text:
Off Topic Content
There seems to be off topic content appearing in this site. E.g'.

Answer to "Lust arises every time I am alone" (the content is not related to Buddhism through the OP fanatically tries to some remote connection)
The terror tragedy in France in Buddhist light (this case also seems like an offtopic question)
Answer to "Physical Lethargy" (most content does not seem to relate to Buddhist theory or practice)

One way to connect to content is finding a remove connection. Like when supposed to wire something about a fish you write about a fly citing flies get attracted to fish in the market.
So what is the purpose of "On topic" / "Off topic"?
What can be done on off topic content which has votes or accepted? How is this handled in rest of SE?
What content should we accept?
Some of the above cases are by moderators, in which case how can this be rectified?
Some of the content if can be salvages what is best cause of action?
I think the OP should be given a chance to make the answer inline with Buddhist theory and practice and major part of it should be Buddhist content, without being twisted like the fly and fish analogy, failing which it should be removed. As a Buddhist site there should be a reasonable amount of Buddhist content either Theory or Practice or Both in and answer.

In this topic you asked a lot of questions about general SE policy, which I tried to answer. If you also want to discuss whether some specific question or answer is on-topic, please open a new meta-topic for that.

What can be done on off topic content which has votes or accepted?
You can downvote it, flag it for moderator attention, post about it on Meta, and/or post a comment which suggests how to improve it.
Moderators should (and generally try to) abide within "community"-defined standards, like other users.
Sometimes individuals (users and/or moderators) won't agree on exactly where the boundaries of those standards are ... if that happens, that can be a reason for asking for input from "the community" i.e. from several users.
When I asked here about moderating answers, there were replies although not from very many users ... the most popular answer seemed to be this comment, which recommended that moderators generally shouldn't delete user's answers, unless they're downvoted to -2 or -3. It says:

I think cases where the answer is oblique or it isn't obvious if it addresses the question or not are best left to people down voting. If it gets to -2 or -3 (can't remember) then higher rep users can start to cast delete votes. The only thing extra I would do is downvote if I think they are way off.

In summary, unless other people agree with you that something ought to be deleted, there's not much you can do about it (except vote, or flag, or post on Meta, or comment).
How is this handled in rest of SE?
Well some other sites are relatively strict, with moderators who arbitrarily take it on themselves to delete highly-upvoted (popular) answers which many users think are good.
I think you don't want to see that kind of moderator behaviour here! Even so sometimes people have complained about too much being deleted.
Anyway I think that this site tends towards the opposite end of the spectrum, i.e. I think it's more permissive (less likely to delete) than other sites -- one example is that as suggested in Moderation policies for Questions, topics are allowed to be practical (which they aren't on some other sites), etc.
I also tend to take Good Subjective, Bad Subjective as a personal guideline, especially:

Back It Up! means that your answers must be based on either:

Something that happened to you personally
Something you can back up with a reference

(I don't delete answers which don't meet these guidelines, but I consider these guidelines if I write an answer).
The community hasn't come to an explicit detailed consensus about a corresponding policy for answers (see e.g. What are the Moderation Policies for Answers? and related topics), so as I said I tend to take the answers to Moderating answers which don't answer the question? as being this community's guideline for moderating answers.
Note that "Trusted Users" can vote to delete negatively-scored answers (starting with a score of -1 and below), see also Why and how are some answers deleted? There are currently about 18 of these users, several of whom aren't active.
Some of the above cases are by moderators, in which case how can this be rectified?
Handle it in the same way as a post by any other user.
Moderators are primarily users of the site. A group (a consensus) of users has more or less the same power over questions and answers as a moderator does ... moderators aren't especially privileged in that regard.
The main function of a moderator is, perhaps:

Moderate comments (which users can't)
Moderate users
Help to discuss and implement the site-specific policies which the community may define on Meta


text:
Moderators following Rules and Setting Good Examples
When a general user posts something off topic a moderator can moderate it simply. In case moderators do it is not that easy as it requires many people to report it. Historically this has not happened in this site.
There should be a way to keep the moderators made to follow the rules?
Moderators blatantly breaking the rules and standards they try to impose on other is not a good example.

Some example content:

https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/19307/295 (The content is not related to Buddhism through the OP fanatically tries to some remote connection)
The terror tragedy in France in Buddhist light (In this case also seems like an offtopic question)
https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/18986/295 (Most ontent does not seem to relate to Buddhist theory or practice)

This discussion does not have to do anything with specific content thought this triggered the discussion.

I think this is a duplicate of Off Topic Content and How do you delete a moderator's answer? and maybe others. If you want to discuss the content of a single specific question or answer then please do that.

This is about moderators following the standards they are supposed to uphold.

I see this as two topics: 1) how are SE sites governed, what is the role of moderators etc. 2) are these specific answers on-topic, and if not why not and how to improve them. And I think that 1) how are SE sites governed is already in other topics (so this a duplicate of those), and that 2) are these specific answers on-topic (if you want to discuss that) is better discussed in separate meta-topics, each using the [meta-tag:specific-answer] tag, with the discussion being specifically about the content of the answers in question (and not about "moderators").

Can you point to the other specific topics?

Off Topic Content is a general topic about how you can handle off-topic content.  How do you delete a moderator's answer? (and others like How do you Initiate Moderator Removal?) answer questions to do with how to handle rogue moderators. I don't think it's useful to discuss those kinds of issues again here, but there is room for discussion about specific answers as you did here.

This is not about removing or deleting but moderators adhering to the same standards.

Well the point of discussing specific answers is to discover (and agree or disagree on) what those "standards" are, and to discover why the answer in question does or doesn't meet those standards.

Following the "rules" is a controversial topic but If a moderator acts as an abuser, criminal etc. and If has personal characteristics that is completely opposite of the "real moderator" characteristics, the site administration has to immediately remove that moderator without waiting one second. Otherwise people has to explain things with "details" that would cause more damage to the moderator

All the moderators here are celestial Buddhas, so obviously hypocrisy and rules of behaviour etc. don't apply to them.
Sorry, that was the snarky answer. If anything, moderators should be fairer, more even handed, and politer, than anyone.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
Few Schools Represented
This is stemming from this question but it is part which has not been addressed in so far. So creating a thread for this specific part. Should a question should be put on hold thus blocking all other viewpoints and option when there is a answer from one or a limited number of schools. If one answer comes up I believe the playing field should be level so other schools / traditions can also represent their view.

Possible duplicate: Fairness and Equability to All Users

To be fair and equitable you either everyone should be able to have a response or no one at all. Not just one person! It is simply not Fair and Equitable when there is only one answer from one user!

If one answer comes up I believe the playing field should be level so other schools / traditions can also represent their view.
I'm not sure I agree that's always the most important consideration.
I think the most important thing is that this is a Q+A site, whose topics (pages) consist of:

a question
one or more on-topic answers.

This site is (already) unusually permissive about how clear/unclear a question may be, even so occasionally a question crosses a line and is put on hold.
In this case the original question was "do you agree with me?" -- I sympathise with Lanka's finding that unclear and suggesting it should be replaced by a more-specific question.
Apart from its being unclear, "Do you agree with me" is phrased as a "polling question" (even if it wasn't meant that way), which is one of the few reasons for moderating a question.
If the question isn't sufficiently clear (or "good") to begin with, then I see no benefit in the question's accumulating lots of answers.
Anyway, I voted to reopen the question: and in case it matters, I did that not for the sake of "fairness between schools" (i.e. in order to give every "school" an opportunity to post an answer to an unclear question), but because you edited the question to make it sufficiently clear (and because three users voted to reopen it, and the OP agreed with the edited version of the question).
Reasons for asking for clear questions include:

To benefit the OP
To benefit future readers of the site
To minimize hostile disagreements between users (IMO arguments may occur if people haven't agreed on what they're talking about, and are therefore each arguing on different subjects)

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


text:
Update to Welcome Message
The main site FAQ (FAQ for Stack Exchange sites) has quite a few good resource perhaps we can link to from our Welcome message. E.g. under "Asking a Good Question"
Maybe we can also have master collection of links like the main sites FAQ.


text:
Increase level of participation and user engagement
If you look at the rate we are attracting new users and their participation, we need to explore ways a means to get more users and also get them to participate. Any suggestion to increase number of new participants and users. Also rekindle the interest of old members who seam to be now inactive.

Why are you so anxious to attract more users? I think Buddhism SE is doing just fine. The community is growing steadily. A drop of activity a few months after the start of a site is perfectly normal.


text:
How should we police the use of the word Hinayana?
Some people hear Hinayana as a slur against Theravada.
Modern Mahayana believers may be eager for peace and harmony, but the original Mahayanists were drawing a distinction between two lines of thought and had strong opinions about their relative merits. The Bodhisattva path's alternative is the Hinayana path.
Many modern Mahayana texts use the word Hinayana without any particular sense of slur or sneer.
Should we update Hinayana to Theravada? Theravada didn't necessarily exist or look like modern Theradava back when people started using the word Hinayana.
Should we let it stand if it is used in context, i.e. a question about how historical believers saw the Bodhisattva path and its differences from the alternatives?, but not allow it in say, a question about robe colors in various sects (where the theological implications of Mahayana vs Hinayana are irrelevant).
This related question isn't quite the same, that question is just asking what alternative words could that questioner use. I'm asking, as someone with moderator rights, should I go around fixing people's usage of the hinayana word and tag & if so how.

I found quite a few uses of the word, but few that I think need editing. Given that you want to ask this question before editing, would you like to add to this question some list or identification of the posts which you think should be edited? Then the answers here could discuss specific instances.

@AlexanderDuncan that should be an answer, not a comment.

A very good question MatthewMartin.I really appreciate this question,thank you.
I am a Srilankan Theravada Buddhist (I am supposed to call myself a hinayana Buddhist as to this word) and here's what i have to say that will simply be accepted by anyone who know the language that this word "hina" belongs to.

"Hina" means - Lower,less,below,low quality,bad,dumb,
while
"Maha" means - higher,high,above,higher quality,good,wise,great

So when you say "Maha+yana" that means a/the great path.
But when you say "Hina+yana" that means a/the lower,lesser path.

You can argue about the practicalities but this is essentially the meaning of the two words and it is clearly insulting. Not to be rude but i would like to see no man here tutoring my own language to me.And please if you can tell me who was brave enough to draw this line and say this here is great and that there is dumb.
I request this word to be banned from this site. I have no quarrel with fellow Mahayana Buddhists, what i am saying is that i wish to be called a theravada Buddhist not a Hinayana Buddhist.

I am not particular about being called Hinayana or Theravada, but Hinayana has a derogatory connotation as viewed by some.
As highlighted in the answer of Theravada this word is in the Sinhala language also, meaning lesser or lower.
So not to offend and drive away potential users from the site perhaps when someone sees the word used perhaps they can edit it replacing it with Theravada where appropriate and perhaps re-wording it where possible and appropriate.
We should try to be welcoming and attracting new users at this point to grow the community.

Sometimes I did not know until today at the 100th birthday of Most Ven. Davuldena Sri Gnanissara Thero - Supreme Mahanayaka of Amarapura Nikaya which was attended by the President and many ministers. One of the cited achievement was 30 years of Diplomacy spear head by the Ven Sir and other prominent monks, with Mahayana countries on not to use the term in referring to Theravada monks especially in international gathering and events. Because of this effort another Chief monk (Maha Nayaka) cited that they attend these events without being looked down or call Hinayana. From this I gather there is a lot of stigma around this word than I knew before. It will help being moderate or not using this term at all, since there many feel uncomfortable with the word due to historic use.

As one of the main users of this word on this site, here is my position on this again:
I don't use (lower-case) "hinayana" to refer to Theravada, I use it to mean "primitive/basic level of understanding" whether in Theravada or in Mahayana! See my answer here for more details.
It's not just any weak understanding, it is a specific style of understanding that is simplistic, naive, black-and-white, literal, and characterized by reification. (As opposed to an understanding that is nuanced and sees beyond metaphors). It has a very specific flavor to it, which is why I think it needs a distinct word.
In my opinion, the use of (upper-case) "Hinayana" as a synonym to Theravada should be banned. Because even in Theravada when we examine carefully what the advanced students and the teachers say, we will see that there is no real disagreement between different schools. And even in various Mahayana schools when we see what beginners think about elements of Buddhism, we'll see typical "hinayana"-flavor mistakes.
But I still think we need a word to refer to the black-and-white understanding characteristic of beginner students, and whether we call it "hinayana" is entirely a matter of convention. I use "hinayana" because that's what my teacher(s) used. Lately I try to suffix it with "-level" to make it absolutely clear in what sense I use it.
Besides negative connotations ("black-n-white understanding of the beginner"), the way it was presented by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche I feel "hinayana" also has positive connotations: "fundamental basic teaching" and "spartan discipline".
Here's how Trungpa praised hinayana in his famous short talk, Never Forget Hinayana (edited for readability):

Good evening. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a very profound time and profound experience for us to realize how important is the hinayana teaching.
The hinayana teaching should not be regarded as something that you can just carry out and then get rid of, or discard. The hinayana teaching is the life force that carries our practice and discipline, which goes on continuously. From that point of view the hinayana should be regarded as life’s strength.
It is [important] for us to understand that basic life [force], that basic strength. It is very important to us, and inseparable from our lives and our existence as individuals. It is the life force that carries [you] on whether you are going through the hinayana, mahayana, or vajrayana [levels]. It is our substance and our sustenance.
NEVER FORGET HINAYANA!

This claims that Śrāvakayāna is "more politically correct and much more usual". If or when you use "hinayana-level", is it (as) a synonym of "shravakayana"?

I don't know... I feel, the way it is used in context, Shravakayana is exclusively used in the "non-Mahayana-therefore-inferior" meaning. Shravakayana does not seem to have the "fundamental basic teaching" and "black-n-white understanding of the beginner" and "spartan discipline" connotations that hinayana has...

I feel some sympathy towards Andrei's use of the word. Andrei (for one) isn't intending to use as a synonym for "Theravada" (and so the counter-argument in @Theravada's answer doesn't apply to it).
According to Andrei's comment here the word has no exact synonym (it cannot simply be replaced with another word like "shravakayana" without altering and losing some of the intended meaning).
Given that the word can be used in an expert way, perhaps you should hope to "police" (i.e. inspect) its use but not to "ban" or to "forbid" its use: i.e., ensure that if and when it's used then it's used 'correctly'.

Should we update Hinayana to Theravada?

Not necessarily (because they don't mean the same thing). If the OP means "Theravada" then they should write "Theravada"; if they mean "Hinayana not Theravada" then we shouldn't edit it to "Theravada".
I agree with Thiago's saying, "if there's an easy synonym to "hinayana" in the post, just replace it", with an added proviso that there isn't always an easy synonym.

Should we let it stand if it is used in context, i.e. a question about how historical believers saw the Bodhisattva path and its differences from the alternatives?

I suspect that Andrei has heard it and wants to use it in a modern (not just a historical) context.

Some people hear Hinayana as a slur against Theravada. ... Many modern Mahayana texts use the word Hinayana without any particular sense of slur or sneer.

I'm inclined towards allowing (and welcoming) its being used in an expert way.
The right speech guidelines include, "In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, but unendearing & disagreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them."
I hope that "In an expert answer on this Q&A site" can be counted as a proper time for saying something true and beneficial, even if "some people" initially find it unendearing or disagreeable.

i mean no harm towards Andrei, i just wanted to say that it is a wrong practice. I personally contacted Andrei and told him our side of it. If i caused any harm i am sorry.

The word 'hīno' appears in the 1st sermon to describe sensual pleasures as being 'low' & inferior. That said, I think the word 'Hinayana' should not be policed because it represents a core doctrine in Mahayana.
Christianity, for example, holds the view there is only one true God (John 17.3). It would be quite bizarre to police Christians for expressing a doctrine inherent & central to their belief system.
The Pali Buddha taught:

And what are the fermentations to be abandoned by tolerating? There is
  the case where a monk, reflecting appropriately, endures. He tolerates
  cold, heat, hunger & thirst; the touch of flies, mosquitoes, wind, sun
  & reptiles; ill-spoken, unwelcome words....
Sabbasava Sutta

~~~

Monks, if you should keep this instruction on the Parable of the Saw
  constantly in mind, do you see any mode of speech, subtle or gross,
  that you could not endure?
Kakacupama Sutta


text:
Question and Answer Both Getting Deleted
The following question: Does contemplation activity, before hand, give rise to the mental image? and the answer has been ddelted. Like to know the reasoning behind this? I believe the answer was an accepted answer too.


text:
Road To Graduation
What are things what need to fall into place for us to graduate out of Beta? Also what have aspects have we achived?
What are things what KPI do we have to meet which might not have been listed in the Area51 site? Is there subjective assessments involved?
(These questions are a follow-on from the comments under this answer.)

Does there have to be more questions per day? That seems a little unrealistic, I don't know. Maybe allow certain questions like speculative questions in there own spot so they can be filtered if desired?

A change to StackExchange's policy towards beta sites was announced earlier this year:

Graduation, site closure, and a clearer outlook on the health of SE sites

Community Managers haven't posted here (on this site), and I don't know whether they still try to judge sites as they used to, but here FYI is a Community Manager's posting on another site (CodeReview.SE in 2013) before it graduated ...

How is Code Review doing right now?

... and here are some follow-up topics which show how the CodeReview.SE community responded to that feedback ...

100 days later: what's up?
Call of Duty - We're on a mission
Stack Exchange Data Explorer is up. What now, Wonderland?

Note this answer especially.
One of the things Grace said was that a graduated site site shouldn't have too many low-reputation users. If I recall correctly, the more low-reputation users and the more traffic it has, the more high-reputation users it should also have.
The meanings of reputation levels change when a site graduates, for example compare Buddhism's (in beta) with Code Review's (graduated).
One of the metrics to consider (i.e. which community managers either still consider, or which they used to consider) is the number of users with a reputation of over 3000 ... because that's the reputation required to cast close votes when the site is graduated (currently equivalent to 500 on a beta site). I think they assume that on a busy, graduated site there will be off-topic and duplicate questions which need closing, and that there should be a community (of several active users with a reputation over 3000) who will do that, without relying on the moderators to do it.


text:
Deletion of a Post
How do you mark a post for deletion? I cannot see delete any were?
E.g. This post may need deletion as it is always coming up as the 1st post when I refresh the quesion: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/13253/how-can-i-determine-if-someone-has-remotely-accessed-my-phone-or-if-it-has-been
I reported this a few hours ago but a few hours later it still is hanging out there.

See How can a post be deleted?
The post you linked to was flagged (for moderator attention), and was downvoted; but no-one had yet voted to close it (so it wasn't on track towards being deleted).
To delete a closed question, the system wants three high-reputation users (or one moderator) to vote to delete.

I reported this a few hours ago...

Flags are only seen by the moderators of this site (they're not seen by all 400+ SE moderators), and that can only happens when a moderator is awake and reading the site. That tends to happen every day but not every hour, so don't be alarmed if something flagged takes many hours to be processed.
Taking fairly immediate action might be one of the reasons why SE would like the community to act instead of only depending on moderators.

Also perhaps escalate this to SE for further investigation if appropriate.


text:
Questions with assertions which deviate from Buddhism or Buddhist History
Here is a question which deviates makes an assertion which is not true regarding both Buddhism and its History. What is the best cause of action to take in such an instance.
Ideally we should try to point the person and would be readers to the right direction and try to attach them to the Noble Path. So the action needs to be motivational than just up and down voting as this does not give such incentive, guidance or direction. This does not by all means imply we should not use this as a tool to keep the site quality up, but make this and opportunity to cultivate the quality of 'Anuththaro Purisa Dhamma Sarathi' and Skills in Questions.

What I am looking for is what is the best way to give proper guidance and direction with a view to attach them to the path so that the poster and the readers would get most value addition.

If someone makes a false assumption in his/her question then it's best to point out why the assumption is wrong in a comment. This way the OP can try to salvage the question. If the question is still answerable, despite the false assumption then you can also explain why the assumption is wrong in an answer.
If the false assumption causes the question to be totally irrelevant or unanswerable then it's best to also vote to close it. However, I do think we should make an exception for common misunderstandings (e.g. all buddhists are pacifists) and not close those questions. This way future readers are informed before they ask the same false question, or if they still do ask it (because they didn't find the original question) we can close the question as a duplicate.

This sounds more reasonable. But instead of closing why not gently point out it's irrelevance and this can be example for other who might have similar throughs.

@SumindaSirinathSalpitikorala First of all, we want high-quality questions (and answers) here. If we have many low quality questions on the site we risk scaring the expert people away. Second, if you don't close the question then people that have the same false assumption may try to answer it, which most likely results in vote downs and/or big discussions.

The scary part if people with false assumptions trying to answer it.

I think best is to protect them some not every one can answer them.

Vote down incoherent questions or fail to vote them up.
Do the same for low quality answers.

This might not be the most helpful way to point them to the right direction.

When someone is wrong on the internet, there is only so much we can do about it.

Yes I agree, but you should give your best try. Otherwise you lose your value system.


text:
Create and Share a Set of Useful Data Site Queries for The Site
It is possible for someone familiar site data querying to create some useful set of queries for our site and share them here.
This might be useful for many of the site users.
Also feel free to request for particular useful queries or help in creating them.
This is a follow up on this answer: https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/a/287/295

You can browse popular queries on Data SE and run them on any site you like. Might be good to curate a list here though if you find some things useful.

Find questions which have only low-voted answers.
I didn't work out how to edit the description of the query (so the description is wrong).
Choosing N=1 and M=1 will find questions which don't have any answers with 2 or more votes (it will return questions which have any number of answers with 1 vote or less).

Great stuff. Let me have look.

Does MUpvotes mens the maximum upvotes? What does NAnswers mean?

N is the number of answers which have M upvotes. E.g. "N=2, M=3" specifies that you want questions which satisfy the following condition: "there are fewer than two answers with more than 3 upvotes each".


text:
"Convince me your religion is (in)valid" questions
These question show up on forums too-- something along the sort, of I'm shopping for a religion/I'm on an atheist mission
This one here and here
Worth closing. These are not really questions.
They can't have a canonical answer.
There isn't a factual problem to be solved.
The answer that works for one person is unless to the next.
People's belief systems are generally pretty stable, so even if one thinks it's useful to encourage someone to try out/believe in Buddhism, the odds are low that we'll fix them here. (Might be find for a forum or twitter or facebook chat)

Why the rush to close? I think we should be more worried about the coming close rush and subsequent demoralization than the mild uncertainty of keeping an opinion-based question open that may actually get a good answer and thus make the Internet a better place :)

I have the other fear, that this will become Buddha-fight club, where there are about 20 high volume posters who can stomach the the dialectical process (or verbal iron knuckles). The SE format is all about  discouraging that (what ever it's benefits might be) and encouraging a just-the-facts environment.

Maybe the best way to handle that will be on a case-by-case basis; if a question appears to be cultivating violence, we can close it.

I think your concern is valid, but I don't see either of those posts as being examples of it. They both look like reasonable questions to me. The first is probably a reflection of Buddhism being non-theistic (in the western sense), so it's perfectly reasonable to then ask how come it's useful. The second is so foundational, I just don't understand why it's being criticised.

Some of the most memorable stories of Buddhism come from outsiders questioning monks or teachers (be it in hostility or out of a genuine spirit of curiosity), and these stories are often used as teaching tools. Buddhists, especially in Zen, have a strong tradition of dealing with such questions, even when they seem too broad or require an indirect answer that relies on analogy.
We would all be much the poorer if "Why did the ancestral founder come from the west?" had been closed as "too broad" before Zhaozhou could answer.
For this reason, I think we should use a lighter hand than usual when considering closing questions like those you point out. In both the examples you point out, I can imagine the existence of an answer that's both concise and satisfying, and I think such an answer would really help the site.
Even so, I'm not suggesting we should just allow anything. In particular, I think we have to match this attitude with a ruthlessness about duplicates. A hundred questions of the form "does X have Buddha-nature?" wouldn't help anyone. Just remember that closing a question prevents it from being answered, so a vote to close represents a belief that any answer to the question would harm the site.

Koans seem like bad question for the Q&A format.


text:
Are we ready to use our "New User Welcome"?
A draft of a new user welcome has been up for about a week here and has been revised a couple of times to include good suggestions for clarification from the community.
Are there any other suggestions for things to add/delete/revise? Should we wait a bit longer? Or does it look alright enough to begin adding a link to it to comments we leave for new users or even existing users who need some guidance?
Lastly, does anyone know to create a hotkey shortcut which would paste a standard message that included the link into a comment? I took a quick look into the Help Center and didn't spot anything.

Welcome to Buddhism.SE! Our Welcome page has useful tips for posting questions and answers.
http://meta.buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/1502/i-am-a-new-user-here-at-buddhism-se-what-should-i-know-before-i-post

Alternatively, "Welcome to Buddhism.SE! Our Welcome page has etc." Or, just "Welcome to Buddhism.SE!" optionally followed by a specific comment.

I've made some edits, mostly stylistic... I hope they aren't unwelcome - if they are, please feel free to roll back. I also added the "Featured" tag, so the page is already "live" as it were, on the sidebar.

Edits look good to me. Thank you! Should we copy/paste it over to a new question to get rid of the comments or do you think its alright as it is?

@Robin111 A third option, given that it's already 'featured' where it is, is: a) you might edit the question e.g. to remove the reference to Skeptics b) decide what to do with my answer, which has examples of how the page is used (actually I've decided: I'll delete it and may repost it as an answer to this question) ... maybe you may want to add something else somewhere to explain how to use the page ... or instead of explaining maybe people will see example of its being used c) flag all existing comments as "obsolete" d) optionally invite new/future comments.

That was a good idea to flag the comments for removal. Otherwise we'd end up with two versions of the same Question and one might not be updated properly when needed. Also, seeing how the Featured tag works is great. I didn't realize we could have it appear on the sidebar like that. So if there is no easy way to make a macro to paste a standard message in for new users; it will still be easy enough to get the link to make a message each time it's needed. :)

Would it be a good idea to put the "featured" tag back on our New User Welcome? I believe the Community bot removed it. Is it possible to keep multiple featured items on Meta? (If only one can be featured, than maybe it's better to switch it up though.)

Is it possible to put the featured tag back on our New User Welcome? Community bot comes along from time to time and removes it. But I think without being "featured" it may be overlooked by new users. Thanks!

Lastly, does anyone know to create a hotkey shortcut which would paste a standard message

This moderator uses this application with this list of comments (you'd want a different comment or set of comments).
The 'application' is an extension for Chrome or Firefox.

This is great Chris. Thanks! :)


text:
Ahimsa vs. non-harming vs. non-violence
I think there are at least three ways of referring to the concept of non-violence:

ahimsa
avihimsa
non-violence
non-harming

We can create tag synonyms for these if everyone agrees they essentially point at the same concept. The question remains, though, which of these we want as main tag, and which as synonyms.
See also What language should our tags be in?

In Pali, I think off the top of my head that avihimsa is more common than ahimsa. Non-violence is the biggest Buddhist concept, I think. Non-harming, is that even used?

Added avihimsa to the list. Re: non-harming, the first page I find is Buddhism-related. Maybe non-harming is the translation used for the Hindu/Jain concept of ahimsa...?

Yeah, but can you find any primary texts using the term? It sounds like a modern English translation. I'm pretty sure non-violence is the more common one.

@Yuttadhammo Why don't you make this an answer, so we can vote it up?

So, googling "non-harming buddhism" gives 145,000 hits. The term is used by Gil Fronsdal, who says

The Buddhist word for non-harming is ahimsa, the same word Mahatma Gandhi translated as “non-violence.”

http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/articles/on-non-harming/
Which, honestly, seems to be his own opinion, rather than an accepted Buddhist translation. Googling "Buddhism non-violence" instead, gives ~2mil hits. It doesn't bring up the study guide (not on the first page anyway) by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, which is probably the best source in our tradition (even though I'm not partial towards his translations):
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/nonviolence.html
I get the need to use Pali and Sanskrit terms like dharma, nirvana, etc, but in this case, I can't help but think the English non-violence works best.
It's my opinion at this moment that, unless a Pali/Sanskrit term has gained wide acceptance in modern usage, the English is preferable as a main tag; e.g. dependent origination, a term far more familiar to people than the Pali/Sanskrit.

Unfortunately, Google counts aren't reliable (a discussion of this on Japanese.SE). I've searched for terms and received 180,000 hits, but clicking myself through the actual results, only found 16! Ever since I've been ignoring the number and I suggest we do the same here on Buddhism.SE.

In the case of non-violence/non-harming, COCA has results 137/0, so non-violence is definitely the more common word. Unfortunately, browsing through the results, I haven't quite found it in a strict Buddhism context. The context I recognize being mostly Gandhi, Jainism, ahimsa, and Martin Luther King. That in itself is probably enough to go for non-violence, though.


text:
Are questions asking for lists of retreat centers/temples on-topic?
This is centered around Meditation Retreat in India and Buddhist Centres in Paris?.
My personal view is that we, as a site, can't really afford to be an up-to-date list of Buddhist Centers with reviews and that such questions are not really an excellent fit for a Q&A format.

My personal view is that we, as a site, can't really afford to be an up-to-date list of Buddhist Centers with reviews and that such questions are not really an excellent fit for a Q&A format.

I would agree.
However, this community might find some success with questions about how to find or choose a retreat center. You wouldn't curate a list, but perhaps a set of guidelines for how to go about finding and picking an establishment that's the right fit for you.
My $0.02 - this is up to you as a community.

For the record, this is the strategy we've used with some success on MA.SE. "What are centers in my area that teach X" is off topic, but "How can I choose a martial art based on these criteria?" is perfectly acceptable.

What is you refere by MA.SE?

@SumindaSirinathSalpitikorala Martial Arts Stack Exchange. Hrafn is a moderator over there too.

I would close these of as off topic due to been too localised. Requests for specific resources limited to a specific geographic area are of of interest to a minority and I think just clutter the site. If we allow it, where do we draw the line? Meditation classes in the UK, or West Yorkshire, or Leeds, or a 1 mile radius from my house.
I would close the Indian and Paris centres questions and close off any future ones as too localised.

Certain people may be looking for certain centres with certain criteria, certain traditions. Best is we keep this on topic so some one knowing the linage / tradition can help.


text:
Who should our moderators be?
This is one of the "real" essential questions of every [public] beta:

1. Who should the moderators be?
Moderators in Stack Exchange perform dual roles. Beside the normal activities of a Moderator, part of their function is to act as liaison — a role which links the Stack Exchange team with the individual communities. Discussing the criteria of a great moderator is important and picking out potential candidates is a great way to introduce outstanding contributors to your community. Stack Exchange is completely open to appointing temporary Moderators when someone’s contribution makes them a standout choice for your community’s human exception handler. If your meta site does not have a post to nominate Moderators, start one now! Pro Tem appointments will begin about two weeks after the site goes public. The more guidance the Community Team receives, the more informed is their choice.

For more information about what the pro tempore moderators do, see the blog post Moderator Pro Tempore.

This question will serve as a "nomination" thread (but keep in mind that the community managers have the final say). If you wish to nominate a user (including yourself) for the position of pro tempore moderator, please obey the following guidelines [adapted from meta.datascience]:

Each nomination should be a separate answer. Link to the user’s profile (main site and meta) so we can see their activity.
The nominee should indicate their acceptance in a comment, stating that they accept the nomination. Optionally, the nominee can also write something about themselves in the comments.
Self nominations are okay, and even encouraged. Most sites have not had sufficient time for many users to stand out. Self nomination is simply a way to say, “I’m interested. Let my record speak for itself.” Links to other activities may be helpful: Area 51 participation, participation in other sites, blog posts reviewing or announcing the site, etc.

We're looking for members of this site who:

Have a reasonably high reputation score to indicate active, consistent participation.
Show an interest in their meta’s community-building activities.
Lead by example, showing patience and respect for their fellow community members in everything they write.
Exhibit those intangible traits discussed in A Theory of Moderation.

It's also good if the moderators:

Participated in Area 51, generate social network referrals, or blog about the site.
Are members who have already shown an interest or ability to promote their community.

For the moderator announcement, see: Moderators Pro Tempore announcement

I will begin the process of selecting moderators pro tempore soon and would prefer to keep the community's input in mind. Who would you guys like to see with diamonds by their names?

How many moderators are to be chosen?

Do we have any moderators at all at the moment?

@FullPeace.org Three moderators. There are no moderators as of this time.

Does being a moderator put any onus on the type of content one is allowed to contribute to the site onself?

@yuttadhammo No. Moderators can (and are encouraged to) continue asking and answering questions as usual. They just have additional responsibilities w/r/t flag handling, closing, deleting, etc.

I nominate yuttadhammo (main, meta). yuttadhammo clearly has tremendous domain knowledge (>1500 rep, to say nothing of his demonstrated knowledge outside of the SE network, e.g. on YouTube and his blog), and has also spent quite some time keeping the site shipshape (84 reviews and 17 edits as of this writing).
(Note: yuttadhammo and I don't have some sort of mutual back-scratching agreement going here; I was going to post this answer along with the question but ran short on time.)

I accept the nomination. I'm not the most impartial of observers, being a practising Buddhist and Buddhist teacher. I do have a bit of experience on Stack Overflow and more than that on my organization's Q&A SE clone at http://ask.sirimangalo.org/ (which, admittedly, I've let go to weed in the past year). I'm still feeling my way around the moderator tools, and am certainly not as familiar with proper SE etiquette as @senshin, but I am dedicated to making this site a success (even created a dynamic png for your weblog).

I'm afraid @yuttadhammo, being a member of the most conservative branch of Buddhism, is not the best choice. I imagine a non-sectarian practitioner would be more understanding of various perspectives.

I suppose that should be informed based on my activity on the site. Do I seem intolerant to various perspectives? Simply belonging to one sect or another shouldn't disqualify one from being a moderator.

Not saying you're intolerant Bhante (actually, the exact opposite of that so far), just saying any person ordained with one specific school, especially a conservative one, is potentially more biased, hence not the best choice for an objective impersonal judge.

I guess I don't see how one's school of Buddhism should affect one's ability to be impartial (especially since it is a Buddhist practice to be so ;) ). I would think there are far more important criteria to consider, like reputation and experience.

I will only be glad if my concern never materializes.

I nominate @senshin, of course :) who better?
https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/users/28/senshin
https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/users/28/senshin

I accept the nomination. A few relevant details: (1) I am not a practicing Buddhist (I am non-religious). My interest in Buddhism (particularly the various Japanese schools) is primarily of an academic nature. (2) I have experience using all the moderation tools available to non-mods over at [anime.se] - which is totally unrelated in terms of content, but the tools all work the same across the network. (3) I would be happy to handle all the janitorial work so all you proper Buddhists can focus on the important stuff - posting great questions and answers!

I would prefer either a practicing non-sectarian mod, or a true Buddhologist academician.

@zvolkov That is a reasonable request, but are there any people on the site at the moment that fall into either of those categories?

You are right, there are none, that's why I said "would prefer". However, the fact that we don't have better candidates does not mean we should not discuss the drawbacks of existing ones and our preferences. This is the same principle at work as with election campaigns: not measuring our condition against highest values and being content with "good enough" leads to corruption of values doesn't it? :)

I will self-nominate (meta, main). I've been moderating or administrating internet forums for a long time and have experience as a SE moderator pro tempore on MA.SE (meta, main), so I've seen a good number of the sorts of curveballs that a mod could expect.
It hasn't been publicly outside of my twitter, but I've also been pushing this site on social networks among friends who I think would be interested.

Nice, glad to have another veteran moderator here +1

I fully support this candidate

I nominate zvolkov (meta, main) as a knowledgeable candidate for moderation. Second highest reputation based on Area 51 info on Buddhism.SE.

Thanks @FullPeace.org I've been moderating Google+ Zen Buddhism community for more than a year now and serving as one of the main answerers on Buddhism Q&A community on Google+. As a Google+ moderator I am known for my tolerance, ability to avoid conflicts, and straightforward head chopping action when it comes to breaking the rules. I'm a Stackoverflow user since 2009 with ~10k rep, and a Buddhist practitioner since 1995.

@zvolkov recognizing you from there is also part of the reason for the nomination.

General advice - I highly suggest moderators act with as light a touch as possible. The general idea is that this site is moderated by community consensus and it is the duty of moderators to build and maintain a consensus.
It is always better if moderators build community by encourging the sorts of behavior you wish to see from your community.
Examples -
1) Asking for clarification after a down vote.
2) Asking quality comments be converted to answers.
3) Asking quality comments be edited into answers to improve the quality.
4) Editing (and commenting) questions / answers as an example to the community.
5) Participating on meta.
6) Unless there is spam or grossly inappropriate content, allow, no encourage the community to police their own.
7) Patiently explain your reasoning for moderation, ask the community for feedback, and be willing to change your methods if others have suggestions or the consensus changes.
Such a method builds the community without "abuse of power". The more you support the community, and the more you build your community, the more your community will grow.

I also nominate FullPeace.org as for reasons above.

Thanks Suminda. I humbly accept the nomination. Also in agreement with the light touch moderation as mentioned by @bodhi.zazen

I would like to nominate "Kevin Johnsrude".
Kevin for his attitude for how this should be done in Buddhism and FullPeace.org perhpas as a praticiner (as per profile)
Also Vipassana / Meditation practitioners on the site also should be encouraged to take this role up (or assist as time permits) as they can bridge the gap between theory and practice as Buddhism is very much practical than being a philosophy or a dogmatic religion. Also this should not diminish the opportunity to any body who does not do Vipassana / Meditation. We should try to attract the practitioners more as the site can benefit from their experience.

@Suminda Nominations have to be one per post, because otherwise up- and down-voting don't work. You can nominate multiple people by posting more than one answer.


text:
Is it our responsibility to maintain the secrecy of unpublished texts?
This question is motivated by the comments on this answer: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/1354/28
Is it our responsibility (where "our" refers to the users of this site, including moderators and employees of Stack Exchange) to maintain the secrecy of texts that are not published and have been deemed unsuitable for public dissemination? If we see a text being disseminated that we think or know should not be disseminated, should we remove the offending content?

I commented below, but FWIW not only do I not see a problem with the answer @Hrafn gave, I do see a problem with Rabbit's pushback because I consider it an unnecessary request for secrecy, thereby casting a shadow on more reasonable requests for such. If there are cultural issues at stake, its important we don't simply ignore the Western culture, which values openness and often rightly regards secrecy with suspicion. Just because some old dudes in Tibet wanted things secret doesn't necessarily mean we need to listen to them. I, for one, am not from Tibet.

I found this interesting. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/2013/01/is-this-the-first-ever-buddhist-social-media-code-of-conduct.html

There is an obvious parallel here to an oft-discussed topic on the technology-related parts of the network: Should moderators enforce NDAs for software vendors?.
I won't rehash everything that is said there; the basic gist is that no, it is not the responsibility of anybody here to enforce NDAs (or other secrecy agreements), since none of us (besides, perhaps, the user that posted the "offending" content) are bound by those agreements.
Now, this isn't to say that people shouldn't be judicious about what they post. If a teacher of yours has taught you something and sworn you to secrecy on it, you should probably not post that thing, as a matter of basic courtesy to your teacher.

Yes, certainly a community can decide what they want or don't want on their site, but there is no inherent responsibility for you to enforce agreements between third parties.

I agree with what @senshin has said about this topic, but wanted to add a few more points in the areas that go a little beyond the NDA-analogy.

Different traditions and teachers have different philosophies around both entry requirements and secrecy of various teachings. Just because teacher/tradition A views it as something that should be kept secret doesn't mean that teacher/tradition B does.
Not everyone here is Buddhist and the reasons for asking may be more academic or psycho-spiritual in nature. This doesn't mean that an individual should share it if it is oathbound to them, but not everyone who asks (or answers) is going to fall under the mantle of a Buddhist tradition, let alone one that considers the information oathbound.
As with a great deal of Western Esotericism, some of what was once held in the highest secrecy and oathbound is now published by someone, somewhere, in a way that is accessible (though in this case it may involve a Religious Studies with Language Degree and access to a library). Possibly by someone who is very qualified to teach it. This is partly due to (1) and partly due to (2).

What this implies is that one shouldn't share information that the one who taught them considers oathbound and shouldn't seek information that their instructor considers oathbound. Circumventing those sorts of restrictions is generally at least rude if not in violation of a pact or agreement, and minimally should be discussed with the instructor in question.
On the other hand, it isn't incumbent on others–nor is it really practical–to enforce keeping such knowledge hidden or even to discourage people from asking.

The difference between NDAs and religious esotericism is a matter of cultural respect - NDAs don't offend something people take personally. We could ask a parallel question of whether we should allow posting of pictures that denigrate the Buddha. I would say if any material were found offensive to practitioners of Buddhism, we would be obligated to remove it, no?
In some ways religious esotericism is similarly about respect. I know that there are some few teachings in my tradition (mostly technical details about intensive meditation courses) that we try to keep from new meditators so they don't misunderstand what they aren't ready to hear. If such teachings became public knowledge on the Internet, I'd want to request their removal, because I would feel it would hurt peoples ability to practice my tradition sincerely. I'm sure other teachers feel similarly.
That being said, the Internet doesn't really lend itself well to secrecy; so the question, I think, is whether we feel obligated as a community to respect Buddhism, or whether we are just here to study it impartially.
My feeling is that, since SE does have policies on disrespect, we should at least consider that it might be disrespectful to post teachings that are intended by teachers to be kept secret.
I suppose another difference between NDAs and esoteric teachings is that NDAs deal with a desire to possess something exclusively, whereas esoteric teachings are for the purpose of preventing abuse; they're not really as parallel as they seem at first blush. Esoteric teachings are more like intellectual property, in the sense that the teacher may be seen to have some right to control how they are spread.
td;lr: I'm of the opinion that, out of respect for individual teachers, we consider a policy of responding to requests to take down esoteric teachings by those who consider them esoteric.

How do you suggest handling the problem that Student P claims that Teacher A thinks that the practice is secret, but it is clear that Teacher B doesn't think so when Teacher B is not represented on the site?

I'd be more interested if teacher A came on the site and asked for removal. Students get all sorts of crazy ideas, and I wouldn't consider their requests sufficient.

That's a stronger position, which I appreciate. However, it leads to the same problem in a slightly different form. The trivial example is that Teacher A disagrees with Lopon Sangye Tenzin Rinpoche's belief that dzogchen should be taught more openly and freely. How do we resolve it?

Well, why should our site be Lopon Rinpoche's channel for revealing secret teachings? I guess the question is regarding which is more important, respecting a teacher's right to secret teachings or allowing unrestricted exchange of information. Is the respect important?

Lopon Sangye Tenzin Rinpoche has been dead for over 30 years, thus we are well past the point of being able to argue the point with them, and they had a lot of students in their lifetime who have gone on to teach under the same philosophy, making the information widely available and with students ending up on this site looking for information from those sources. This makes it really, really not feasible to remove information based on what one teacher or one tradition requests, even if that's a common position, because there are many traditions with many different positions on these matters.

We could distinguish between information that is already publicly available and what is not, but you're probably right, it's probably not really feasible; once it's on the net, it's on the net. I can just imagine some unfortunate circumstances where information is spread that is designed to be shared only with advanced meditators and might turn away neophytes if given the information in advance.

Of the two reasons yuttadhammo mentions for maintaining secrecy -- respect for certain people, and avoiding newbies misunderstanding  -- I'm convinced by the latter, not the former. Secrecy just because someone wants a secret kept has dangers, and on balance I think knowing and thinking is better than not-knowing and blind faith. But the misunderstanding point is fair. It's akin to giving someone information about how to make crystal meth. If I knew how to do that, I'm not going to just tell someone about it willy nilly, because I may lead them towards harm.

This should be treated like spoilers to popular movies.
For example, here is the top level tantra, the one you get just before you're enlightened:
(only highlight or mouse over the text below if you have suitable Abisekha!)

Nothing really exists like you thought it existed.

The mark down syntax is to start a line with >!

I would say that the problem with secrecy is a bit more subtle, at least in Vajrayana tradition. Once a student receives some teachings and instructions, so-called Samaya is being formed between him and the teacher. A student promises to keep a number of vows and commitments. One of the ways to break the Samaya is to 'Reveal Secrets to Those who are Not Spiritually Mature' (point 7 in this list). Internet is a public space, so there is a risk that people with not enough spiritual background will read some teachings and misunderstand and misuse them.
There is also a nice guide to using social media for Vajrayana students, but I would risk to say that some of the points are relevant to all the practitioners.
I think that it is ok for the community to challenge users whether their answers contain teachings that should be kept secret. If someone reveals secret instructions, I wouldn't call that person an expert as he/she lacks the basic understanding of the meaning of the teaching he/she received. We want a quality site about Buddhism which we respect and want to protect.
Practically, I would suggest to include some guidelines either in FAQs, community Wiki or similar to remind the users about the meaning of the secrecy so they can reflect on whether they do protect their lineage. It would be also beneficial for non-Buddhists users visiting the site so they can learn why, for example, nobody wants to answer certain questions in great details.

In Buddhism there is not secrecy involved. Anything which is within the topic of this site cannot be a secrete. Also this all the topics would be an adaptation of the original teachings of the Buddha and his disciples and in some cases founders of certain schools of Buddhism. So anything unpublished if need to be kept secrete will not likely conform to the topics of the site and it does not draw upon the knowledge which is already publicly available in some form or other.


text:
Should requests for materials be considered on topic?
We have just gotten our first question that requests learning materials: Learning materials for Dependent Origination (Paṭiccasamuppāda) in Theravada Buddhism.
Should questions of this type be considered on-topic? Some SE sites allow this type of question, particularly in the form of "reference requests", e.g. Math, Theoretical Computer Science, and, of course, Software Recommendations. Other sites forbid them, like Stack Overflow. Some sites, like Japanese Language, have a compromise policy that allows a limited number of these questions on their meta site, but forbids them on the main site. Of the other religion sites, it looks like Christianity has deemed these questions off-topic; I have not found any policy on the matter at Judaism or Islam.
All this in mind, should we allow questions that request learning materials? If so, to what extent?
Note that forbidding these questions on the main site does not mean they cannot be asked at all - it just means that the questions should be moved to a more appropriate venue, i.e. chat.

I don't get the problem... what's wrong with asking for resources?

@Yuttadhammo On larger sites like SO, the major problem is that they started getting swamped with questions like "what library should I use to do X?" and "what is your favorite tutorial for Y?". As such, it has often become necessary to exact a blanket ban on resource requests on those sites. Some other sites, however, manage just fine with resource requests. Personally, I am okay with resource requests in moderation (particularly since this site is never going to be SO-sized), but I think it is still an issue that should be discussed.

Given that a large part of Buddhism concerns the practical usage of the teachings (as opposed to "just" doctrines to believe in), wouldn't references to resources make sense here? Granted that I am biased since I asked the question, but it was partly also to be helpful for others that are looking for the same thing. Rewriting the question (like suggested by @Earthliŋ) is also a good option, although how much rewriting work it will take, I don't know. :-)

On Islam.SE, such questions, list questions of any form, are considered non-constructive, see this.
With list questions, they maybe on-topic for your site, and it's benefits may be noticeable, but they fall somewhere between Too-Broad and Primarily-Opinion-Based, such questions don't go well with the SE Model and I would suggest not making them off-topic, but also not allowing them.
Now, I have no idea how much literature or resources your religion has, so there may be exceptions to this rule, but I believe if you want your site to be constructive, and go along with the general practice of the SE Network, you should not allow such questions, and should  close them and keep them for the chat which is available to those who have 20 reputation.

As much as I love a useful list, list have proven to be problematic on Stackexchange sites. The format doesn't work well. The list of books can never be canonical.
An exception to this is answers that happen to be in a book. So an answer might legitimately say, "To answer that you need to read book X" (And that also probably means the question was overly broad)

As I see it there are two problems with questions asking for resources

They often are (never-ending) list questions.
For example asking for good books on meditation is not only subjective (how do you define good?) but will undoubtedly also generate lots of answers, even long after the question was asked. Everyone wants to contribute what they think is the best book on the topic and there is no way of telling which answer is best.

Answers become outdated or incomplete quickly.
In this day and age new resources become available all the time, so answers on resource requests probably need to be adjusted often.

Despite these potential problems I am in favor of allowing resource requests in one way or the other, but just like Earthliŋ mentioned I think we shouldn't allow them on the main site.
Personally I'm in favor of allowing resource questions on meta, which has already been proposed here, but I'd like to add that we should require these questions to be non-subjective and not too broad. I'm also in favor of making them community-wiki so we don't get 15 different answers.
There is another alternative I'd like to propose, but I've done this here so people can vote on that separately.

I think it very useful to have a collected page of resources, but I'm not particularly fond of plain resource requests.
With the question in question, I think one could rewrite the main point of the question

There are many writings on the subject, and many try to explain the concepts of dependent origination. However, this question is regarding finding practical instructions to applying the teachings in meditation.

as

What is a practical approach to studying of the concepts of dependent origination?

An answer to this reformulation would ideally draw from different sources (that is, providing references/resources) at the same time as building content, right here on Buddhism.SE, for the benefit of other users.
Therefore, I think that we should have strict resources questions with link-only-type answers on the meta site and questions that ask for content-rich answers on the main site.

Another solution that hasn't been proposed here yet is to use tag wiki pages to compile lists of resources lists on a topic.
If people ask for resources on the main page we can close the question as off-topic but at the same time refer to that topic's tag wiki. I think this is also how the people at StackOverflow handle these type of questions.
I've added this as a separate answer (my other answer is here) so people can vote for both ideas separately.


text:
Looking for a coordinator for Book of the Month
I'd like to propose that we nominate someone to head up the book of the month club; we have several proposed books to look at already and probably about as much interest as we're going to get at this point.
Out of the suggestions, I'd like to recommend we start with Good Questions, Good Answers, even though it didn't get the most votes; it is freely available online, it is not directly related to any one Buddhist tradition, and because of the format, it fits well with the Q&A framework. Some of the other suggested books, while interesting, are either directed to a specific school of Buddhism or are not free online.
So, this question is two-fold; please comment on the suggestion to use Good Questions, Good Answers, and please post responses nominating yourself or others to take over the responsibility of coordinating the group.
Coordination probably doesn't involve much; just posting about the latest book on meta and working out a selection for the next month.

Good Questions, Good Answers looks like a useful book, written in a very direct manner. I'd be happy to start off with that one.
Just one question. Several of the books suggested, (including this one at 68 pages), are fairly brief. Would there be any interest in selecting two shorter books in months when the main selection is not a longer one?
For instance adding on the 70 page "Women in Buddhism, Questions & Answers" might be manageable as they both look like quick reads.

If I'm absolutely honest I don't have a huge amount of time and also there's other Dharma books I want to read as well as the book club one. I personally could only manage the one book - but I guess people could elect to read one or two. The Women in Buddhism looks like a good one for month 2 - it would be a shame to miss it though

Ah, ok. Some of the books initially proposed were 400+ pages, so 138 total for the 2 smaller books seemed reasonable. But I understand your position. I'm fine with whatever the group picks. :)

That's a very fair point. I fact I suggested one that was 400+ pages. I would never finish it in a month - I'm reading it now and really I'll be dipping in and out all year. I was hoping that the month part of book of the month might be interpreted loosely. I guess i might be a slow reader (i think i am to be honest) . :-)

I think I am too really. Probably very sensible to start out with a smaller book and leave it at that. It's not like anyone who wants to read more on their own wouldn't be able to. ;-)


text:
Does anyone else find the style of our site off-putting?
I just posted a question on meta.SE about beta site styling, hoping to create the possibility of basic CSS styling or theming for beta sites. Does anyone think this might be useful? Basically, giving us the ability to change the color scheme to something a little more inviting.
Any thoughts? Or does it look okay as it is?
What provoked the question was the look of quoted text, which I use a lot... the yellow looks somewhat jarring and hard to read, to me.

I didn't find it off-putting until you mentioned it (perhaps I'm just accustomed to the CSS styling used for beta sites).
Historically when people ask about styling their beta site, SE have said they'll give a site custom styling when it graduates from beta.
You're right that the colours could look ... warmer.
So I up-voted your suggestion on meta.SE.
The block quotes don't bother me, because they're functional:

Readable (dark text on pale background)
Distinct (easy to see the difference between quote and non-quote)

The first thing (and almost the only difference) I see when I looked at the example style you posted is that the non-content (extreme left and right) margin is yellow. Content remains black-on-white, with yellow (or do you see that more as a distinctly orange shade of yellow?) for the block quote.
It has a yellow instead of blueish top banner though, too, so "warmer colours" overall (as you said) instead of "the yellow+blue look".
If you look at a page of a graduated SE site like this one, the margin is coloured (a slightly greenish blue) and the content background is still a plain  near-white. Maybe (I'm not a style designer) a whiteish background works easily because it accepts various-coloured text (including colours for links and visited links). And the block quote is yellow.
Still, some SE sites have non-white content, for example this one, so that's not impossible either.


text:
Community Wiki for Bucket List Questions
I just converted a couple of questions to community wiki posts. This is half question, half comment, as I'm pretty sure that's a good response to such posts. Community wiki posts basically work outside of the SE rep system (see this post for more info), so there isn't need to get a single right answer.
Seems like this is a better response than flagging/closing bucket list questions as really such questions can be terribly helpful within the wiki framework.
So, the question is, amirite?

Amirite?
Yes I think you are right: I was pleased to see your knowing about the CW feature, and using it.
CW can be useful, for building reference lists, for example:

Terminology index - a list of bike part names and cycling concepts
The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List

Incidentally, the authors have done more than only convert these topics to CW:

To deal with the problem of indexing/sorting, the former (list of bicycle terminology) puts each entry in a separate 'answer' and edits the 'question' so that the question has an alphabetical list of links to each entry
To make the answer coherent, the latter (list of C++ books) deletes every answer except one, locks the topic so that new answers can't be added, and edits every reply into the single common answer

Also some reference lists are less useful than others: for example, IMO What are some entertaining/fictional movies, books, etc. might be too broad a topic (too many possible answers and not enough value e.g. commentary/context added to each answer, so it's a mere list of lists).
But, whether a topic is ...

Just right (i.e. normal)
Ought to be CW (i.e. unusual)
Ought to be closed (i.e. too unusual)

... is a bit subjective, a judgement call. For example although I thought that asking "What are some entertaining/fictional movies" was too broad, I thought that my own question "Chronological or other sequence for beginners" was helpful even though it too attracted a list of lists in reply.

There used to be a chat room in which to mention Dharma Books. People on this site don't use the chat rooms enough to keep them unfrozen.

I like narrow book requests better than "what's a good book to read" questions. It actually is difficult to track down book about Shingon, it is sometimes tricky to find published liturgies for some types of Buddhism (easy to find a liturgy that covers Pure Land, but hard to find a liturgy that gives any emphasis to Huayen/Avatamsaksa)
My kindle has like 100 samples of Buddhist books, and those will be out of date in 5 years, when a whole new batch of Buddhist books hit the scene. SE is never going to keep up with the river of new releases. Worse, in hypothetical "whats good to read question", after 3 years the best anwers will be at the bottom of the list and the best books of 2015 will be permanently at the top!


text:
What does it mean to "be nice"?
In a recent discussion on Buddhism.SE, the topic of "being nice" came up for dispute. It was asked whether this meant that we must "pander to fundamentalists" rather than dispute their claims. This meta post is meant to be a platform for that discussion.
Here's the generic description, BTW, of what it means to be nice:
https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/help/be-nice

Do we need to define what is meant by fundamentalism?

@JayaravaAttwood personally, I think that is a red herring; in the post in question, the issue of being nice had nothing to do with the criticism of those who take texts literally or as absolute authority.

Maybe a more Buddhist way to say it, is to say "be kind".
We come to this website from all levels of expertise, different backgrounds, different interests, different perspectives, and even levels of patience. But we welcome diversity. In fact, a perceived problem on the site in it's first year in public beta has been not enough diversity in that some schools of Buddhism have been "under represented".
In order to be a place where anyone with an interest in any flavor of Buddhism can come and receive a variety of good answers to good questions, we need to welcome all and have respect for Buddhism as it's practiced across the spectrum.
We can't point fingers at those who study and practice differently than we do and call names. It isn't kind and it isn't professional. This site has an atmosphere of professionalism as well as an atmosphere of support for learning about Buddhism in all its aspects.
With metta. ♥

I have four suggestions:

Talk about the text (or even talk about a view) but shy away from commenting on people; for example say "This is not a literalist answer" rather than "You are a fundamentalist and a literalist".
If you will talk about people then prefer to talk about "I" rather than about "you", for example say, "I prefer this", and not "you are wrong to prefer that".
Wikipedia has a short article about "I messages":

I-messages are often used with the intent to be assertive without putting the listener on the defensive.

"It's not enought to be right" (that's some advice my first manager gave me at work). If you discuss a subject, maybe you're right, but being right is not enough. For example if you say "you're wrong" then it may more difficult to get to the stage where you can say "we agree".
Comment less; a mechanism which can minimize social friction on an SE site that people have an opportunity to answer and are not required or expected to argue. So (instead of arguing) you can put your time into writing an answer which clarifies what you want to say on a subject, and which you think is a useful answer to the original question.
The Help gives advice on how and when to comment, and what to comment on, and when not to comment:

When should I comment?
You should submit a comment if you want to:

Request clarification from the author;
Leave constructive criticism that guides the author in improving the post;
Add relevant but minor or transient information to a post (e.g. a link to a related question, or an alert to the author that the
  question has been updated).

When shouldn't I comment?
Comments are not recommended for any of the following:

Suggesting corrections that don't fundamentally change the meaning of the post; instead, make or suggest an edit;
Answering a question or providing an alternate solution to an existing answer; instead, post an actual answer (or edit to expand an
  existing one);
Compliments which do not add new information ("+1, great answer!"); instead, up-vote it and pay it forward;
Criticisms which do not add anything constructive ("-1, see previous comments you scallywag!"); instead, down-vote (and provide or up-vote
  a better answer if appropriate);
Secondary discussion or debating a controversial point; please use chat instead;
Discussion of community behavior or site policies; please use meta instead.

To me the word "nice" conjures an image of superficial politeness which is in fact socially oppressive and meant to ensure conformity to norms that have nothing to do with ethics. In my experience Buddhists also use it like weapon to silence dissent and discussion. I hope I am never "nice".
But I do acknowledge the negative value of ad hominen arguments. Unhelpful and unskilful. My bad. I will endeavour to allow the irritation to pass before answering in future. Or just not respond.

I am sorry to hear the first part of this... for many of us, nice means so much more. I hope one day you have more pleasant images associated with the word.
Thank you for your acknowledgement in the second part :) be well.


text:
How To Deal With Copy & Paste?
Talking to one of the Islaam mods, he pointed out that this answer is pretty much just copy & paste. I've seen a couple others like this and while they do seem to answer the question, they don't really do much for making this an expert exchange.
Here's their thoughts on the topic:
https://islam.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/953/the-copy-paste-issue-revisited
Especially:

It's important to remember that real questions have answers, not items or ideas or opinions. However, a third-party article is not an answer: It is an item.
An item can be immensely useful to an answer — many of the best answers on this site are full of them — but it is not an answer in and of itself. The person who wrote the article, the fatwa, whatever, was not writing it in response to this question. Things change, and while it may well be that the facts presented or the conclusion drawn would apply just as well to the current situation, that needs to be established by the poster.

Now, maybe we won't have a plagiarism problem, but we're bound to have a copy & paste issue. What should we do in cases like this? I've removed some of the excess quotage from the answer above, but it's still just a copy/paste job.

Well being somewhat new to these kind of things.. what exactly is an "expert exchange"... if we were to really use the term expert in answering, then only very few people such as certified monastics, teachers, and scholars could or should really "answer" any questions here without deferring to scholarly and/or canonical sources.
I suppose it could be suggested that a person add more personal text and explanation to ground the sources that are copy/pasted?

Yes, that would be great.

That it was a copy-paste job was my first reaction to seeing that answer, and I considered it lower in quality than it could have been as a result (not even considering the plagiarism aspect).
Completely off the cuff thought is that an answer that quotes other text should have an original:quoted ratio of at least 1:1, and ideally at least 2:1. The answer you linked to has a ratio of barely over 1:10.

so what should we do? maybe a comment is the best place to start...

Yep. I was about to do it (to save you :-) ) but you beat me to it.

Where were you during moderator elections? ;)

Skillfully hiding under a table.

I'm glad we have reached the other extremum of the question of original answers vs. quotes. This helps define a good answer as "an interpretation of a subject, based on respondent's experience, factual evidence, and opinions of authoritative sources, targeted at expanding questioner's vision of Dharma and illuminating its application to everyday human existence".


text:
How should we deal with questions about cultural practices of Buddhists that don't actually conform to the teachings of Buddhism?
Prompted by this question:
What is the reason for attributing Lord Buddha's statues to days the of week?
I understand in this instance, the usage of the statues of the Buddha himself makes it seem that this has something to do with Buddhism, but it really doesn't - it's simply a use of the Buddha image by Thai people to exemplify supposed qualities of people born on specific days of the week; nothing to do with Buddhism as it is taught in Thailand. E.g., a person born on the day of the Buddha holding the alms bowl is said to be blessed with affluence. Obviously, the person asking the question may not be aware that this is not actually a Buddhist practice, but how should we deal with such questions?
For example, if a monastery runs a public food court; should we allow questions about the running of the food court? Or a beauty pageant? What about if they teach traditional Thai massage? Or parade a Buddha image around the city to bring rain?
Basically, what should we do with questions that don't have a Buddhist answer? If the correct answer to a question lies outside of Buddhism, is the question off topic even if it is an accepted practice of certain Buddhists?

Having answered the question, I must respectfully disagree.  That is your reading of the significance of these objects.
At the root they are Buddha images, scenes in the life of Gotama Buddha and part of a lineage of iconography which has assisted both monks and laypeople in their spiritual practice for centuries.  As a layperson visiting a temple, I will pay respect to each one in turn without really thinking about which day is mine and which might grant me luck or reflect some aspect of my personality.
You might want to post an answer explaining your view – I would like to hear it!  But I don’t think the question should be closed.

Your interpretation is fine and good, but as a Thai Buddhist monk, I can tell you, it's not just my 'reading' of their significance; paying respect to the Buddha is not the reason for lining the Buddha images up and putting money bowls in front of them. Anyway, this question is more about what to do in general with questions that are agreed to be non-Buddhist practices conducted in/by Buddhist institutions.

Perhaps they are "money bowls".  I have in mind Wat Rakhang in Thonburi, where you donate a few baht for a bottle of oil and pour it on the lamps.  There are other ways to donate money, for instance by paying for a roof tile.  It's all just merit-making through dana, it seems to me.

Right, but the question was about the correlation between days of the week and Buddha images; the correlation is based on Thai folk astrology, not Buddhism.

@yuttadhammo Could it be that you belong to the Thammayut nikai, and the temples where bytebuster and myself have seen the days-of-the-week Buddhas are Mahanikai?  If so, the varying positions on this would illustrate neatly the difference between these, the two major schools of Thai Buddhism.

no, I'm Mahanikaya, which is why I'm pretty confident having heard the meaning behind them many times. Why does it seem so hard to believe it's based on astrology? Have you never seen the shakey-sticks with the horoscope slips of paper? Or the coin-slot electric ones? It all comes from the same place; should we consider fortune-telling questions on-topic?

I think that answers to such questions might be quite useful and beneficial. The general goal of any SE site is to generate traffic such that 90% of it comes from search engines. If many people seek advice whether some practices are strictly Buddhist, expert answers found here might state it clearly, with relevant evidence, that this is not the case. The community, however, would have to make sure that the answers are polite and they don't criticize or diminish other traditions or customs.
I can think of lots of new-agey movements that draw inspiration from Buddhism among others. They take some catchy Buddhist phrases out of context and mix them with other systems. Sadly, many people confuse those with pure Buddha's teachings. It would be nice to decide whether the community here wants to tackle this problem or rather stick to purely Buddhism-related questions.

That makes sense to me; when the question deals with some practice that modern day Buddhists have taken up, answers that explain it not to be Buddhism would be important. I just wonder whether questions like "what is the meaning behind x" are on-topic if the correct answer has nothing to do with Buddhism. I guess so, since it deals with something that is generally thought to be Buddhist.

It looks like the question that prompted this has an answer, and seems to be at least borderline in scope.
Jumping to the more off topic topics, like food courts and pageants, most questions on these topics would be out of scope, so just vote to close as out of scope, put your rational in a comment under the question, and let the process work.
Occasionally the comments under the question will begin to turn into a conversation that should either be taken to chat, or start a meta discussion, and link to it in the comments.

Firstly, a good stackexchange site doesn't deal in primarily opinion based questions intended to be discussion starters. So downvoting and closing questions would deal with some of those mentioned  (the massage one is just to provoke some indignation).  The food court hypothetical also would be a closable question because it's just to arose indignation that monestaries would be so crass as to fund their activities the same way we do (by working in a mall food court).
The rain question is actually of interest historically. Buddhist monks had to get sponsors. The sponsors often cared more about practical magic (rain and the defeat of their enemies) more than fixing samsara. So we get historical accounts of Buddhist monks summoning rain. I wish I could find the story about a monk who summoned the rain by sitting on a pile of wood and starting a fire under it. The plan was the rain would come and extinguish the fire he was sitting on. (Chinese story)
Buddhism, broadly defined, is all the practices that self identifying Buddhist consider to Buddhist practices (or customs, etc). It is very syncretic. People have lost track of where the various practices have come from. So even if we wanted to include a rule that kept people on topic by keeping out, say, astronomy, Hinduism and Bon, it would be unfair to expect people to research where a tradition came from before they decide if it is Buddhist enough.

I think that the criteria we should consider are these: (1) Do many Buddhists perform the practice in question? (2) Do most non-Buddhists not perform the practice in question? Any question about a practice that meets (1) and (2) should be on-topic. It is possible that some practices that fail (1) and/or (2); i.e. these are sufficient but not necessary conditions.
For example, let's consider the statues example. Is it the case that (1) many Buddhists attribute statues of the Buddha to days of the week and (2) most non-Buddhists do not attribute statues of the Buddha to days of the week? If so, I think this question should be on-topic.
On the other hand, consider beauty pageants. Is it the case that (1) many Buddhists / Buddhist temples run beauty pageants and (2) most non-Buddhists do not run beauty pageants? I don't know if this case passes test (1) (though I'm guessing it doesn't), but it definitely doesn't pass test (2), so this would be off-topic.
Likewise, traditional Thai massage - this may or may not pass test (1), but it definitely doesn't pass test (2).
And the parading-a-statue example - this may pass test (1) (if this is just a thing that one group of Buddhists does somewhere, probably not, but if, say, a large community of Buddhists does, then probably yes), and it definitely passes test (2). So, contingent on passing test (1), this would be on-topic.

What I'm basically trying to get at with these two tests is the following idea: if there is a strong correlation between being a Buddhist and performing a particular practice, then the practice is likely to have something to do with Buddhism (on a practical level if not a doctrinal level), and hence should probably be on-topic.

Your criteria doesn't leave room for the idea that many Buddhists might exclusively be practicing something that goes against the teachings of Buddhism; in the week/statutes case, it has more to do with being Thai than being Buddhist; Theravada Buddhists in Sri Lanka don't do this, and Buddhists in Burma have their own Burmese ritualistic practices; Bon rituals in Tibet may only performed by Buddhists, but there must be some that aren't considered Buddhist, but Bon.

Thinking about it more, the statues don't pass criteria two; the idea that people born on certain days of the week bear certain characteristics is common to many cultures: "Monday's Child is fair of face,", etc. The fact that they are using Buddha images to represent these characteristics doesn't make it special to my thinking.

I'm not sure that there is an association between each day and a personal characteristic.  People born on Tuesdays (the reclining Buddha) are lazy?  Again, each statue is connected to a miraculous event in the Buddha's lifetime.  Knowledgable Buddhists are more likely to make this association.

@yuttadhammo Re: the statues and criterion (2) - sure, the broad idea of an association between days of the week and characteristics of children is present in many cultures, but the same is true of many other things that Buddhists believe in, e.g. reincarnation. The important thing is whether or not the details of the belief are strongly associated with Buddhism.

@yuttadhammo Re: your first comment - this is something I have to think about more. Nonetheless, for the time being, my opinion is that we should accept questions about local varieties of Buddhism, even if those varieties do things that "[go] against the teachings of Buddhism". If the statues thing is only done by Thai Buddhists, I think it should be on-topic; if it is done by all Thai people (Buddhist or not), then it should probably be off-topic.

In general, I'm a bit of the view that we really don't want to be in the business of defining what is and is not a Buddhist practice vs. a "cultural practice" when we get close to the line dividing them. Beauty pageants are pretty clearly removed from what constitutes a Buddhist religious practice for our purposes here, but statues of the Gautama Buddha being used in such a way isn't cleanly separate. Especially if we can describe it as a "Thai Buddhist practice."

I think if practice is traditional (in Buddhist region, so it counted as Buddhist practice, at least by natives) or performed by Buddhist monks, then it should be accepted. No matter if it seems "doesn't actually conform to the teachings of Buddhism" from your point of view. You may state your opinion in the answer. But to just discard is sectarian and revisionist attitude.

I think we should accept cultural and artistic aspects of Buddhism as this is the only forum these can be brought up. Also the culture and art is influenced by Buddhism so there is some relevance.

There is a difference between going against the dharma and being a local cultural practice, of which the Buddha statue example is the latter. I do not think Buddhism SE should only answer questions that have a "universal" scope. Buddhism is very diverse in teachings and practice, and that should be acknowleged and respected.


text:
How should we promote this site on our personal weblogs?
I know that Area 51 has ads for promoting proposals, e.g.:
Stack Exchange Q&A site proposal: Buddhism http://area51.stackexchange.com/ads/proposal/45110.png

but I don't see anywhere that they offer ads for the betas themselves. Should we create one, or is there a standard, accepted way for displaying such a link on your site? Or should we just use the Area 51 ad?
Edit: another tool that SE offers, maybe not terribly appropriate for self-effacing Buddhists, is flair, e.g.:

which can be placed on one's website or weblog.

SE indeed does not create any extra ads for beta sites. I'm sure there are some people here that are good with graphics that can whip up something that looks nice, though.

Here's a dynamic image as an example of what can be easily accomplished with PHP; the number of days on this image will be created dynamically, based on the date:

I've not quite got an exact time when our beta started, so it's still a little off.

Per Area 51 (hover the thing below "private beta start"), the site launched at 19:00 UTC on June 17, 2014.