderation policies for Questions is already unusually permissive for a SE site. Do you want to go further and argue in favour of being able to post and able to answer questions which are off-topic, polling, duplicates, hostile, and/or comparative religion? Do you want to argue in favour of rhetorical/teaching questions? Do you want to discuss Meta topics on the main site?

I think this is a better response than mine TBH. I agree with Chris on this one

I would like the say the following about one subset of the cases on closing and opening :

If a moderator answers it, then a moderator shouldn't also close it.
I think is a moderator has posted an answer it is best to wait for the 5 close votes before closing.
If it was a closed question which was opened by a moderator, and to which a moderator added an answer, then the moderators should not close it again unless it gets the needed close votes from the community.
If a question is closed then a moderator shouldn't, both, open it and be the first to answer it.
If it has been closed or put on hold, a moderator should not open it just to post an answer especially if the editing is by the moderator himself. If it remains open for reasonable amount of time then the moderator can answer but not immediately. If the editing is by the OP or someone else which the OP accepts then the moderator can open and post immediately but not otherwise as it sends a bad message to the community.

Above would be the most -ve regarding closing and opening. Rest I think is OK: close what is spam, migrate what is not a good fit, etc.

I agree with the first suggestion, although not the second. I think that the first suggestion sounds reasonable because if someone thinks that the question is answerable (and answers it), I don't see why they might also think it should be closed.

Also, Stack Exchange has designed "Badges", which identify and are meant to promote behaviour which they want to encourage. One of these badges is Refiner: "Edit and answer 50 questions (both actions within 12 hours, answer score > 0)". I think that's evidence that Stack Exchange wants people to both edit (improve) and answer questions, and without too much delay.

I think this is edit and answer. Not edit unblock and answer. If any state had blocked a normal user from immediately posting an answer in which case it is unfair someone else exercises the right a normal user cannot do. There maybe many question which is user may want to have answered but on hold or closed hence cannot answer. When mods are the only ones doing opening and answering it seems naturally unfair.


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How about a 'resource' tab?
Their is a lot of information on Buddhism (in the broadest sense), in different languages and when translated often multiple times.
Since the users here are dedicated, I thought it might help (whomever) to get some resources/references easier. Be it like a sandbox of different material. Either to kick-start understanding of Buddhism, or background material.

What about amending the help page to include some useful resources? I've just found out that moderators can edit some of the sections. I've mocked up how the help page might look. This seems like a good place to put up helpful links and resources and we could direct new users to them to give them a head start.
What do we think?

@Lanka I'm thinking that we feature it for a bit in the meta box as you say. Then we can start to include the link in comments to new users as well - Robin was very good at posting comments to newcomers so we could borrow and adapt her text maybe.

Great idea. We can also update the New User Welcome to add in a suggestion to visit this section and a link to it. :)

That (Help) page can only be edited by moderators. Depending on whether anyone should be able to edit it, and on how big it should be, if you wanted to make a user-editable page you could create it as a new topic/page on the main site (make it "community wiki" probably); and edit that help page you suggested only once, to make it include one link to the new 'Resources' page/topic.

I'd say that's a good start! Perhaps I should also, but then even more general, propose it to StackExchange itself. But if we can make it happen here, the GUI can always be upgraded later on

@ChrisW I like the idea of a set of links on that page that we agree on (with a meta question or two) that can then be edited by mods as required. It's more 'one click' and one we decide it shouldn't change much. People can always request extra links through meta. I will start a new thread though to propose the detail of it

@Lanka - I've just put on a start here. I'll open up a thread when I get a minute asking for ideas about content


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Do we encourage users to choose the best answer?
It seems that for a lot of questions, the person asking never chooses a best answer. Do we just assume that there is no good answer? Or should we encourage users to stay engaged and choose from the answers that are available?

I've just written a query against this (ChrisW taught me how) and 49% of our questions have no accepted answer. Mmmm that doesn't seem very good

@CrabBucket Another useful query might be to group all questions by the user id of the person who asked them, and display the percentage of each user's questions that have accepted answers (e.g. to identify user who have never accepted an answer: and who therefore might not know about, and who might benefit from being told about, the "accept a best answer" feature).

@CrabBucket A 50% acceptance rate is middling compared with other sites.

@ChrisW That is really interesting. Thank you. I always thought we were at the bottom when it comes to accepting answers. I still think we should accept more - see my post below.

@ChrisW I was thinking - I have asked about 10 percent of the questions on the site and I accept answers almost all the time. If you took me out then I would think we would be well into the bottom half of sites when it comes to accepting answers. I think anyway

@ChrisW - I tended to "accept" any answer that I was even 60% happy with. And then you advised me not to be in such a hurry to accept answers, so that it stays current longer. Currently, that's my strategy.

Although we are actually about average according to @ChrisW's analysis I've always felt we should be accepting more answers. I think part of the problem is that for a lot of questions there doesn't appear to be a definitive answer. One can't just point to an answer and say that this is the answer and no other answer will be better ever. I think this deters people from accepting the answer. That's not always true. Certain tags such as reference-request do lend themselves to a right or wrong answer. I'd be interested in the accept rate against that tag of anyone has the time to do the analysis.
Personally I do (almost) always accept an answer. My philosophy is that I am not marking the definitive answer. I am marking the answer that is most useful to me or I believe has made the best attempt to answer the question. I guess I almost view it as a little reward or boost to other users. I'm not sure that's how it is meant to work but it's what I have been doing.
Proposal
I think often meta questions get answered without specific action points so here is a few ideas

Nail down what we want from accepted answers. Is it the defintive answer, the best answer in a reasonable timescale, something else?
Write it up in a meta post and feature that meta post for a time so everyone sees it in the side bar
In addition do some analysis to identify users who ask a lot of questions and never accept an answer. Post a gently reminding comment about the helpfulness of accepting an answer where possible

"Personally I do (almost) always accept an answer. My philosophy is that I am not marking the definitive answer. I am marking the answer that is most useful to me or I believe has made the best attempt to answer the question. I guess I almost view it as a little reward or boost to other users. I'm not sure that's how it is meant to work but it's what I have been doing." -- Yup, that's what I used to do, till Chris said... well, yeah.

I suppose many questioners cannot accept answers because they either don't have a way to reliably identify the right answer, or none of the answers address the underlying issue that led them to asking the question.
Also, to me accepting an answer feels like closing the question. I don't feel encouraged to answer questions which have accepted answers.
So I would say, don't force it. Let the OP make the determination. I'd rather err on the side of leaving them open and seeing new interesting answers.

In fact, we don't (i.e. although people are welcome to if they to, and possibly should if they can, we don't "encourage them to" e.g. by making a habit of posting comments to remind people to do so).
As for whether we should, I don't think we need to.
The model for StackOverflow (i.e. a different site, for software developers) is:

Someone is at work
Has a software problem
Googles
Finds a relevant StackOverflow page
Sees the accepted answer (at the top of the list of answers)
Tries the accepted answers in their work

Having one answer "accepted" (at the top of the list of answers) saves a few seconds (avoids needing to read other answers). It's a signal by the OP, saying, "I tried this answer and it worked for me." It's also a signal that "My problem is past, no need to answer any more."
I think Buddhism.SE is a slightly different model:

People aren't at work nor in a hurry
People who are interested in the answers have time to read them all
The notion of "this answer solved my problem" is a little more complicated, and the answers that "solves your problem" might not solve mine, so the fact that one person accepted a given answer is less (or not especially) significant to other people.

Given that we don't need to, I (personally) don't especially want to. Having your answer accepted is ... fun? But I imagine people post in order to be helpful, which (being helpful or trying to be helpful) happens regardless of voting and acceptance etc.
And I don't want to be telling everybody what to do all the time: "fill in your profile"; "format your answer properly"; "read the 60 pages of help"; "read the meta-topics of site-specific policies".
The site is supposed to be easy to use (without an endless list of rules to learn or hoops to have to jump through)
Still if we were to encourage users I'd suggest asking for Robin's input on how to word that encouragement.


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Should we have a 'Kundalini' Tag?
Should we have a 'Kundalini' Tag?
I have been studying Kundalini and using it throughout my meditation and life but have a lot of questions about the act which is equally physical and spiritual. I also would like to have more people learn about it as it has enhanced my life tremendously. Thank you.

I'm afraid your question was closed down - I believe this is a Hindu concept and as such the question belongs on our sister site Hinduism SE
Hope you get the answer you are looking for over there.

Is kundalini really exclusively hindu? There seems to be buddhist advice to not get too attached to kundalini energy. Maybe kundalini should be considered to the same extent as hindu cosmology which is not dissimilar to buddhist cosmology.


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With reference to the Buddha's 'Ball of Honey' discourse, is it ever possible for a question to 'hurt' or 'offend' a true follower of the Buddha?
In the context of the Buddha's Ball of Honey discourse, is there any justification for a true Buddhist to say, "This man angers/offends me with his questions: therefore silence him and/or delete his questions, and/or modify his questions so that they no longer offend me"?
Does intolerance for questions (or, for that matter, answers and comments) on a forum that is expressly meant for questions and discussion, serve to defend and strengthen faith among believers? Or does it undermine their faith?
Are questions that are perceived as hostile by many individuals necessarily so? Or is such a perception (and reactions proceeding from such a perception) a trap to be avoided, as per the teachings of The Buddha?
If the core values of the Buddha's teachings (which I am paraphrasing as, "the illusory nature of worldly proceedings, and the imperative to detach from worldly proceedings") are not imbibed, is there much spiritual benefit to be had from discussions?
I posted this in Meta because it is a question about questioning, or a discussion about discussing on this forum.

Here is an actual Buddhism debate forum: http://community.beliefnet.com/go/forum/view/43861/71359/Buddhism_Dharma_Discussion__Debate Did you read the answers in here? I thought they were very enlightening myself.

Consider closing the question here, as a version of this question was posted on the main forum, and has attracted some answers.

Buddha's teaching is meant to be applied to oneself, not to measure others.
Buddha's definition of Right Speech is:

And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.

So the question you should ask yourself is, are the questions you ask fall into any of these categories: especially into divisive or abusive speech. Divisive speech is anything that for whatever reason -- objective or subjective -- provokes emotionally charged debates and confrontation:

Abandoning divisive speech he abstains from divisive speech. What he has heard here he does not tell there to break those people apart from these people here. What he has heard there he does not tell here to break these people apart from those people there. Thus reconciling those who have broken apart or cementing those who are united, he loves concord, delights in concord, enjoys concord, speaks things that create concord.

Abusive speech is anything that for whatever reason -- objective or subjective -- hurts people's feelings and angers them:

Abandoning abusive speech, he abstains from abusive speech. He speaks words that are soothing to the ear, that are affectionate, that go to the heart, that are polite, appealing & pleasing to people at large.

What you are basically saying, is that you would like to engage into divisive and abusive speech, contrary to Buddha's recommendation, because you think that as per the Honeyball Sutta "a true Buddhist" should be absolutely open-minded and unattached -- and therefore not to perceive any speech as divisive/abusive, should easily tolerate a wide range of topics and tones.
This may be so, especially for more advanced practitioners. However, the reason Buddha recommended avoiding speech that may be subjectively perceived as divisive/abusive is because it objectively leads to schisms, arguments, conflicts, and suffering - because most people (including "true Buddhists") are NOT enlightened Buddhas YET and their brains work in certain ways.
Do you understand? It is not enough for you to be objectively right. In order to work with real people you need to understand their subjective biases, weaknesses, hot buttons - and be able to work with them, not against them. To be objectively right while ignoring the objectively existing factors (people's subjective biases) is to be objectively wrong. This is known as to be attached to an abstract idea while ignoring the situation on the field.

I have voted to close this question, as its another divisevly phrased and loaded statement. The way it is currently worded is tantamount to " either everyone here should submit to however I feel like speaking to them, or they are not a "true buddhist"."
This is a community for Buddhism, which happens to have Buddhist members. It's not a Buddhist community.
Furthermore, the rules and trespasses you've stepped on have nothing to do with Buddhism; these are basic core principles of stack exchange.

simple and sweet, I like this!

is there any justification for a true Buddhist to say, "... silence him and/or delete his questions, and/or modify his questions so that they no longer offend me"?
Yes, I think perhaps the Buddha's doctrine at the begining of that sutta, where he says,

The sort of doctrine, friend, where one does not keep quarreling with anyone

Does intolerance for questions (or for that matter, answers and comments) on a forum that is expressly meant for questions and discussion, serve to defend and strengthen faith among believers? Or does it undermine their faith?
A couple of answers:

This site is expressly not meant for discussion. It's meant for Q+A. You keep seem to want a discussion or an argument. This isn't the right site for that.
When you ask questions of the form "Is it this, or is it that?" then the answer is sometimes, "no, it's neither"; or, "yes, it's both". In this case IMO it doesn't "strengthen faith" and doesn't "undermine faith".

Are questions that are perceived as hostile by many individuals necessarily so? Or is such a perception (and reactions proceeding from such a perception) a trap to be avoided, as per the teachings of The Buddha?
Do you want to define "hostile"? My personal perception is that you're trying to practise verbal sparring in the way that someone might try to practice karate. But this is the wrong site for that.
If the core values of The Buddha's teachings (which I am paraphrasing as, "the illusory nature of worldly proceedings, and the imperative to detach from worldly proceedings") are not imbibed, is there much spiritual benefit to be had from discussions?
Worldly proceedings aren't "illusory", are they? There's ignorance and attachment (not to mention aversion) in the world, and Buddhism is maybe meant to help people escape from that. I don't think you can help people to escape ignorance by adding more ignorance to the equation, nor anger by adding anger, etc.
Your claim that the "worldly proceedings are illusory" reminds me of this story: Nothing Exists

I think it's possible to raise questions on the Buddha's teachings without offending. I've myself done it several times if you read my past.
I strongly recommend reading the whole discourse by following the link.
(Extracted from) Discourse on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake

There are always some people who do not understand the letter or the
  spirit of a teaching and, in fact, take it the opposite way of what
  was intended, whether the teachings are offered in the form of verse
  or prose, predictions, verse summaries, interdependent origination,
  similes, spontaneous utterances, quotations, stories of previous
  births, wonderful occurrences, detailed commentaries, or
  clarifications with definitions. There are always some people who
  study only to satisfy their curiosity or win arguments, and not for
  the sake of liberation. With such a motivation, they miss the true
  spirit of the teaching. They may go through much hardship, endure
  difficulties that are not of much benefit, and eventually exhaust
  themselves.
“Bhikshus, a person who studies that way can be compared to a man
  trying to catch a poisonous snake in the wild. If he reaches out his
  hand, the snake may bite his hand, leg, or some other part of his
  body. Trying to catch a snake that way has no advantages and can only
  create suffering. “Bhikshus, understanding my teaching in the wrong
  way is the same. If you do not practice the Dharma correctly, you may
  come to understand it as the opposite of what was intended. But if you
  practice intelligently, you will understand both the letter and the
  spirit of the teachings and will be able to explain them correctly. Do
  not practice just to show off or argue with others. Practice to attain
  liberation, and if you do, you will have little pain or exhaustion.
“Bhikshus, an intelligent student of the Dharma is like a man who uses
  a forked stick to catch a snake. When he sees a poisonous snake in the
  wild, he places the stick right below the head of the snake and grabs
  the snake’s neck with his hand. Even if the snake winds itself around
  the man’s hand, leg, or another part of his body, it will not bite
  him. This is the better way to catch a snake, and it will not lead to
  pain or exhaustion. “Bhikshus, a son or daughter of good family who
  studies the Dharma needs to apply the utmost skill to understanding
  the letter and the spirit of the teachings. He or she should not study
  with the aim of boasting, debating, or arguing, but only to attain
  liberation. Studying in this way, with intelligence, he or she will
  have little pain or exhaustion. {Bell}


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Does this forum have a feature using which we can follow questions/ answers of particular members?
Is there (or can there be) an option of following the activity (questions and answers posted) of particular forum members? It may be helpful in educating oneself with the thoughts of particular members who we feel are likeminded or whose thoughts are to our liking. It will also be helpful to new members (like me) for tracking and learning from the past activity of these members.

Yes.
Consider an answer like this one for example.
The user name of the author of that answer ("Andrei Volkov") is immediately below the answer.
That user name is a hyperlink: if you click on it you will see that user's user profile, where you can choose to see their profile or their activity.
There are links on the Activity page from which you can list all their questions, all their answers, etc.

That works for the past activity log. But how about getting alerts on latest activity of particular users?

I don't know of any "alerts" of any sort ... except perhaps an RSS feed. Subscribing to RSS and doing a filter-by-user (if that's possible) might let you implement what you're asking for (if you're a software developer who can write an RSS filter). I don't know about RSS but there are questions tagged 'rss' on the main (not Buddhism-specific) meta-site. I haven't read them but this question asks for that feture "User Answers") which implies the feature doesn't exist.

I guess (don't know) that if you're a software developer with time to spare, you might be able to write a filter to filter an RSS feed after you receive it and before you use it to generate alerts, i.e.: a) subscribe to RSS of the site; b) scan it to look for the user you're interested in; c) alert if found.

Alternatively, the "latest activity" eventually becomes "the past activity"; so you could e.g. scan the user's Activity from their profile occasionally, to find their latest past activity.

@KaKo Please see Thiago's comment posted above this one.

I'm not best with softwares, but I'll try and execute what you have suggested by reading up on the net when I get some time.