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Could / Should we hold informal moderator elections?
Given the age of our site - soon to be 300 days in beta - and the relatively early election of pro tempore moderators, it seems natural that situations may have changed, along with the makeup of the site itself, in the time since our first batch of mods were chosen.
Would it be possible for us to start fresh with a new batch of duly elected moderators, seeing as how our constituency is far more seasoned and varied than it was way back when we three got promoted?
If possible, desired?
If both, let's get to it!

Fwiw, I don't think there's needs to be an election. SE sites seem designed to encourage discord over concord, which I think we need to be aware of. (For example, you are repeatedly discouraged from thanks, "me too", and appreciation, but encouraged to post criticism, differences, and raise concerns. Also only a single answer can be accepted). As with the "points", I suspect that many of us are somewhat equivocal as to the character of the tools we are presented with. Of course this makes it quite understandable that a moderator, at the eye of such things, might wish to be done with that.

Is it possible to put the featured tag on this to highlight this question? Just a thought

@DanSheppard, I know it seems that way, but those truly aren't the goals.  The problem with "thanks" comments isn't that we don't like em - it's that the posts that help the most people can generate dozens of them, which pushes the answers off-page. We can do a lot more to build stronger senses of community and co-operation, but it's worth mentioning that we do value those things.

That's good to know @Jaydles . I wasn't careful enough when I said "designed to", I suppose I meant more "has the effect of". It's the big place I have difficulty knowing what to do. Upvoting is cool, but it would be nice in comments, for example, to be able to non-anonymously upvote a comment that was in response to one of yours, say, or some way of donating some kind of kudos to users who you really value.

@DanSheppard, yup.  One thing I do often to give more specific, pointed encouragement is to compliment a specific thing I liked.  It varies a bit site to site, but most communities that may delete "Thanks" comments as noise, will leave in "The point you made about stuffed monkeys in particular was a huge help!"

Even if unprecended I think it could be a good idea. Personally I would like to see 3 moderators who are active and who want to do the job. We are a different community to when we came out of beta. Some users have dropped out and some have come to the fore. We have a lack of questions but no shortage of people that answer. Maybe it would be a good idea to reaffirm our choices.
There is an aspect that makes Buddhism SE unusual. The moderators are likely going to be practising Buddhists and as such could and probably would go away on retreat perhaps for extended periods. This could leave quite regular holes in the moderation team so perhaps that makes it even more important to have the full set of moderators.
I personally would like Yuttadammo and Andrei to stay if they are willing and respectfully ask Hrafan if he might consider stepping down. But if we did have an informal vote then we could all express this kind of opinion.

Thanks, Abby for your answer. Personally, I'm thinking I would like to step down and only stand for "re-election" if there were not enough qualified candidates. Hrafan is MIA since March 1st, but Andrei is still around, if a bit subdued in his activity.
So, a full election might be overkill; if Andrei wishes to continue as mod, myself and Hrafan can step down (assuming Hrafan agrees) and new mods can be chosen with community support. Does that sound more precedented?
Not that setting a new precedent is not tempting, but Buddhists tend to eschew giving in to temptation :)

Whether you stand down or not, thank you for your activity as moderator, which I think has been / is very valuable and has helped / helps build the site.

An informal election like this would be highly unusual and probably unprecedented, but likely not disallowed. We can't run an official election (like Stack Overflow's) on a beta site like Buddhism, but we always honor a moderator's request to step down if desired and we take the community's input into account when selecting new pro tems.
If the rest of the Buddhism SE community wants to do this, we're fine with it, as long as:

The purpose of this informal election is not to force an existing moderator out of office (we have other protocols for that situation); and
All three of the current moderators agree to this arrangement; and
The Community Team retains the final decision-making authority.

It's not very democratic, and it's not how elections work on fully graduated sites, but there's a reason the Community Team has more oversight on Beta sites. We keep a closer eye on making sure the site is growing and moving in a positive direction, and the moderator team plays a big part in that process. That's why we'd want to retain our final say in this (again, unprecedented) situation.
Buddhism SE is a unique community with specific needs, so I'll leave it to others here to hash out whether this is wanted or needed beyond our requirements above.

Would it be possible ...?

I've seen new moderators appointed on another beta site: what happened there is that "they" (i.e. the Community Team, and not the 'community' of users) chose users who:

Visited the site daily
Were generally friendly, never unfriendly, communicated well
Had high reputation (from answering questions)

The community Team then 'reached out' to those users, i.e. invited them to be moderator -- with, so far as I know, happy results (they're both still moderators a year later).

If possible, desired?

I'm sorry you were criticized recently, consequent to your being a moderator here.
That recent criticism was, I thought, unreasonable (i.e. untrue) and shockingly rude.
You and Andrei both deserve your reputations as top-quality posters/users. Thank you for the time you spend helping with answers to people's questions.
I also think that you and Andrei have both been impeccable as moderators, never making a moderator decision I disagreed with.
If anything you may be too light-handed, allowing and not deleting some fairly low-quality questions and answers, but maybe that (erring on the side of permissiveness) is better at this stage.
In summary:

If we did vote, and if you were a willing candidate, I would gladly vote for you again.
Ditto Andrei
Otherwise, looking at the list of the top users on the site, I'd trust almost any of them to be reasonable

Given that both you and Andrei are competent, if we must lose one of you I hope we don't lose both of you simultaneously: i.e. that at least one of you will stay.
I suggest that the remaining incumbent should be invited to veto or select any new candidate[s]
because I guess it's essential that moderators be able to agree/work with each other, and the incumbent should be able to avoid anyone who may not easy to work with.

This is an important issue. Lack of any timely moderator action back in January, when I was struggling with a particular highly opinionated user who was leaving comments criticizing certain schools of Buddhism around the site, was troubling enough to me that I pulled way back on participating in the site at all. I believe some of the comments I flagged were eventually removed; but it was clear that, at that time, no one was actively moderating on a regular basis and the site was beginning to feel like the "wild west" where anything goes.
I probably should have voiced my concerns in Meta at the time. But I did not want to be critical of our moderators who surely need time away from online activities sometimes to focus on study, practice, teaching, retreats, travel, emergencies and more. And also, no moderators were around to read the concerns. ;-)
A reasonable option might be to build a larger than normal moderator team for this site to take into account the fact that Buddhists do need to drop offline at times to concentrate on their own practices which are not always compatible with online activity. And that's very important of course.
Is there anything that would prevent us from having 4-6 moderators on this site to ensure that daily concerns are taken care of without placing a burden on any one individual?
A team that included @yuttadhammo, @Andrei Volkov, @Crab Bucket, @ChrisW, and perhaps one or two users who have been especially active in the Review queue would be a great, strong team with plenty of room to allow for any one individual's need to be offline for a time.
A question for our third current moderator, @Hrafn, it appears you have not been active for a very long time. If circumstances have changed and you are unable or unwilling to be active as a moderator, would you consider stepping down in this role to facilitate the formation of a strong active mod team?
Thoughts?

Hrafan has decided to step down, so the very least we can do is elect one new moderator. I'd suggest Chris... He's an SE vet.

@yuttadhammo   I have to say I would support Chris as a moderator. His network profile is impressive and he is very active. If there was a situation where another moderator was required then I would certainly put myself forward but I think Chris is the right choice for this spot.

Hi Robin. That is such a shame - I really registered your absence. I appreciated your answers - they really seemed to come from the heart, However if it doesn't feel like a welcoming environment you are totally right to step back. I hope we can get this moderator thing sorted out and it will become a more welcoming place for everyone

@CrabBucket, thank you! I am actually back to checking into the site more often now. Things are definitely better. I just wanted to share my experience from last winter as an example of how quickly things can get negative when moderators are not available. I do think there is some practical value in considering a larger group of moderators for this site to allow for the Buddhist tendency to need to be away from ordinary responsibility and routine to concentrate on personal practice at times.

I feel not well with the perspective, that because of one user's problems (how to interpret the editing and commenting - even if it is a bit aside of the question what happens to all answerers from time to time) the structures of the SE-platform become challenged. What if really a bigger conflict arises?
For me it is unbelievable, that our user yuttadhammo - different from all his qualified, serene and constructive contributions which I've seen so far - should have misused his moderating - tools and role. In my view he even did not misuse his normal, common user-tools and role.
Even I got the contradictory impression when I've read that related chat between the other user and yuttadhammo: that he should have used his moderator-role to calm the heated other user down and watch the process of escalation - a type of completely baseless escalation which I've not yet seen in buddhism.SE (but well, perhaps this shall become standard soon, similar to what happens in many usenet-newsgroups, why not...)
So that's my recommendation to the user and to the moderator yuttadhammo, which I think need not be explicated more. Perhaps I'm completely wrong, missed essential information...  but I don't think so.

For me it's more a matter of being open to criticism as a monk and teacher of a specific tradition... there will always be suspicion of bias and ulterior motive as a moderator, I think. I'd rather focus on answering questions than dealing with accusations of corruption and god-complex.

@yuttadhammo: ah that's as well! :-)

@yuttadhammo Instead of your "dealing" with an accusation of that sort, if a conversation descends to such a level then what I've seen happen on other sites is that another moderator takes over the conversation (IOW it wasn't wrong of you to quit that chat when you did). Another option is a private chatroom for a private reprimand, and/or to suspend the offending user e.g. to "cool down".

@ChrisW thanks... I admit, part of the impetus for this question was a lack of any other moderator involvement in this latest issue. It seemed a pretty clear example of where other moderators should jump in and take over. Abby has been helpful, anyway. Would you be willing to step up as a moderator?

@yuttadhammo I would. Or Crab Bucket has a high reputation, and a lot of meta-activity (i.e. 24 helpful flags, 440 posts edited, 1300 votes). Or if writing highly-upvoted answers is significant, according to this the people with more than 40 answers and an average score of more than 2.5 votes/answer are: Unrul3r, Robin111, Rabbit, Thiago, Sankha, Bakmoon, Crab Bucket, tkp, and MatthewMartin.

@ChrisW thanks for the name check. I would put myself forward for moderator too if we did hold informal elections. I think your list of other users is very reasonable to but I'd like to take ongoing activity into account too. But if we did the informal vote then that would come out in the wash.

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Choosing a book for book of the month club?
If we did start a book of the month club, we could use our Facebook page for coordinating. I'm currently the only admin, I think, but that can be easily rectified.
Those who are interested in such a venture, which book would you like to study? One book per answer, please; top voted answer can be our first book to be studied.
The tie in with SE is that the text should be one that will stimulate our question-asking faculties, which we then apply by asking questions about the book of the month on Buddhism.SE

This looks interesting. How would the FB page be utilized though? Because of the Q & A feed stuff tends to move off the page pretty quickly and you wouldn't be able to set it to receive notifications without receiving the Q & A feed too. And non admins have limited space to post. A Facebook Group might give more options as opposed to a Page. But a dedicated Meta thread may be most convenient of all as it allows for voting (as you have here now) and doesn't require a person to be a FB user. :)

The last time I did this we studied our book at a rate of one chapter per week. One chapter (or two) per week isn't too much reading (and leaves time for asking and answering questions). Defining a schedule like that results in everyone reading (and asking about) the same chapter in the same week, and some sense of community (i.e. of doing something together). And otherwise people ask questions about chapters which others haven't read yet. That many weeks might take two months per book.

If possible could we organise the book club on meta. I'm not a big facebook user and ideally I'd like delete my account. Is there a reason from Stack Exchange mothership why it's not appropriate to organise on meta?

@CrabBucket sure, we could do that as well. And just use the Facebook page for advertising it.

Any thoughts on when might be a good time to begin?

I know this is a little tangential, but could you give us a little time to get the book? Maybe announce it with a rolling month ahead kind of thing? I know that there are retailers who can get this stuff to you by sounding rocket in the blink of an eye, but sometimes stores that I'm sure many of us like to support take a couple of weeks. :-)

I was recently gifted with Evolving Dharma, by Jay Michaelson, but haven't got around to reading it yet. This might be a good excuse to start?

On the other hand, maybe we should stick to free online books?

I just found out that the Abhidhammattha-Sangaha is available for free online... I don't know that this would be of interest to everyone on the site, but just to throw it out there:
A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma

I've been recommended A Seeing That Frees by Rob Burbea. It's a recent book about insight practice and emptiness. It's not free but the ebook edition is about half the price of the print version. I'd love to read it in a study group.

It has many favourable reviews. The first chapter (and front matter) can be previewed here.

A book that most of you may have read already, but perhaps The Lotus Sutra (someone recommended Burton Watson's Translation).
It's quite long (book-length), one of the most popular and influential Mahāyāna sūtras according to Wikipedia, one of the first sutras to use the term Mahāyāna, and I find a lot (too much) of it difficult to understand.
If I find it too difficult to understand then maybe it's not for me. But if it's popular and influential maybe other people have understood it, and maybe it would be good to study and ask questions about.

Would anyone be interested in reading the classic "The Light of Asia" by Sir Edwin Arnold? Free download. :)

Another in the spirit of Q & A: "Women in Buddhism - Question & Answers" by Chatsumarn Kabilsingh Ph.D. (Theravada tradition)

Ven. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh provides answers to questions often asked about women and the ordination issue and related topics. She responds to such questions as: In the Buddha's time what role did women play in Buddhism? Why cannot women become buddhas? What is the Buddhist attitude towards prostitution? What is an attitude of a Buddhist towards abortion? What is the unique characteristic in American Buddhism which might interest a feminist?

As far as I remember, the questions people have submitted on our site regarding women in Buddhism were relatively highly rated and viewed; so thought this might possibly also be of interest.

This would be a more ambitious undertaking at 438 pages. But it does look interesting. "What Buddhists Believe" by Ven. Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda. Non sectarian and free download.

In the spirit of Q&A, here's a good perennial favourite not biased to one tradition or another:
Good Questions, Good Answers by Ven. Dhammika

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Some thoughts on the direction of Buddhism.SE
So, I'm thinking I'll resign as mod after all... life is getting busier in other realms, and I have to prioritize. Just wanted to express what is probably still a dissenting opinion; that Buddhism.SE is headed in a direction that makes me want to put it lower on my list of priorities.
I've expressed unpopular opinions in the past, mostly advocating for a more ridged SE-based format, wherein questions are asked looking for expert or well-cited answers; responses seem to indicate invariably that the community here would rather see the site move towards the generic Internet forum format, wherein non-answers, debates, and answers based on personal opinion are acceptable. I've generally acquiesced personally to the arguments in favour of all these elements that have come to make the site what it is at this point in its growth. But when I look at it today, I don't see the site I was interested in helping grow over a year ago, or even six months ago.
Personally, I haven't the time for or interest in debating Buddhism on the Internet - forums abound where one may do so elsewhere; I didn't think that would be the purpose of this site. I also don't have the time for or interest in answering questions about meditation practice in a broad public forum like this - it seems somewhat crass to vote on the best advice/tradition for a generic meditation problem, for one thing, and for another, I already answer such questions from my online followers daily. So again, prioritizing.
What I was looking for here was a place where I could answer specific questions about topics on which I was somewhat of an expert, under the assumption that I (or anyone) could provide the single right answer to the question as a resource for Buddhists searching for answers online,  without having to deal with (much) controversy or opinion. I don't think that is the nature of this site today, and I think it is (and has been for some time) moving further away from this format in general.
Which is cool... just not for people in my position. So, I think I'm moving on. Priorities and all.
Best wishes to all, anyway. Be well.

Philosophy and religion in particular, and humanities in general draw out complex opinions because they take on very large metaphysical questions. The rise and fall of numerous schools of Buddhism easily show that one answer doesn't satisfy everyone. I am very grateful for your contributions to this site Bhante, and hoped you'd stay on, but I can understand priorities change. Thanks for explaining.

Krishnaraj asked me to convey to you his sincere apologies.

I, too, owe you an apology: I'm sorry that as a moderator I didn't better or more rapidly ascertain your views and the community's views on this type of questioning.

Bhante, this site is really crazy and is completely out of the spirit of Buddhism. We follow your teachings all time. Thank you for all of the wonderful things that you have done and changing many people's lifes, including mine.

Ever since the discussion (and user input) which led to this I've been trying to be permissive about questions: to allow as many people as possible (including people new to Buddhism and new to the site) to post questions.
It's even been a bit of a relief (i.e. less worry) to have a policy of accepting almost any question, no longer ever worrying about whether each new question is good enough.
I've also been trying to answer (non-expert) questions that I can, specifically so that you (a genuine experts) isn't obliged to, to minimize your workload so that you can answer the more expert questions.
Can you think of any changes to the policy/moderation, which could make this more like the site you want it to be?
For example, you wrote...

I've expressed unpopular opinions in the past, mostly advocating for a more rigid SE-based format, wherein questions are asked looking for expert or well-cited answers; responses seem to indicate invariably that the community here would rather see the site move towards the generic Internet forum format, wherein non-answers, debates, and answers based on personal opinion are acceptable.

To implement that, maybe we could...

Restrict the range of questions that can be asked (i.e. increase the requirements/demands that we put on questions) such that they could only be answered by someone who is relatively expert
Be stricter about answers (possibly looking to Skeptics.SE, for example, which requires that answers reference published sources instead of or as well as being your own opinion)
Define what you mean by "non-answers" and "debates" and go about banning and deleting them

Personally, I haven't the time for or interest in debating Buddhism on the Internet

Has someone been asking you to debate Buddhism? Can I help to prevent that?

I also don't have the time for or interest in answering questions about meditation practice in a broad public forum like this

That's a type of question we could well ban without great loss and perhaps for good reasons.

What I was looking for here was a place where I could answer specific questions about topics on which I was somewhat of an expert ... without having to deal with (much) controversy or opinion

Would it be feasible and would it help to erase (i.e. ban) controversy, e.g. to delete hostile comments, and to edit (or delete) answers which contain any seemingly-hostile asides?
I have been seeing some, and if it were site (community) policy I'd be willing to try to implement banning and/or deleting that. Until now I've been willing to tolerate, what shall we call it, an "argumentative tone" on the assumption that most people were able and willing to tolerate it. If you (and/or "people in your position") are not willing to tolerate it then that probably changes the equation.
Instead of "we're surprisingly tolerant" should it be that "we're surprisingly strict"? As if this were a library and people need to make an unusual effort to keep their voices down and to not disturb other people here? We could say for example that any/all posts might be edited/reworded to improve their tone, to make them gentler or more neutral.
Maybe if answers do disagree with each other they should keep that to themselves, i.e. state their own position positively but never saying negatively, "I disagree with some other position".

I'm not really saying how the site should be, and I don't think it's a matter of tolerance. It seems like a matter of focus. I always assumed SE was for expert questions and answers, and that's what appealed to me about Buddhism.SE. The current state of our site doesn't appeal to me so much, that's all.

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What should our chatroom be called?
We have a chatroom for this site, which we can use for discussing the site itself, or Buddhism, or just about anything, really. You can access it here: http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/15162/buddhism
It is currently named Buddhism. Should we keep that name or call it something else?

Over at [hinduism.se], there was some discussion of changing their chatroom's name to something else. I posted this because I wanted to nip that silly idea in the bud.

Actually, we can have lots of chatrooms, no? I just created another one, because it seems like the main Buddhism chatroom is being spammed with all new posts.

@yuttadhammo Oh yeah, we can definitely have a number of chatrooms; I was just talking about what we should name the main one. Re: the new posts filling up the main chatroom - a mod from another site turned on feeds that automatically post new questions. I'll ping him and ask him to turn it off for now, since we don't really need it at this point (plus it's apparently squeezing out actual chat).

@yuttadhammo A mod from another site (JNat) turned off the feed ("Indra") that was posting questions from the main site into the chatroom. The feed that posts questions from meta into the chatroom ("Asura") is still on for now. This should reduce the clutter in the main chatroom. Once somebody gets appointed room owner (by chatting enough) or we get our pro tempore mods (in a few weeks), we'll be able to control this stuff ourselves.

Great, thanks :)

Our chatroom should be called Buddhism, just like it already is. We want our chatroom to be easy to find.
Once the site is better-established and has a solid base of people who participate in chat, we can then think about changing it to something else.

"Sangha" or "TheSangha" or something similar

I would edit, but I have not the rep . +1 to buddhism for now as that is what people extect. In the long run, Sangha for community fun/hangout + Buddhism for site specific discussion and something such as Karma or similar for a channel specific to meta and/or moderation

Sangha will exclude the lay person. So keep it as Buddhism.


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On reputation, badges and Buddhist principles
I hear sometimes that a Buddhist person shouldn't speak about his/her accomplishments. For example, someone shouldn't call himself an arhat. But does it limit to the spiritual path alone, or does it extend to other secular things, like reputations and badges in buddhism.stackexchange?
Do you think that showing reputation and badges near to the user avatars goes against that principle?
Would it be possible to hide these "numeric details" in the flairs (those little user reputation summaries around the site)?

Sorry for upvoting ;-)

First of all, the format of the site is not really up to us; the site belongs to StackExchange and they determine the layout of the site for the most part (full-fledged sites have some control over style and formatting). Since this is the case, I don't see the breach on the part of a Buddhist concerned for their own humility.
Further, reputation is a good measure of both a user's commitment and the quality of their participation. Allowing others to see it provides potential reassurance as to their authority on the site's subject matter.
Finally, the concept of withholding one's accomplishments only extends to supermundane states; it is expected that Buddhists should be able to see beyond mundane accomplishments and not judge a person's worth based on, e.g., their ability to answer questions.


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FYI: Stepping out until 22nd
FYI: I'm on vacation until 22nd, trekking in the mountains, with no access to Internet.

Thanks for the heads up. We'll keep an eye on things in your absence.

I'm back and catching up


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Stepping down from the Moderator position
Hello noble community,
It is with great respect and deep appreciation, that I would like to request a dismissal from this position of Moderator of Buddhism Q&A.
It was a big privilege and undeserved honor to play a key part of this community in its initial stages. While my level of insight was barely enough to fill the void of guidance we had in the beginning, it is definitely not at a level to make positive difference now, when community is so much more mature.
ChrisW is truly the heart and soul of the moderation team, and Lanka is a wise and noble partner - whose combined experience and grace at handling issues far exceeds anything I can pretend to possess.
I am humbled by the fact that you let me stay a moderator for so long, without actually requiring me to fulfill much of the moderation duty. I feel like I'm occupying this place as a way of community tradition or inertia - but believe me, there is definitely more than one person capable of doing this job way better than I did (or rather, did not).
Rest assured that I will remain a member - definitely a reader and upvoter, and occasionally an answerer, although it is clear to me that much more practice is required before I can say anything useful again.
Thanks everyone, but especially my dearest friends ChrisW and Lanka - and I will see you online.

Andrei, "it is definitely not at a level to make positive difference now", just remarke that: my person does not see that but simply the opposite and also likes to remark, that Andrei, his kind and approaches are for sure a good ingredient for this place. After all moderator is not a teacher or content-giver but merely a admirable guide who keeps others from mistakes. Such requires wisdom and not a little anything else. With this distancing here by words and thiughts even perfect in being not a part of a team and struggle with such. Maybe some thiught to consider. Anyway best wishes & Sadhu!

Sadhu for you efforts and future endeavors

"I am humbled by the fact that you let me stay a moderator for so long, without actually requiring me to fulfill much of the moderation duty. I feel like I'm occupying this place as a way of community tradition or inertia - but believe me, there is definitely more than one person capable of doing this job way better than I did (or rather, did not)." This is really a great paragraph but human mind is not staying still, so unfourtunately this decision is changed.

Yeah, no one else stepped up and they had to ask me back.


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'Comparative religion' questions
There have been a couple of "comparative" questions recently:

Is it possible to be both Buddhist and Christian?
What is the basis of Lotus Sutta with respect to original Tipitaka?

In the past the moderators might not have allowed these questions; and many users voted to avoid this site being used for sectarian disparagement of other sects.
Are these questions OK? Should they be closed? Or should they have been closed immediately, should I have closed them as soon as I read them, without waiting for other users' votes and input?
Are the answers to these questions helpful? Or are they unwelcoming, and do they risk reducing the number of users who feel it's worth asking and answering any other questions on this site?

Let us examine a case you cite in order to have "food for thoughts" so as to be able to answer your questions.

[The] Lotus Sutra [] is a Mahayana Sutra written by a number of Indian
  philosophers over hundreds of years.

While this is a specific belief, it is stated as a [general] fact (as attests the use of gnomic present). While the question was comparative, the answer fails to compare by taking only "one version of the story" into account and expressing it as a fact. There lies the problem.
To actually compare demands (1) putting things into perspectives, (2) not taking anyone's version as a fact, (3) but as a speech, or as a belief. Comparative analysis consists mainly in presenting or exposing what each says. It is not about what is true. It is not matter-of-factly. It could be matter-of-factly only in case the question was "I am lost! I heard the two claims... which is true?" But then, such a question would be deleted because it calls for an opinion-based answer. Similarly, an answer that is matter-of-factly and opinion-based to a "comparative religion question" ought to be deleted. A comparative model would be:

A says this.
A says this while B says that.
A says this while B says that and both statements are contradictory. They debate about their disagreement in such and such a way.

From this perspective, the initial statement would be better rephrased as any of the following sentence:

"According to Theravada, the Lotus Sutra is a Sutra written by a number of Indian philosophers over hundreds of years."
"One the one hand, According to Theravada, the Lotus Sutra is a Sutra written by a number of Indian philosophers over hundreds of years. On the other hand, according to Mahayana, a Sutra was taught by the Buddha in Rajagriha.

In case there are contradictions, one ought to highlight that there are contradictions, and seek to clarify them by stating arguments each side establish when they debate.
Another statement was:

Sadly there is next to nothing in keeping with the original suttas,
  and all you will find are contradictions.

This statement suffers three faults:

It generalizes (nothing, all) without reference.
The word "Sadly" makes the statement a judgment.
"Sadly" might imply that "not keeping with the original suttas" makes it mistaken or deceptive while it is not so according to Mahayana. It is again taking only one side of things.

By fear of wordiness, I will not go through each statement that I think is questionable in the answer I down-voted. This is sufficient to show that the reasons of my down-voting did not have to do with sectarianism.

In conclusion various questions arise.

Is Buddhism SE a site where we speak, not of facts, but of propositions regardless?
Among the reader and the ones who answer, who is expected to be the more expert?
What is the function of SE? (I do not believe one should have to read all the answers to one question in order to get the answer he was looking for, because it is not a forum)

I tend to think that the ones who answer should be more expert, and that if we can not demand it from anyone (as Suminda suggests) then we should not allow comparative questions.
I checked a few Q&A that were tagged "History" because historical Q&A also does not speak of Buddhism: it speaks of events that are likely to have happened (or positions that are likely to have been held, expressed, etc). A historical Q&A will not state what is fact according to Buddhism (such as "What is fruition in Buddhism?") but what History (and thus historians!) state is likely to have happened. For instance: "Did Buddha Return to Extreme Asceticism?"
I did not come across inadequate answers to questions that were tagged history. My thought as to the why is: It is because we know how to answer historical questions. Everyone knows historians debate one another... disagree with one another... come up with versions of what might have been said, etc.; express probabilities by way of using conditional, and so forth.
I believe we lack the expertise (and maybe the maturity) to answer questions of comparative religion. This is because one the one hand, we are "obsessed" with what is and what is not, and on the other hand, we are not that familiar with comparative studies. To answer adequately a question comparing two traditions, imagine how expert I must be. Is it realistic? Can we ask such an expertise of our community?

Not very on here is a historian hence it is too much of a burden to mention According to Theravada ... because when one's belief is According to Buddhism .... Also on hould be able to write and answer according to once conviction. Also answers will have the bias towards one's beliefs. If you look at the Mahayana answer this seems hostile to Theravada perspective. Nobody can write from both or all perspective but multiple contributions balance out. The reader can figure out what biases are and differences in perspective. More contributors more angles get covered.

Within Theravada also there are differences but each school takes the stance According to Buddhism ... and not otherwise. Best is encourage multiple answers from many perspectives. Let the readers be aware and decide what is palatable to them.

Thank you for your comment. "More contributors more angles get covered" you say. Generally, yes. But in the case of comparing, no. How is this comparing if little is covered? That's what make these questions "questions for experts." At least, when someone is not an expert in relation to both the angles the question ask, he should be humble (like saying "From the little I know of..." "If it is true that you believe", etc. How could one take the stance of saying "this is fact, and what you say (that I know little about) is not fact"? I wouldn't make sense.

I also think sadly implies not keeping with the original suttas which is fact the Theravada belief. This is what we have been culturally taught. Many contributors from this country may take a similar stance.

One can write the side one is an expert in. Another can write the angle another one is a expert in. This has a combined effect of completing the answer.

I understand that you believe it is a fact. But a comparative question does not ask about facts. By nature, a comparative question asks about what people believe are facts. It is not the same thing. You can only answer it by saying "so and so believe so and so, while so and so believe so and so." It is also the reason why one must be comprehensive in answering a comparative question. But if one cannot, he ought to say "A thinks this..." not to make it a fact (as opposed to the 1st statement I quoted in my above answer)

As I said, not every one here are historians to follow this approach. One will naturally write based on one's convictions. Expressing one's convictions should be allowed. One will consider one's convictions as facts or "gospel truths" depending on the person. Multiple sides of the arguments will be represented through different answers than one answer. You cannot force or expect someone to say "I think this is ..." when he believes this is the truth, in which case they will say "This is so ... "

I'm glad you explain what you think. I gave 'food for that reason.' My conclusion is that if most people think like you, then, to answer ChrisW: Yes, comparative questions should not be allowed on SE.
The answer must depend on the question. There are things that questions demand. For instance, if you are to compare Christianity with Buddhism, you are not expected to say one is deceptive or fake or deluded. You are expected to say or they relate and how they do not. So, if people can not follow this approach, these questions should not be allowed. It was so in the past, maybe for good reason

You can not answer a comparative question as you answer a question about Buddhism proper, such as "Can a person without any of the five physical senses attain arhatship?". Because this asks "Is it a fact?" "How are things in fact?". Comparative questions do not do that in this way.

The above 2 question brought about a lot of information which is interesting and food for thought. This would have not happened if they were closed. You should not say this is fake or name calling. I accept this.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Are these questions OK?

I think they should be OK. Generally people tend to correlate with concepts they already know and are familiar with. So comparisons should be OK.
Also a legitimate question that may arise when initially trying to learn about Buddhism is, does this go against your religious tenets. Will I go to hell for being if I practice meditation as this might conflict with my religion.
In case of answers they should be from the Buddhist perspective. The question should be asking a Buddhist take on the matter.
As for the above 2 questions, they have generated many diverse answers with information and references which would be valuable to a would be reader. Therefore these kind of question should be allowed.

Are the answers to these questions helpful?

Both these question generated detail and diverse answers.
Any well argued and / or well reference content should be acceptable. Some content may not be helpful to everyone. If might be helpful to some. Acceptability also will vary. Some arguments may not be acceptable to some but acceptable to others. In such cases neutrality is best in moderating, comments and downvoting.
Also there are so many differences that it will come to a point there is very little you can share. Leaving aside differences between religions and Buddhist Schools even within a school's their linkages with major differences. Some lineages say this is the right way and this is wrong. Some lineages say quite the opposite emphatically as this is wrong. It will be useful if someone shares their knowledge in some way without obstruction. If this leads to say our view is this and it is offensive to say the opposite so emphatically, when teachers of particular linage / school say this is wrong may block a lot of answers. E.g. if you write what is acceptable intersection to Thai Forest, Ledi, Sunlun, Mahasi quickly you will realise little anyone can contribute, and if you were to include a few more this will be next to nothing, within Theravada alone. Even a pair wise combination will be very little in common.
Some people seem to have taken one view point as unwelcoming. Ideally this should not be the case. Any person should be able to share their views and knowledge. Sharing knowledge should not be viewed as attacking.
Some content seems to have been downvoted also. I think this should be reserved to poor quality answers than arguing out a particular stance strongly, where some view are held by scholars and teachers. I.e., this ideally should not be done due to disagreeable school of thought.
Does how will this be enforced. If the question does not explicitly mention, it is comparion between schools but as it as comparison between concepts. Do every one know succinct differences to enforce this consistently. (Is this or that understanding right type of questions.)
Also someone exposed to one line of thought may want to know why others follow something else. If the answers are logical and / or well reference I do not see a problems.
What is not helpful

Calling names at other schools. E.g. "X school are a bunch of idiots"
argument without logical basis or rational basis or references when they seem overly harsh

Or are they unwelcoming, and do they risk reducing the number of users who feel it's worth asking and answering any other questions on this site?

Maybe in the welcome message you can add a section that we accept content from wide range of schools of thoughts and to be tolerant of any disagreeable content. If you have an alternative view or disagreement best is post another answer with your side of the argument than comment wars or downvoting. Also such Q & A should not be considered an "attack". (Be cool and keep posting!) Then they know what to expect and know what to do. This has the benefit of getting a wider range of knowledge being shared.


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Is this answer wrong?
I'm wondering whether I ought to complain about this answer ... whether there's anything useful to be learned from a complaint, or harm from not complaining.
I'm prompted by the OP's comment here:

Its a straightforward question, similar to Kamma & the Holocaust. It is EVIDENCE BASED rather than opinion based.

My complaints about it include the following.
It's an answer whose topic is history, not Buddhism
Perhaps it's trying to explain (historical origins of) the holocaust, but isn't trying to explain Buddhism. If it were more focussed on trying to explain Buddhism I think it might say instead, more briefly,

Buddhism teaches that there's "collective kamma" -- and the nazis attacked all jews because some individuals had historically been trade unionists, bankers, communists.

The only hint of Buddhism in the current answer is that it "occurred due to collective kamma".
Most of the answer lists (allegedly) historical facts (about jews), which are off-topic; I don't want to say that history-of-Buddhism is off-topic, or that Buddhists should be blind to history (nor blind to science for that matter), but this isn't the right SE site to teach history (which might be important for the same kinds of reason that posts about medicine should be off-topic). I don't want to complain about historical doctrine (i.e. what's being taught about history) because I think the subject of that complaint would be off-topic (i.e. I don't want to discuss that topic, history of the holocaust, on this site), OTOH I also don't want to allow unreviewed, inexpert posts about history to be posted without review; so I'm conflicted. Perhaps such a post shouldn't be allowed on this site (if you want to post it, perhaps post it History.SE where it could be reviewed by historians).
Apart from the fact there too much history (or pseudo-history) in it, is this answer an explanation "in Buddhist terms" as requested by the question? Does Buddhism teach "collective karma"? Would it be Buddhist to suspend the OP's account because some other guy of his ethnicity had previously been trolling?
Wasn't it because of the Nazis' actions, more than the Jews', that the holocaust "occurred"?
The author of the answer clearly felt it was right to post it. And it was open for 2 days before any moderator deleted it, and when it was eventually deleted that might have been because of the comments (i.e. the answer conformed to current rules as we understand them).
Is there some reason why that answer wasn't OK, some characteristic of it that a moderator ought to identify: off-topic, offensive, something else?
You could post a similar answer about any or every ethnic and/or religious group (to pick some at random -- Christians, Slavs, the French -- every group has included some bankers, trade unionists, communists): would those answers have been just as good, and/or is that "evidence" that the original answer is untrue or (more probably) incomplete, an insufficient (misleading) explanation?
I think we've been quite good at keeping anti-Christian, anti-Muslim (and anti-Buddhist) posts off the site, but I couldn't see a moderation rule for deleting this answer. Should there be one, should there be a rule, is there a rule which should, apply to this answer?
Or is it a "legal" answer to the question, but there's something wrong with the question?

Yes, in my opinion that answer was wrong, with its basis in confusion and aversion. The reason I did not delete it right away, and only downvoted it, is because I wanted OP to see how such answers provoke issues with many people, not just with moderators. I hope OP has learned something from posting it and receiving the comments he received.
Anyway, I think the rule for deleting similar posts should simply be "touching upon sensitive topics in clearly insensitive ways that lead to arguments and negative emotions on readers' end"

Counter-arguments to that could include: 1) You're a snowflake creating a safe space 2) You're an apologist, even a zionist, or a dupe, enforcing a one-sided view of history 3) The post isn't offensive, it would be the reader's fault for being offended (we had that with Krishnaraj's posts for a while) 4) It's moderators abusing their privilege and imposing their personal view of what's orthodox. -- Nevertheless we might do it (delete the post) and then eat the blame for doing so.

@Thiago For that specific answer, yes that's so. I was wondering more generally whether to increase my sensitivity, decrease the threshold at which I intervene ... maybe that post is a symptom of moderation being a little too permissive at the moment.

What do you think of the very end bit of this answer by the way? Would I be right to insist on deleting the last two lines from that answer, even after the user rolled back my edit? In context it might be an argument or discussion with Samana Johann on what's considered Right Speech. I'd like to accommodate him (i.e. "live and let live"), and it is just words, otoh I read those words as breaking the rules-as-written; and I don't want to let the OP be bullied in the classroom and to be made to think that it's wrong to step up and ask a question.

Yup, "too greedy and lazy" part is too much. The rest about Burma is okay in context.

I think it's off-topic. If it were 5 words about history and 300 words about Buddhism, then it would be on-topic; but it's currently 5 words about Buddhism and 300 words about history, therefore off-topic.
If it were 300 words about Buddhism (e.g. an explanation of the Buddhist doctrine of "collective karma") it would be on-topic -- and then we might hope that other users (the "community of experts") could assess whether or not the answer is a good explanation of Buddhist dharma.
Users on this site, however, cannot be expected to judge whether an answer is a good description of history ... which is a reason why "history" (except maybe Buddhist history) isn't on-topic.
The answer looks like it's on-topic, on the face of it, because the question asked, "How can you explain...?" -- so, "I explain it as being a result of this history" looks like it's an answer to the question. But that kind of question (where every answer is equally correct just because it's your answer) would be technically what we call "a polling question" and not permitted as a valid type of question. Instead the question must be asking about Buddhism, and answered accordingly.


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What are comments underneath answers for?
This is to try to explain why some comments (posted underneath answers) are permitted, while others are not; and why some "discussions" or "debates" are permitted, and others are not.

Comments are difficult. Comments can help clarify an answer (which is good); but long discussions distract from the answers; and criticisms can become impolite and controversial (which is bad).

Comments are officially described in the Help Center topic Comment Everywhere -- which
includes subjects like, "When should I comment?", and, "When shouldn't I comment?".
There's also A guide to moderating comments -- which is more detailed, and which explains how Stack Exchange thinks comments ought to be moderated.

Stack Exchange permits comments but doesn't encourage them. Commenting is a privilege (for experienced users). Comments can be troublesome for moderators (and require moderation).

Several types of comment
I think there are several types of comment, i.e. questions, suggestions, criticism, etc.
And I think that the best (i.e. the politest, most constructive, most inoffensive) form of comment are "questions" and "suggestions" -- usually better than "criticism".
Questions -- a question is a comment like:

I didn't understand X?
What did you mean when you wrote Y?
Can you give a reference for that quote?

The proper response to a question might be:

Post a comment to answer the question
Or (especially if the answer is long), edit the answer to answer the question
Or just ignore the question (don't answer it)

Suggestions -- a suggestion is a comment like:

I think this answer would be improved if you explained X

The proper response to a suggestion might be:

Edit the answer to include the suggestions
Or just ignore the suggestion

Criticism -- a criticism is a comment like:

I think this answer is wrong because X
I think this doesn't answer the OP's question which was about Y

The proper response to a criticism might be:

Edit the answer to improve it
Or just ignore the criticism

Note that the Help Center says,

"Leave constructive criticism that guides the author in improving the post"

A comment like "You're wrong as usual" is obviously not "constructive"; and it's not about the post either (instead it's a comment about the person, which you probably never should).
Thanks, and Chat -- these are comments like, "Great answer!", and, "That reminds me of X!".

How to respond to a comment
If someone posts a comment under your answer:

You may want to edit your answer to address the comment
You're not required to edit your answer1, and you may ignore the comment
Maybe you should ignore the comment, unless you can see how to use the comment to improve your answer
You may flag the comment as unwanted (e.g. "rude", "obsolete", or something else) for a moderator to delete

1 (except, very rarely, if the comment is phrased as a command by a moderator)

Several types of discussion

"Discussion" -- you can discuss a comment (by posting another comment in reply)
"Extended discussion" -- a discussion is on-topic (and might be seen as a helpful addition to an answer) if it's talking about the answer to the question; but discussion is "off-topic" or "extended" if it's talking about something else that's not directly related to the answer and the OP's question.
Some "Extended" discussion is tolerated (it's even welcome, if it's useful and is being enjoyed by all participants) but may be moved to a chat room.
Please remember that the main purpose of Stack Exchange is to answer the OP's question. If your discussion or argument isn't interesting to the original question, and interesting to the OP who asked the original question, you probably shouldn't be posting such comments.
"Arguments" -- comments such as, "you're wrong!"2, and so on aren't really welcome or useful. If you only "argue", rather than "discuss" or "question", then it's probably better to stop posting.

2see also Can you keep "you" out of hostile comments? for example

How to post criticism
IMO the best (i.e. the politest, most constructive, most inoffensive) form of comment are "questions" and "suggestions" -- usually better than "criticism".
But a permitted form of criticism or argument is like this -- i.e. very short:

Someone posts an answer
You post one comment as criticism, which says "I think this answer is wrong for reason X"
The person who wrote the answer may (or may not) post a reply to your comment
You don't post again (in reply to their comment) -- because that would be an argument, and you already said what you thought was necessary (about the answer) in your first comment
N.B. that (because you don't reply to the comment) the author of the answer is allowed to have the "last word". If you want to have the last word, then post a separate answer of your own.

I haven't mentioned that any comment and all discussion should try to be polite -- I hope that goes without saying. If you feel you should criticise an answer, I draw a line between criticising the answer (on-topic, permitted, but in small doses only like a single comment) and criticising the person (which is usually off-topic, and may be offensive even small doses).

How can I describe to this, because I answer it all, but he didn't read >> No. This is unrelated to what i posted. Just because there is external kaya does not mean 'sakkaya ditthi' refers to external kaya. 'Sakkaya' is not found in MN 10 therefore your idea sounds very wrong & mistaken

What  you will do when you showing the same structure to someone, then he said it is not the same without any description like that, such as I showed him Mn 10 sacca-pabba and  SN sakkāyasutta with use the same structure?

Do you know, when he comment on my question, he show himself like "I know. I can understand everything what you say". But when I answer in pali or something new for him, he ignore it, and never try to understand everything which new for him.

I never act like that, when he told me what is new for me. I try to learn and prove it. When he doubt me and ask I open his source in pali, thai, english, roman, to answer him.

But when I reply to his answer, he just read through my reply. It is not fair. I have to recite&contemplate&search&compare before I will reply his comment on my answer. I use a day to a week per answer, then he distort it like a child without proving in pali.

It is not the first case, he always do not read my reference, which is sutta, carefully, such as the last one >> On DW, someone told you sakkaya is not kayanupassana because sakkaya is dhammanupassana, – Dhammadhatu 11 hours ago

But I wrote:  "Sutta. Ma. Mū. Sacca-pabba of Satipaṭṭhānasuttaṃ". So, he often reply through, but he never prove the reply back reference carefully in pali.

So, I wrote: "Also, you can debate me. So if you can do, why I can not act like you?", because if he can reply me a low quality comment, why I can act like him?

It is fine, if the commentator prove the reply back carefully. But he is not.

@Bonn Unfortunately I don't understand what the two of you were arguing about, so I can't really help to clarify that, nor take one side or the other. I posted an answer of my own and that's all I have on that topic.I thought the two of you weren't having a good discussion (friendly, helpful, informative, cooperating to help clarify an answer), and I want to (at a minimum) give you permission to not have that kind of discussion (e.g. by ignoring a comment instead of engaging in any unfriendly discussion).

He made  unfriendly discussion to me first, such as He ask me a description of my reply, then I give him links to compare but he never compare those links in detail. Then he just say "it is not the same", like a child who close his eyes to prove the truth. If he don't want to know, he shouldn't asked. I take a day to answer, he take a minute to ask a irrelative reply, then close his eyes and eyes. It doesn't fair.

And I do follow you. I wrote what I disagree with him on my own answer. But he still not. He come on my answer and wrote a irrelative reply, then close his eyes to prove what I reply back, before me. If he can't try to prove my reply-back as what I wrote, he shouldn't reply on my answer. He waste my time.

@Bonn Yes it often seems as if he's sure he's right. If he posts a comment, he's not asking a question, he already thinks he knows the answer, and (unless you want to ask about and better understand what he's thinking) there's therefore maybe little benefit in discussing the comment with him -- you won't be able to tell him anything he doesn't think he knows already. So, if you find his comment helps you to improve your answer, then go ahead and improve your answer; and otherwise maybe ignore the comment (or flag the comment) instead of trying to discuss it.

he shouldn't reply on my answer Yes I eventually moved all the comments under your answer, to a chat room. They didn't seem to be adding much value to the original answer.

@ChrisW I will do follow you. I will write "I answered above". However, I should not report him, because his answer is general of the westerner, so it looks the reporter is idiot for the general western administrator.  The practitioner never act like him. I.e. I already thinks I knows the answer, but I still try to prove his reply on my answer as it is, because I have to be mindful that I could be wrong. We open our mind to get&give the best advantage to the world. I listen you, you listen me, to make the best to the world. So why he often told me like I am not practice myself in dhamma.


text:
Is "Why do secular Buddhists follow the 4NT?" a valid question?
I closed this question, Justifying the Four Noble Truths without rebirth, as a duplicate of an earlier question about suicide -- because it asked why secular Buddhists follow the 4NT instead of suicide.
The OP thinks it should be reopened, because it's a reasonable question even with the bit about suicide excluded.
But I don't think it makes sense, as a question, if it isn't about suicide.
What do you think? Can you edit the question so that it makes sense, asks a valid question, and doesn't ask about suicide?

I'm saying that there's a doctrinal and logical conflict between "no rebirth" and "ending of suffering is ONLY by ending of craving", because "no rebirth" implies that suffering can be ended by death (natural or otherwise).
Perhaps the other ways to ask this question is - "can suffering be ended by death?" OR "must suffering be ended only by ending craving, or can it be ended by death?"
If suffering cannot be ended by death, then rebirth must be true.


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Various questions and comments
The user called "M H" posted the following comments under this topic.
I deleted them from there (where they were not on-topic) and moved them here (where it's easier to answer them if you want to).

Maybe please correct/ adjust some of the actions of the stepped down person, since doing so wouldn't any longer be treading on the toes of another moderator; Site could benefit from someone kindly & fair & genuinely knowledgeable re Various Branches of Buddhisms; maybe possible individuals could be asked directly re their interest rather than only asked to volunteer; &, asking persons to run in an atmosphere of negativism, downvoting, bias, discrimination, narrow viewpoints & capriciousness, wouldn't tend to be conducive to election of a good eclectic moderator to help this failing site

And maybe a good time to Improve the site to more Objectivity, Helpfulness, & Usefulness: more Objective about Benefits to Readers & Contributors, and: use of comments & alternative Answers rather than simply downvoting something because someone doesn't like it, which stifles facts & the site, and makes it a popularity contest rather than a fact source, with narrow views instead of accurate encompassing information; And reduce apparently contrived q & a, and reduce pandering to thinly veiled deliberate derogatory so-called-questions re Buddhism, since this is ostensibly a Buddhism Site

maybe it would be helpful if You opened a discussion question or two re site adjustment/ development; also, how to operate the chat section, which might help people to communicate ideas which aren't convenient to exchange in the q&a main & meta sites, might generate more site participation; with only a half dozen main contributors, maybe it will take a while to build up to where more moderators are needed; how about have the post be for one year: then can reelect etc; presently, about all R has to do is raise their hand to be elected; & encourage potential Mods to explain what viewpoints they would tend to do as Mods: Your openness & suggestions & explanations are very helpful to the site; And currently the site seems mostly about Contemporary Mindfulness Meditation and quotations from Pali writings & interpretations, with little material from other Branches of Buddhism: so should election simply try to maintain that, or encourage broader Buddhism scope: Could there be more than 3 Mods? or at least more minor moderation by low point people, because getting into detail on just one good, yet poorly presented Buddhism question, could take noticeable time

This seems a helpful question& answer set from 5 years ago: << Should/could we have four moderators? >> ; SSSD makes a very good point: it's just a Very big amount of material: there are Hundreds of Branches of Buddhism; maybe more than four: maybe eight or more, especially if the site picks up: And a flexible number; & maybe for one year Reelectable terms, and open times to have an election, which would make sabbaticals easier and allow for genuine specialists in particular aspects & areas, and could also improve the site

Also these comments were posted under ruben2020's answer in that topic:

If Answerer could explain point of view re discouragement /encouragement of downvotes rather than differing comments & differing answers people might be helpful: with points so scarce with participation so small, downvote harm further discourages participation: Buddhism is a lot different from Math or Superuser: sometimes opposite seeming answers are Both correct, from within respective Doctrines: if considering actual accuracy to be present, downvoting etc tends to become a popularity contest rather than objective presentation of Doctrine/ fact/ material; cf q which are clearly inappropriate – M H yesterday

also, helpful point re how much time investment it is: could there be more than 3 mods? currently the site is failing, yet if it began to be accessed more, time load could increase quick; & there's comparatively little participation by other than half a dozen members,& points currently are so scarce, much Lowerpoint Member Moderation tasks performed in the way that SE was set up seems very unlikely: currently, most everything is done by halfdozen people, & there are very few posts appearing on the site; also, how about Moderator policy re helping q&a that reads like 'Yoda monologue' etc

Maybe please correct/ adjust some of the actions of the stepped down person

Which actions in particular? I previously tried to discuss with you in this chat one such action, which were two edit suggestions of yours which Lanka had rejected. I accepted one of those suggestions after you explained your reasoning, I don't know what more I can do, to "correct" that action, or what other action you want to corrected.
I also tried to suggest that the edit-rejection message (written by SE) is unnecessarily harsh -- see here -- but based on the voting (my suggestion was downvoted) SE won't be trying to change the wording of that message.

maybe possible individuals could be asked directly re their interest rather than only asked to volunteer

If there were several suitable volunteers, then the site might have an election.
If there was an election, then it would be normal to question the candidates (to let candidates know what's important to you, and to help you decide which candidates you prefer to vote for).
Currently there isn't a wide choice of candidates/volunteers, so that doesn't apply.

asking persons to run in an atmosphere of negativism, downvoting, bias, discrimination, narrow viewpoints & capriciousness, wouldn't tend to be conducive to election of a good eclectic moderator to help this failing site

Are you saying there's something we (or someone) should do, before we try to invite or elect another moderator?

And maybe a good time to Improve the site to more Objectivity, Helpfulness, & Usefulness

Wanting the site to be useful makes sense, in general.
But I don't understand your saying "we should improve the site" because it is a generality. If you have specific suggestions about specific questions and answers, you could make those suggestions e.g. here on Meta (perhaps a separate topic for each subject).
But your saying, "This site is failing, you should make it better" isn't specific enough for me -- perhaps it describes the goal (your ideal/idea of what the site should be) but not the method (i.e. what steps or actions we can take towards that goal).

reduce apparently contrived q & a, and reduce pandering to thinly veiled deliberate derogatory so-called-questions re Buddhism, since this is ostensibly a Buddhism Site

Again I can't make sense of this as a generality. If you want to "reduce" (e.g. delete or avoid) any particular questions or answers, then you may need to be willing to identify which ones you're referring to.
In theory, "thinly veiled deliberate derogatory so-called-questions re Buddhism" is a subject which should interest me as a moderator i.e. a type of question I might try to moderate. So are there any questions like that, and, which ones are they?

how to operate the chat section, which might help people to communicate ideas which aren't convenient to exchange in the q&a main & meta sites

In theory there's a main chat room which is always open -- https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/15162/buddhism but people hardly ever use it so in practice it's not very useful (it's unused) on this site.
You could post a comment to someone like, Let's continue this discussion [in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/15162/buddhism) and see whether they're willing (they may not be). An alternative is to use comments, if you do then after a while I'll probably notice and move all the comments into a new chat room.
SE's tools for chat are quite inconvenient, users can't easily create new chat room for new chats. The site was primarily designed for Q&A and not for chat (the Tour says explicitly, "This site is all about getting answers. It's not a discussion forum. There's no chit-chat.").
There's some help with operating chat rooms here: A guide to moderating chat

how about have the post be for one year: then can reelect etc

Perhaps that kind of thing happens when (if) a site has "graduated" -- when there's a lot of activity, many users, many willing to stand for election, etc.
I'm inclined to suggest we wait a year and then suggest an election (i.e. in a year) if that seems possible then, instead of trying to decide that in advance.

And currently the site seems mostly about Contemporary Mindfulness Meditation and quotations from Pali writings & interpretations, with little material from other Branches of Buddhism: so should election simply try to maintain that, or encourage broader Buddhism scope

It's the users (not the moderators) of the site who determine what questions are asked and answered.
As moderator I try to welcome or encourage questions from all schools of Buddhism, but I can't do much more than that. Perhaps you're mistaking what moderators do compared to what users (or "community members") do.

SSSD makes a very good point

I think Suminda thought each school of Buddhism needed its own moderator, which I disagreed with.

And a flexible number; & maybe for one year Reelectable terms, and open times to have an election, which would make sabbaticals easier

Holding elections is work for everyone -- i.e. for the existing moderators, for site users, for the SE community managers. It's possible to have too much of a good thing.

and allow for genuine specialists in particular aspects & areas, and could also improve the site

It's very nice to have genuine specialists as users when they're willing and able to post on the site. They needn't be moderators.

If Answerer could explain point of view re discouragement /encouragement of downvotes

Questioning candidates is appropriate in an election. This wasn't an election (yet), only hoping to find who and how many might be willing to do the job.
Also I think that as moderator I have little control over how or whether other users choose to vote. Questions about voting might be more for the community at large than for moderators, but "the community" hasn't been active on Meta for a while now.

cf q which are clearly inappropriate

Any clearly inappropriate questions should perhaps be closed instead of only downvoted.

how about Moderator policy re helping q&a that reads like 'Yoda monologue' etc

I'm not sure I understand this suggestion (I don't know what a Yoda monologue is).

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


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How should we use the "very low quality" and "not an answer" flags on this site?
Two of the predefined flags, which you can raise against an answer, are as follows:

What do they mean, when should users use them, and how or when should moderators react to them?

So far as I can gather:

"Not an answer" is when something should have been posted as a new question, or posted as a comment, instead of as an answer.

"Very low quality" is when the post is too short to be an answer; or isn't written in English; or isn't about Buddhism; or something like that.

Neither of these flags should be used for a "wrong" answer, nor for an answer which is only partially relevant to the question.
If it's trying to be an answer, if it's written in English, if it's about Buddhism, if it isn't rude or hostile, then it probably shouldn't be flagged at all. If you think it's a "wrong" answer, or just not a helpful answer, then downvote instead of flagging it.
Moderators normally won't delete a valid answer -- so long as it confirms to various rules, like not being hostile and like being about Buddhism -- unless several users downvoted it.


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Reference lists
Could we please collect here the topics, which ask for lists -- i.e. whose answers are a list of book recommendations or sutta recommendations.
I hope this may be useful for people who ask for book recommendations and other general references.

Introductory books to Buddhism
What teachings do all schools of Buddhism share?
Beginner academic text recommendation
Why isn't there a Buddhist Bible?
English (or other European) translations of Pali Canon
Chronological or other sequence for beginners
The Abhidamma Pitaka
Best books & articles for practicing jhanas
Important readings in vipassana
What books address various difficulties that may arise during various stages of meditation practice?
Any advice for beginners about Vipassana traditions?
Looking for a book that covers the biography of the Buddha's life
Recommendation - Book for beginner
I would like to become Buddhist
What is the best introductory (but comprehensive) book on SECULAR Buddhism?
Starting Buddhism
Is there anything I can read about the Buddhist tradition today?
Which is a good book to read about history of Buddhism?
8 Precept Commentaries?
Please Recommend Pure Land / Other Power Buddhism Books
Best study tools on the net or books
List of book recommendations
List of Buddhist podcast recommendations
Resources to learn about yogacara buddhism
Can anyone please list important books on Buddhism?
Introductory/Beginner books on Buddhism, but for children
Sources for the Whole Tipitaka
Books on meditation?
Basic readings and references: where to start

There's also a list of "Useful resources" at the top of the Help page


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I don't understand the reasoning behind this moderation
From this comment

the only question mark in this Q is the link and reference to the link (which you closed). The other answer given also starts by pointing out that there is really no question posed. I don't understand the reasoning behind this moderation. I just wonder why this style is deemed ok as it is very unusual, it's a bare "share your thoughts on my situation request"

I think i get the general issue OP is facing and i think community can help him so it's more of a formatting issue for me. I think this format isn't conducive to this Q/A being easily referenced in the future (avoiding duplicates etc), no tags, no question, bad title

I don't understand the reasoning behind this moderation.
Well I agree I think it might be a poor question and not "deemed ok" ... or perhaps a fine question but one which is not really suited to the Q&A format of this site.
OTOH the previous question was worse and I closed that for two reasons:

It was asking, "Which is for me: Buddhism or Christianity?" -- which I think is a type of question which this site decided to agree to close or to consider unaskable, for reasons described here: Which type of Buddhism is for me?
It meets the definition of a "broad comparison", which is defined in Moderation policies for Questions as being one of the reasons for closing a question.

Conversely I didn't close this because -- although it is "too broad" and "unclear what you're asking" -- those are both defined (in the Moderation policies for Questions) as being not reasons to close a question ... on this site anyway, even though such a question would normally be closed on another SE site.
I think i get the general issue OP is facing and i think community can help him
I think that's a reason for allowing people to try to answer the question (instead of closing it).
You can also try to improve the question. I edited it slightly -- and I see you tried to improve the tags -- it didn't know what to do with the title however so I left that unedited and unquestioned (instead of continuing to complain about the OP's question, even so I've no idea what the word "university" is meant to be doing in the title).

The community asked for a very liberal/permissive moderation policy for questions, so that's what there is.


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Is Lamaism derogatory or neutral?
Before I edit this and change lamaism to Vajrayana, I thought I'd check and see if it's derogatory. Is lamaism ever used inside the relevant community or is this a word used by outsiders to distinguish Vajrayana from real Buddhism? If so, it's derogatory and should be fixed unless required for historical context, e.g. the Soviets who were hostile to Buddhism, called it Lamaism.

Observing the tremendous emphasis placed on the guru in the Tibetan
  Buddhist vajrayana tradition, they have called this not Buddhism but
  Lamaism. And they make a distinction between Buddhism and Lamaism.

http://kunzang.org/kplblog/2010/01/23/the-importance-of-the-guru-in-vajrayana-tradition/

Tibetan Buddhism, also called (incorrectly) Lamaism,  branch of
  Vajrayana (Tantric, or Esoteric) Buddhism that evolved from the 7th
  century ce in Tibet.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tibetan-Buddhism

The term 'lamaism' is indeed derogatory and is never used inside the community. We call ourselves Vajrayana or Mahayana. In actuality, we refer to ourselves much more often as Mahayana than Vajrayana.
Here is a quote from http://www.dalailama.com:

Just as there were misunderstandings in the past about the prevalence
  of the Vinaya in Buddhist countries, there were those who asserted
  that the Tibetan spiritual system should be called Lamaism, implying
  that it was not an authentic Buddhist tradition. His Holiness recalled
  that visiting South Africa after Nelson Mandela became President, he
  was introduced as a representative of Lamaism.
“I say that it is not Lamaism, but a true lineage of the Nalanda
  tradition, which is largely derived from Nagarjuna. His 6 texts on
  reasoning are major objects of study for us. In the Nyingma tantric
  tradition, Nagarjuna is counted as one of the rigzins, while in the
  tradition of the New Tantras we received Guhyasamaja through him.
  Therefore, we are indebted to Nagarjuna for several lineages of
  philosophy, logic and tantra, which came to us from Nalanda.
  Suggestions about Lamaism are based on misunderstandings.”

I like the term "what the Buddha taught" instead of Buddhism but that doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with Buddhism. I just am trying to be accurate.


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Table with Merged Cells
Currently there is not way to have:

Tables
Merged cells in tables

Currently there does not seam to be a way to do tables than draw tables other than image links or character by character drawring

As far as I know, that is so.
The topic Is there any markdown to create tables? is tagged 'status-declined'.

Ah there are markdown extensions and also aciidoc also supports it. I guess this is a feature that might not be implemented after all. I guess images might be good enough.

Topics (like this one) will keep jumping to the top of the 'Active' view every so often, until or unless they are accepted or deleted (or maybe, upvoted).


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Buddhist Book Exchange
Trying to create a list of people / organisations which distribute Buddhist books for free.
If you distribute please add them as an answer.

I have known about this non-profit, which is supported by donation:
http://www.budaedu.org/en/book/

+1 (I found one of their books at a temple in Canada)

If you are in Sri Lanka and want any Buddhist publication (strictly free of charge) please get in touch with me on:

+94-(0)11-5864614


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How to get Questions Answered
What is the best strategy to get questions answered? Also to ensure that at least one of the answer is satisficing to be accepted as the correct answer? The latter is important as some times it is possible that answers do not seam to satisfy the question fully or tangential or interpreted the question in an different light than intended and provides and answer for the reinterpreted question.
Also is a reader knows someone who might be able to answer the question how is it that you can encourage the person to get this to the attention of an expert in the area to solicit and answer?

When you click on the question, as if you are going to answer it, this appears as a clickable link to share the question.
Know someone who can answer? Share a link to this question via email, Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
What do you think of sharing some of our good questions that no one seems to know the answer to on Buddhist group pages on Facebook and Google+?
On the plus side, it could bring in new participants. On the minus side, I'm not sure of how to quickly initiate those coming from discussion style forums to the more strict Q & A format of SE.

Sharing is a good idea but first must be sure that the other community likes this kind of sharing.

That's a good point @SumindaSirinathSalpitikorala. I hadn't considered it might be seen as an attempt to draw participation away from the other group.

I find it useful to edit questions that aren't getting enough attention. If no one is answering then maybe the question needs to be clarified or refined or maybe refocussed. This also has the happy side effect of bumping it back to the top of the home page.

One strategy is to put a 'bounty' on the question: click on 'start a bounty' under the question.
See What is a bounty? How can I start one? for further details.


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How do you Initiate Moderator Removal?
What is the process of petition a moderator to be removed? What are the reasons a moderator can be removed?

I'm downvoting this question to say that I disagree with the need/usefulness of initiating moderator removal.

I think it would be a harder job to find a replacement. Yes things happen and sometimes they hit a nerve. After all there is hardly anything that can't be ended with a discussion.

This is a very old discussion. I also have to come to believe this is not the solution, but should be based on development of more guidelines what and how to do it.

@MettaforBullies The moderator in question was yuttadhammo, and I was saying I disagreed with removing him and with Suminda's arguing against him. There are ways to remove a moderator, but you can't remove a moderator by yourself: to do it you would need consensus: from the moderator (who could agree to quit); from the community of users; from the other moderators; and/or from the "community moderators" i.e. stack exchange employees.

@MettaforBullies Voting is different on meta says, "voting indicates agreement or disagreement with the proposed change rather than just the quality or usefulness of the post itself" -- so I was voting to disagree with the proposed change, which I thought was Suminda's proposing to remove yuttadhammo as moderator. I wasn't disagreeing with the question in general or in the abstract; I was disagreeing with Suminda's pursuing yuttadhammo's removal.

@ChrisW Boy, you respond quick, sorry if I have been confusing. Don't other people who know nothing of what inspired the question just want an answer to the question, not an opinion to the question? The question had nothing to do with Bhante Yuttadhammo the way it is worded.   It sounds like your saying something crazy to the user that doesn't know how the whole thing with  Bhante Yuttadhammo and Suminda went down. I know your not that bad but others might get confused.

I posted this so there is awareness about the process how a moderator can be removed. The attitude that moderators should not be removed or the community should not know about this process is unfortunate. This is about how to deal with any moderator who might go bad. 1st Instance that happened was in: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/3770/ where reference to http://pali.sirimangalo.org/ without mentioning affiliation which is considered Spam but the moderator, at that time, is getting away with it. Any other user may get moderated for something like that. Rules should be.

@MettaforBullies Yes I assumed that this question was posted in context (of Suminda's disagreement with yuttadhammo), and my comment was posted in that context. I can see, now you tell me, that my comment could be misunderstood by "other people who know nothing of what inspired the question" ... I wasn't thinking of them/that, when I posted my comment and downvoted. Sorry that I wasn't clearer, when I posted that comment.

I respect Mr. Suminda's opinions he have great knowledge about Buddhism but I love Ven. Yuttadhammo. This comment is a general suggestion about the subject: The best thing is one morning writing all of the facts about a moderator with details ;)

Please see the Meta Stack Exchange post Handling Calls to Remove a Moderator. This outlines the process the community, along with the Community Managers, has settled upon as the protocol for removing a moderator.
I'll quote the initiation process. You can read the rest in this answer.

The process will be initiated by a formal request from one or more moderators on a site, sent privately via an email to community@stackexchange.com.
The process may also be initiated by the Community Team at Stack Exchange, Inc. in response to numerous, substantiated complaints from users on the site.
In either case, the complaints will be treated by Stack Exchange as confidential, and their authors will not be named by us at any point in the process.

Good to know and the only one that actually answers the question.

It is customer to apologies to a Monk and the Sanga regardless on who is right and wrong. On this basis I would 1st and for most to extend this my customary apology to Ven. Yuttadammo and the Sangha and the Noble Triple Gem.
Having done this as (pointed by @Lanka) I am expressing my shock and bewilderment what @Lanka is using this as basis for the following: https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1809/295 when in fact I have adequate basis from perspective for this. The working implies that I am in the wrong though no means admission of this. This mentions I was make to apologies which is not the case I did it on my freewill and it is customary. (Also why I started this one the same note.)
Initially the issues were more subtle but became more apparent as later on.
Implying and taunting that a particular branch or tradition is not the orthodox position when of course the person in that expect his tradition is the orthodox form: E.g.: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/8664/295 is one such instance
Though most traditions in Theravada accept the general interpretation of the Satitpattana there are terms where some divergence happens though I am not sure of all such interpretations. I wanted to find your and asked some question on this. Some question which remain has very high votes. This was taken with hostility though some of the comments have not survived.
There where instances where users were more strictly moderated based on the tradition they were from. E.g. When this user joined the site and stated asking question based on other Theravada tradition this was initially take with some strictness but then the user switched to asking from his tradition the his tradition this became less strict: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/users/5069/nish1013?tab=questions.
Saying that a position held by another tradition is not and answer to a question. E.g. The impact of the subconscious mind on the conscious mind though there are shorter answers which may not adequately answer this question specifically picking on my answer which is adopted the Discourse given in the 10 day courses by S.N.Goenka. In many instance through the Ven. Sir kept mentioning something is not an answerer of not holistic, the Ven. Sir some times filed to provide such holistic answers when he is writing. Also many of these comments (since deleted) were targeted at me in some cases there were more less than perfect answers which were selectively ignored. There were instances where I did not attempt to answered areas which were adequately covered in other answers and sometimes such to areas this I was strong in. There were other answers fitting the same criteria which were selectively ignored.
Also many content which are pretty straightforward is the Ven. Sir mentions in he do not understand. Though this might be the case this or he does not put in the effort to understand or this a subtle for of hostility, the net effect is exclusion.
During the moderation election during the initial few weeks Ven. Sir had less votes but suddenly rose during the last few day. Not sure the exact cause of this but there is a possibility of vote rigging by asking his students to vote. This is not definitive but a possibility and can only be reviewed by looking who voted and when. Also during there was discussion though not directly by the Ven. Sir that standing moderators get vetoing right to exclude users they perceive they cannot work with. Though the exact extent is not easily verifiable this like forming an inner circle or exclusive club which can maintain control over the site as such powers any person not party to this group can be excluded. At worst this can bee seems like hijacking the site depending how active this collusion is.
Also there was an incident there I complaint about some comments left by Ven. Sir. In which case they where deleted fist and then I was asked to produce them as proof.
Also I like to add moderators should strive to have a higher standers than they try to impose on the users. They should try to be blameless and commendable in their action. No specific user should be targeted, when what they write is not always agreeable with the moderators positions on a matter. Proper investigation should be done before jumping into conclusions. When a conclusion or rationalisation is based on mistaken premise or a premise that does not hold then not be adamant on ones position as this will generate a lot of resentment. Don't jump on action and later search for justification trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, as always this does not come with positive results. Be transparent in what is done without leaving room for others in the dark wondering why something was done, inquiries on this may lead less than ideal situation, in maneuvering for later justifications and rationalisation. Do some demonstrable ground work and perhaps research to build adequate understanding before hand than jumping into moderation in case there are things you do not understand or just think something is suck but not established or inclusively established. Do not jump to conclusions without demonstrable investigation. All action should have a reasonable and adequate basis.


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Physical Meetups for Dhamma Discussion and Meditation
I am wondering if the site users are interested in doing a physical meetup and meditation?
Each person can organise in their respective cities.

One interesting group in Colombo is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1535533086722963/

I live in Nugegoda, Sri Lanka. May be we can try organising some thing with local chapters?

Out of curiosity. Are your adopted parents Buddhists? How did you come in contact with Buddhism and get interested. Can this be replicated towards others in Denmark? I think we best more this conversation to email. My email address is sirinath1978m@gmail.com

OK. You are at an advantage to organise meetups as all of you will be learning together. In SL every one has their opinions and also cluttered with different teachers and interpretations. Send you a test mail so your mail may not get into spam filters.

I have created the following group but still noting organised arround it as yet: https://www.facebook.com/groups/672339399555834/