text:
Overt Sectarian Affiliations
In looking at answers to some questions I am frequently seeing a overt but unacknowledged sectarian affiliation. For example in the question Desire without attachment, some of the answers are purely Theravādin and given in a definitive tone, as though there could be no other answer. But this is seldom true. On very many points, not least the question of desire and attachment, a Mahāyānist would certainly answer differently. A Tantrika would have a different view again.
I wonder if we need to get people to state their sectarian affiliations in answers? On Reddit people have little tags beside their names which are typically used to indicate sectarian affiliation.
The overwhelming majority of answers here show a strong bias towards a Theravāda affiliation. Theravāda orthodoxy and Theravāda texts are cited as definitively authoritative, but without any explicit acknowledgement that this is the case. An answer about "Buddhism" from a purely sectarian point of view is actually misleading.
Is there any plan to address the question of bias in the answers?

We have had a related discussion here but I think it is worth revisiting. I would imagine that people aren't even aware of their own bias. They may think the answer is valid for all Buddhist schools when it isn't. I know I have difficulty with this

It might be better to suggest putting the onus on the asker; if you want an answer from a specific school, then you should really state it. In fact, we should probably discourage broad questions like "what does Buddhism say about X", since it should be pretty obvious that "Buddhism" as a theoretical "whole", like any other major religion, says lots of conflicting things about pretty much every X.
On the other hand, in cases where the OP doesn't specify a tradition, there should probably be a certain expectation of reluctance to giving in depth answers specific to one tradition or another, since doing so will inevitably lead to opposing answers from other traditions, confusion, and potential argumentation.
Does the site really benefit from having multiple conflicting answers from each tradition, with "best" answers based on percentage of members following a specific tradition, or the OP's personal bent? I would argue that it doesn't.
So in cases where no tradition is given, I would suggest either comments requesting specification/pointing out the naivete of asking for a "Buddhist" stance or answers that are general enough to cover all forms of Buddhism.
What we probably shouldn't expect are lengthy posts trying to give multiple answers from each of the major Buddhist traditions. That would seem to set an unreasonably high bar for answers.
Nor should we expect sectarian answers to non-sectarian questions, even with "from the point of view of tradition X". I know I am guilty of offering such answers as well, but it doesn't seem like the best solution, especially in cases where it is clear that not all Buddhists will agree.
I wonder how the other religious sites have dealt with this question?

I wonder how the other religious sites have dealt with this question? I'm not familiar with the Christianity site, for example: but if I've understood their FAQ correctly, they don't want answers based on personal opinion, and don't want any 'pastoral care' questions; furthermore it seems to be not for studying Christianity (as a whole, questions about which would require too broad an answer) nor the opinions of individuals, but for studying specific theologies of specific sects.

And I am not familiar with Judaic sectarianism (assuming there is such a thing): but so far as I can tell, the Judaism site started as and expects to continue to be orthodox and conservative (and expert).

The Islam site warns against sectarian intolerance: Why Sectarianism is Ruining Your Site. And they have many (non-FAQ) meta-topics about 'sect'. And this (low-voted but undisputed) topic says that if a sect isn't specified in the question (which it needn't be) then answers from any sect are permitted.

Questions like "what does Buddhism say about X" are very likely coming from those who are truly naive about Buddhism and just beginning to learn about it. An "experienced" Buddhist would probably ask a more refined question. We may run the risk of driving away newcomers by asking them to identify which sect they want to hear from as they'd be unlikely to know much about sects. I always thought the "from the point of view of tradition X" in an answer was a pretty workable solution all around to identify that the answer may not be universal.

@Robin111 That makes sense, I suppose. It just makes us less able to fit with the SE model of "one right answer", which may not be a bad thing.

We may be a bit different from the SE sites that deal with programming and technical topics in that we do get true beginners and outsiders. Maybe the technical sites do as well; but it's a little harder to picture. :)

@Robin111 Other sites do get true beginners but they're required to ask very specific problems (e.g. if they ask a question about a programming language then they need to specify which language they're asking about, etc.). Explicitly in contrast to other sites our policy has been to permit almost any question. I find it difficult to even ask about sects I don't know much about, and so I think it's advantageous that people volunteer answers from several sects to questions which don't ask about a single sect.

I've often wondered if the StackExchange format of "objective" answers is suitable for religions or humanities at all? On the Hinduism.SE site all questions which can have more than one correct answer are deleted as being opinion based, which I felt restricted the usefulness of the site greatly.

Can I put a suggestion in which might be a bit controversial.
If there is an answer that is from a particularly sectarian viewpoint that is unacknowledged then someone that spots it could edit the answer and put a line at the bottom e.g.

Please note this answer is from a XXXXXXX viewpoint which may not
  neccessarily apply to other Buddhist schools or traditions.

and then leave a comment on the answer saying

I have taken the liberty of identifying the tradition or school of
  Buddhism that this answer is from. Please feel free to edit or perhaps
  post on meta if this is inappropriate. This is in line with site
  policy [link to a policy question on meta - maybe this one]

If this is a standard way of doing things then it would be less inflammatory then people just editing and commenting as they see fit.
Just a thought.

I think it is worth considering. But it seems that at least some people do not see themselves as having a sectarian pov. To some it's "just Buddhism". So one might become embroiled in conflicts with them with this approach.

The interesting perspective above from Samurdha Jayasinghe shows how refined viewpoints can be even within a single sect. Also this question Balanced Participation by Multiple Traditions shows the great diversity within Theradava alone. So branding answers in a standard way might be problematic as even a Theravada answer may not speak for all of Theravada.

I suspect the way most of us regulars differentiate is by over time getting to know the perspectives of other people who answer regularly. But this does nothing to help newcomers nor is it workable as the site grows. The profiles are useful, but there is no requirement to fill them in.

@Robin111 perhaps another way is to (somehow) encourage users to put their affiliations in their profiles - maybe with a featured meta question. I had mine in there but I swapped it for a poem I like!!

Since not everyone visits Meta; an additional idea might be to add a comment to an answer when appropriate along the lines of "Thank you for your participation. It's unclear if your answers are written from the PoV of a particular sect. Would you be willing to add a note to your profile describing your perspective? It's optional, but helpful to the community." Something not too pushy but hopefully pointing out how this is helpful. Hmm....I suppose I should go fill out my own profile! :)

@Robin111 I think encouraging people to fill out their profile would be good - maybe we could discuss on a separate meta thread?

@Robin111 Sankha's comment was, "Mostly historians do that". I don't even see a benefit in going out of our way to label specific sects ... there is alleged to be "the problem of bias" but I don't understand what that problem is and for who ... people volunteer information but I don't feel good about 'encouraging' people to self-identify their sect (also age, education, gender, relationship status, nationality, wealth ... any of which might be sources of bias too?). It could be coercive (to 'encourage') and a barrier (to have as a price of admission), and just advertise further sectarianism.

@ChrisW, the whole comment was '@Lanka Theravada Buddhists don't really recognize other schools. Mostly historians do that. So it's just Buddhism for us." I think this is problematic for a site which embraces all traditions. As a practical matter, the teachings of the various sects are not universal. Different teachings do exist.

Look at this answer: "I see a giant person peering into a box with a magnifying glass" ... fair enough that it might help the "giant" if people would put their own exhibit labels on themselves ... maybe labels would be a source of "bias" too. though? And Christianity.SE is explicitly to study the theologies of specific/explicit sects, I don't suppose the purpose of this site is to study and contrast sectarian beliefs.

@ChrisW, no it's surely not the purpose of the site to study and contrast sectarian beliefs. But "the giant" in your analogy is the newcomer to Buddhism who doesn't know that the unidentified answer is not a "universal" answer for all of Buddhism. We do have different teachings. There need be no animosity about that. It's simple fact. And I'm sure we all wish our site to be helpful to those with little experience in Buddhism who come here for answers. What's the alternative?

@ChrisW, my suggestion is to encourage people to fill out their own profiles so they can identify themselves rather than be "branded" with a standard comment or edit from someone else as suggested in this answer. I'm not sure what you mean about adding "age, education, gender, relationship status, nationality, wealth". That wasn't suggested. The only helpful information would be (potentially) from what Buddhist perspective you answer, if anything in particular.

@Robin111 You've now identified someone for whom it is "the problem", i.e. the victim of the problem is "the newcomer" (and isn't for example "the academic", who knows already). What's the alternative? Just let people continue to answer questions as they see fit. If the newcomer then asks "which sect is that?" or "why is one of you saying the dhamma is like a huge leaf while the other is saying it's like a tree trunk?" then explain that. I'm pessimistic about making systemic changes which affect everyone because I'm ok with things the way they are and don't want to upset people's status quo.

@ChrisW, I understand your concern. But the site is growing and continuing on in the cozy manner where regulars just sort of know others perspectives from reading their answers over time, becomes somewhat less workable with larger numbers of participants. By encouraging, (not requiring), people to tell us a bit about their perspective via their profile, you haven't made a systemic change. You've given a user a quick and easy method of clicking into a profile to get more information; rather than leaving a comment and waiting for a reply. But I agree that systemic changes are unnecessary.

Speaking for myself, I have no sectarian affiliation.
Sometimes I am likely to give a Theravadin answer, some other times a Zen answer, sometimes a humanist, or Hindu or Christian or scientific answer, or a mixture of several of them, whatever seems apt. I may not even give the same answer always to the same question. Truth doesn't break into neat chunks, if it did, it would be dead, a living truth evolves. This is why there are so many schools of buddhist thought over the ages.
I can only avoid stating that an answer is incontrovertible and leave the door of doubt open. Which I've always done. It's a good practice of non-attachment to views if one takes a Zen view on it. Maybe this can be the explicitly stated terms of this website. All views are fallible, including this one.
A shadow is as true a representation of a thing as a photograph or xray of it. They are each very different in what they depict though they point to the same, yet none are false. So, truth to me has many versions, yet they can all be true.
I don't think there are any perfectly objective truths in this world, they are all subjective. Even science which favours definitive & objective proof only operates objectively within constraints of knowledge, tools and assumptions. Without constraints, including but not limited to quantum sciences, the "scientific truth" loses its objectivity.
As the Zen saying goes, it is neither the bamboo, nor the wind, it is our mind that moves.

I am frequently seeing a overt but unacknowledged sectarian affiliation.
I think people will willingly acknowledge it, but don't make a habit of explicitly saying so all the time.
Is there any plan to address the question of bias in the answers?
There's currently no such plan (not because a plan would be bad, but there isn't one).
The normal way to create a plan might be to use this meta-site:

To highlight a perceived problem, and ask for suggested solutions
To propose a solution, and ask people to discuss it and/or vote on it

I wonder if we need to get people to state their sectarian affiliations in answers?
That might be wordy (if everyone has a 'standard disclaimer' in their every answer) and more to police.
If you are able to answer from the POV of more than one sect, then that's welcome; so to say that sects differ on some subject, your answer could say e.g.,

"From a Theravādin perspective, X, but from a Mahāyānist perspective, Y."

We could vote on having a site policy which says whether people are allowed/expected to edit other people's answer to add a sect: e.g. vote on whether you can edit other people's answers to add, "From a Theravādin perspective," to the beginning of any answer which you think deserves it.
When you say, "we need to", why is that? Is it to help a (perhaps vanishingly small) subset of readers: i.e. readers who know that there are sects, and who know the names of sects, and who care about which answer can be associated with which sect, but who aren't able to recognize for themselves which sect each answer could be categorized as?
On Reddit people have little tags beside their names which are typically used to indicate sectarian affiliation.
IMO we cannot change the web site's functionality. We can only change how we use the web site.
The normal place to put a sectarian affiliation would be in your user profile. You have more-or-less done so already. So have many other users. Other users who haven't are always welcome to (but not required to).
If you're knowledgeable, as you are, then you may recognize a sect/source of an answer. If you're a long-term user of the site you'll also recognize other users and remember some of their previous answers (so when they post a new answer you can try to pigeon-hole it by author, if you want to).
An answer about "Buddhism" from a purely sectarian point of view is actually misleading.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I find it reminiscent of the blind men and the elephant. If I can't see the whole of the Buddhist elephant all at once, I'm grateful to be introduced to different aspects of it.
Perhaps I'm wrong but rather than "actually misleading" I hope that it's "actually better than nothing".

I'd like to point this sequence of comments as an example:

Could you mention that your answer is based in Theravada Buddhism? Thank you. –  Lanka
@Lanka all my answers are :) –  Sankha Kulathantille
@Sankha. I know:) Just the OP might not know and Andrei wrote in beginning of his post that it was from the Mahayana perspective. So to make it easier for new users we could write what perspective we are based in. Just my opinion. –  Lanka
@Lanka Theravada Buddhists don't really recognize other schools. Mostly historians do that. So it's just Buddhism for us. –  Sankha Kulathantille
And we do recognize other schools, it's all Buddhism for us :) –  Andrei Volkov

FWIW one of the usual suggestions is to write another answer yourself. For example if you see a question with a 'sectarian' answer you could add a new answer which begins,

The answer from @X is an orthodox Theravādin perspective; but I would add that, from a Mahāyānist perspective, etc.

... some of the answers are purely Theravādin and given in a definitive tone, as though there could be no other answer. But this is seldom true.
I imagine that for some people, English is a second language. In any case I'm grateful that so many people write so well and I'm averse to criticizing their tone.
I actually see all answers as personal, fallible (which is one reason why the site supports voting), and a (incomplete) summary.

I take you points. On the last one however most of the voters are also have a Theravādin orientation, so voting is not the answer to the problem here.

Thank you. I agree, that voting is no solution e.g. to a problem of wanting to advertise that a non-Theravādin or a multi-sect answer is equally (or more) popular or 'valid'. But voting is a bit of a solution to the problem of answers being fallible: for example, answers that people think have negative value are downvoted, and net-negative answers (not that there are many of those to begin with) often end up deleted. I guess my personal interest in votes is less "which answer (singular) is the most popular?" and more "which answers (plural) are reliable (i.e. have received any endorsement)?"

As I say, I think the people voting and answering questions (and in fact asking questions) are the same people on the whole. Thus the problem of bias is not solved by having those people vote on answers.

Actually I'm sure I observer the opposite - people tend to vote for those answers which confirm their existing beliefs, or which seem to come from a representative of their preferred sectarian view.

Just another example of bias in voting. I note that this morning Yuttadhammo has posted a question asking people to write a summary of what Buddhism is, in the most general sense. He admits he's asking us to "do his homework". There are no answers as yet, but the question itself has 5 upvotes in just 6 hours. I'd take a lot of convincing that this was voting on merit.

@JayaravaAttwood The top-voted questions are all (by definition) popular and not imo sectarian. I think a clearer example of "bias" is voting on the answers to this question -- e.g. I won't upvote them, ... not exactly because they don't "confirm my beliefs" or "represent my preferred sectarian view" ... but because I don't know that subject therefore I cannot "upvote to demonstrate my confirmation/agreement that this answer is correct".

This answer doesn't address my concerns.

@JayaravaAttwood And a comment like this one proves that a person will tolerate or upvote even a question from an outsider view. And for example my most upvoted answer somewhat contradicts a more orthodox answer. I think you're right that people answer according to their personal beliefs, but as Thiago said I think that people also vote on "merit".

(i.e. you're presumably both right: you can see one voting pattern and see its opposite).

I am not sure how to address this but mentioning the traditions becomes very difficult to do when you are sourcing the knowledge from many traditions and sub traditions. Say in the same sentence you are using arguments from tradition X and Y and the sentence that follows is from tradition Z intermingled with ideas from sub tradition S. This might even become more problematic when you are suing argument from tradition X and augmenting it to another context to support an argument from tradition Y when in many major points both tradition X and Y contradict. I feel in this case it is best left to the reader to see if the reasoning is logical to them than mentioning the traditions where both tradition may not accept this argument if you say this half is from X and that half is from Y. Also if you say I am practicing as from tradition X then even some times you use certain facts to justify X but from Y, or using arguments from Y and Z may not be possible if these are not what strictly what X says about them.
Say if you are strictly limited to our arguments from tradition X then it might be OK to say this is from tradition X but if not it might be misrepresenting X if this is not the case. If you sourcing from many places this becomes even more problematic for someone to say I pratice the method of tradition X but most of the logic I use in answering question is from tradition Y, Z, ... (perhaps tradition X is silent about certain topics and maybe focused in certain areas.) Or simply when you say I am from tradition X there is a lot you might have to exclude to be inline and becomes a burden if you are getting your knowledge from multiple sources to mention. Also if you draw much on balance more knowledge from one tradition and you hold out to be from this tradition but you use knowledge from multiple other traditions then everyone will start saying this is not from their tradition. Holding out to be from one tradition unless you are limited to it may create more problems than it solves in this cases. Providing references can sometimes avert this partially when providing references is possible. Also some times you may not be in 100% agreement with the references as it generally reflects or has an element of view of the writer which does not mean you cannot deviate in your logical thinking and understanding.
Also comes the case where you know fact X but not sure which tradition the fact X fits in with.
Also many organised meditation movements or meditation centres have recognised or appointed Kammatthanacariyas (meditation masters) and if you are not one of them if might be wrong to say you represent a particular tradition or viewpoint or imply to make a assertion about a tradition.
Also 90% of the Dhamma you learn cannot be referenced. Say in an urban setting in a country like Sri Lanka (perhaps true for other Buddhist countries also) ...
During the Katina period there is at least 1 Dhamma talk at a temple. There are some temples which have about 3 or in some cases more. Now there are about 3 temples around you. (In my case there are about 7 at walking distance but many more if you were to drive out of which I regularly visit only about 3) You end up listening to 2 or 3 Dhamma talks a week. Many not recorded or transcribed.
Also say there in some the temples there is at least 1 meditation sitting per week. There will be some discussion (before or afterwards) before you get exposed to on average 6 talks from 2 or perhaps more traditions per month which are not in record.
The comes the alms giving (which also has a dhamma talk) and organising of Dhamma talks (night before the alms giving) at friends and families places.
Also the Poya day programs. This will have multiple talks.
Also in many cases you might not know from what tradition the speaker is from. Also some facts you know you do not know definitively which tradition they fit in with.
Time you spend reading about Dhamma and content you get is definitely much less than these sources which are not referenceable. But if you do have readily accessible sources it makes sense to add them.

Hey if someone does not believe that they are indeed believing in the correct path wouldn't it be crazy to say anything that involves that certain belief?
The thing you need to understand is in Buddhism people believe what they believe at the best they can. And different traditions may not get along when it comes to teachings, For example Theravada believes in the existence of "Arahants" and Mahayana does not. But people here get along pretty well and they respect others and their beliefs and still express their own version so that anyone out there can read and learn.
Here's a good example - A chat between a Theravada Buddhist and a Mahayana Buddhist
http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/32475/discussion-between-tenzin-dorje-and-sankha-kulathantille
If you are not Theravada and you feel bad about strong Theravada presence on this site you should get your friends here and spread more of your point of view, there's no point for complaining. I mean we do it.
And please stop putting Labels on things,it only creates boundaries. If you do not have enough presence in this site to say your side of it, Do something about it.
And this should not go without saying that it is not up to you to define how people express their loyalty to their school of Buddhism. Just like the one who writes the one who reads has a brain too, That's why there are comments and votes in this site.

I think Jayarava was worried that an answer which doesn't state a specific sectarian affiliation can be misleading. Just for example, answers like the following could be misleading: "Most Buddhists live in Sri Lanka"; or, "The most popular Buddhist Sutra is the Lotus Sutra, it contains the complete teaching of the Buddha"; or, "There are no Buddhist nuns". In those examples it would be more accurate/informative if answers included their affiliation. In fact in this answer, I too suggested that you could "carefully limit your answer".

By the way, Suminda might be hoping that you could answer this question.

@ChrisW , I see that you have a good point but it is a bit hard for me to understand can you explain a bit more?

I am answering that question right now,thank you for pointing out @ChrisW

We have to work within the limitations of the stack exchange engine, which was built for software development questions and then later applied to a bewildering variety of topics from cooking to, well, Buddhism.
The tools we have:

Tagging. But we can only tag questions.
Comments on answers. 'This appears to be an answer from the orthodox SGI viewpoint.' This is actually one of the appropriate uses of comments, to improve an answer.
Editing answers. This is most defensible for cleaning up spelling, grammar and so on. If an answer was edited to clarify what orthodox tradition it expanding on, I can't see how that would be controversial, assuming it was written in a respectful tone, e.g. "In orthodox Chinese Buddhism as taught by master so and so, ..."
Editing wiki answers. When the author marked their answer as a wiki, it is explicitly inviting people to edit and improve as a collaborative document.

And finally, we can flap our tongues on meta and try to get people to update their profile pages with sectarian affiliations and to mark their answers and questions with what sectarian viewpoint they are speaking from in cases where it adds to the question or reduces the chance of another of these futile discussions that go something like-- "Well, your question is entirely invalid because it concerns themes and topics that are unimportant in my sect"
And another point-- in Buddhism, if you have five sects, you have potentially five different correct answers (relative to the orthodox authorities in each sect!). But the engine is only capable of letting a user mark one answer as "correct". For the better written questions, where the user is asking for an answer from a particular orthodoxy, this is not a problem. But a good percent of our questions come from people not even aware that there is sectarianism in Buddhism (and a certain percent that pretend it doesn't exist or contemptuously dismiss the other sects and Buddhist heterodoxy and charlatanism). SE doesn't have a way to deal with an answer having a surfuit of correct answers (but each only correct in their own orthodox context)

I added this to my Bio:
Also a practitioner of Samatha and Vipassana a form of Buddhist meditation mainly from the Pāli Canon (Theravāda). Also a non sectarian practitioner of Dhamma largely influenced by meditation as taught by S.N.Goenka and writings of Piya Tan, moderately influenced by Ven. Bhante Vimalaramsi and Thanissaro Bhikkhu, mildly influenced by Ven. Mun Bhuridatta, Ajahn Maha Bua, Ajahn Chah, (Thai Forest Traditions) Venerable Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw, Mogok Sayadaw, Ven. Sujiva, Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera, etc.
Also like to point out that many organised meditation movements or meditation centres have recognised or appointed Kammatthanacariyas (meditation masters) and if you are not one of them if might be wrong to say you represent a particular tradition or viewpoint or imply to make a assertion about a tradition.


text:
What is a "divisive" Question?
Questions from Krishraj Rao continue to polarise the Stack Exchange community and to be systematically voted down and put on hold for reasons that are not clear to me. My guess is that there is institutional bias and prejudice at work here.
This question has been edited to be more appealing to the members of the community, but is still described as "divisive", though comments with negative comments have been left in place.
Why is this question divisive?
What is it about a question being "divisive" which is a bad thing?
@CrabBucket says "I do think it could be rephrased though to make it less contenious. Would you be willing to try to do that to stop it provoking negative reactions or drawing negative answers and comments? "
What is wrong with contentious questions?

Fair point thanks for asking. I'm pleased that someone is asking this and about this user who is as you say contentious.

I don't think @KrishnarajRao is contentious at all and I do not say it. I say the community is divided between a majority who want to silence him and a minority who answer his questions and get very polite and thankful notes in response.

I think that something like my answer to What are the aspects of Buddhism and it's scriptures that a Buddhist might not like to comment on? could have been posted as an answer to this question, so you might like to read that answer too.

I agree with Thiago that the problem with Krishnaraj's questions is that in general, many of them contain condescending insinuations like asking "apart from unquestioned faith in infallible ancient texts, what other basis do you have for believing in X?"

This and other Buddhist sites, be they in the Q&A format or discussion format, really don't have a good way to deal with people who are borderline hostile to Buddhism as a project-- this goes for both the Christians who want you to drop this religion and pick up theirs, and for areligious atheists that think all religions are parodies of the worst of what religion has to offer.
The later group-- people trying to make religion compatible with modern life, may have legit questions. How do we salvage the good parts of Buddhism once we realize that we just can't muster the faith to believe the impossible?  But these people's questions look a lot alike the people who have already made up their mind that religion and Buddhism is all garbage.
This is even true for some critical academics like Glenn Wallis-- He's a professor at a Buddhist University, translated Pali texts, but with his Non-Buddhism project, somedays I can't tell if he wants to reform Buddhism and make it compatible with modern world views or if he just wants to burn it to the ground and replace it with French philosophy and poetry.
If the subtext of a hypothetical problematic question is "You guys are a bunch of infantile, superstitious, right wing, reactionary, nit wits, am I right or am I right?" Then we can't help them with that question. It is the job of an Atheist/Anti-Religion Stack Exchange to win converts to that world view.
If the question is, "I am literate, have a college degree and am incapable of belief in the hells, the afterlife, or belief in the ability of Buddhas to literally fly by meditation alone...yet my life is chronic bouts of depression and suffering, how do I follow the Buddhist project, can the suffering end?"  Well, that is a question we should be able to answer-- if the traditionalists want to come up with a good argument for faith, let them. If the secular Buddhist can explain what the "good parts" of Buddhism are, then that is so much the better.

This is about the best description of our current site 'turmoil' I've read. The problem is as you say - people who are borderline hostile to the Buddhism project - or people who might be. It's just hard to tell the difference sometimes between genuine inquiry and hostility. Well I'm finding it difficult right now

This is useful. Thank you for sharing the broader perspective you've gained through participation in multiple sites Matthew. :)

@CrabBucket, this comment (from question linked above) gives some insight into motivation. "I owe you an explanation for my general line of questioning - not only on this forum, but generally in life, I believe that very real harm is done to mankind as a whole (and the common man in particular) when superstition & dogma flourish under cover of religion, commerce, healing, etc. And I firmly hold that by lancing superstitions and by promoting rational thought, one renders a very real service to society. By doing this, one defends the common man who cannot defend himself. –  Krishnaraj Rao"

I edited the question and for the record, I don't want to silence any user on asking questions. Our biggest challenge here on Buddhism.SE has been to receive enough questions. It's our only underscored area on Area 51. (http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/45110?phase=beta) So more questions are good! In fact, we at one time were only receiving on average 2 questions per day, so this 5.6 per day is significant improvement and any user who contributes  good questions helps us to meet the criteria needed to graduate to a full site.
Yesterday I edited 3 of Krishnaraj Rao's questions; two which had been closed and were subsequently re-opened with the edits and the 3rd which you've linked above. In the question linked above, there was a good question in there but phrases like "Other than unquestioned faith in the infallibility of ancient texts, is there any basis for...." may be interpreted as provocative as it implies a simplistic blind faith. Removing "unquestioned" and "infallible" didn't change the question, from what I can see, but it did remove the words which may be seen as mocking, disdainful, critical, or even trolling.
It's a democratic site. If people feel a question is mocking their tradition, practice, belief, are they going to upvote it? Not likely.
There is nothing wrong with skeptical questions, but a certain level of sensitivity that one is being skeptical of things others hold dear would be appreciated. Krishnaraj Rao has not objected to edits made and I take that as a good sign that we can find a balance here between people who see Buddhism from a scholarly PoV and people who know what they know from the experience of living and practicing Buddhism.
Be well. :)

I'm not sure how SE works, but from what you have said above, doesn't merely wanting to increase the counts of questions here, by encouraging non-quality and unnecessary questions, amount encouraging the other person go astray? In the Ananda Sutta SN 44.10 , the Buddha is seen not answering the question of Vacchagotta, with the intention of not leading him astray. Shouldn't this be the spirit of raising questions and answers on this site and not mere numbers? I feel that ignoring bad questions by leaving them unanswered with Metta for the person asking, may be a good approach.

@KaKo, I should have been more specific. All SE sites want good questions. There are 5 typical reasons for closing a question, (listed under the Vote to Close option), duplicate, too broad, unclear what you are asking, off topic, and primarily opinion based. We as a site have also determined (in another meta question) that we don't want to "seed" questions and try to remake Wikipedia. So my reference to more questions should have been more specific to say more good questions. Thanks for pointing that out. :)

@KaKo, an important point is that this is not a Buddhist site; this is not a Sangha. This is a site about Buddhism and intended to inform all, Buddhists and Non Buddhists about Buddhism. Leaving questions unanswered does nothing to inform about Buddhism. So we (I think) try to find a balance.

What is wrong with contentious questions?

I think the definition of Right Speech as per the Eightfold Noble Path may be cleary useful to identify what is right, unharmful and useful speech (or debate) and what is not. An excerpt from the elaboration on Right Speech as given here :-

Five keys to right speech
  "Monks, a statement endowed with five factors is well-spoken, not ill-spoken. It is blameless & unfaulted by knowledgeable people. Which five?
  "It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of good-will."— AN 5.198

I personally think that for an academician or philosopher, debates and contentious issues are bread and butter. They thrive on it for intellectual satisfaction or for the satisfaction that comes from showing superiority by winning a seemingly intelligent argument.
A practitioner of the Buddha's teachings on the other hand sees no point in them, as a debate can just be to build up one's ego, fame or for other worldly gains for which he has no interest. The time available as a human being in this life is too precious for him to be wasted away in such futility. One of the members here has beautifully highlighted what's wrong with futile debates here. I have used the link to his answer here, since his thoughts totally echo mine.
The beauty of Dhamma and the Buddha's teachings is that irrespective of the situation (undesirable in this case due to futile debates) or the kind of experience one is having due to a person or occurrence (unpleasant in this case, since a few are being hurt), one can not only choose to stay unharmed without blaming a particular person or situation for one's unpleasantness, but also on the contrary use the unpleasant and undesirable situation totally to one's own benefit as an opportunity to cut the bonds of aversion and continue sprinting on the Noble Path.
In this spirit, this opportunity (the current unpleasantness in the forum) seems to be the right one for novice practitioners like me to work on the qualities/parmis of Uppekha, Khanti, Karuna and Metta for all stakeholders. And I'm inspired to do this by the tolerance shown by senior members of the forum who have been upholding the spirit of the Buddha's teachings.
The following comment of mine may be unnecessary but I'm too tempted to close with it:- Those touching on unnecessarily sensitive subjects, should really ponder if they would have dared to do so on forums of certain other religions, where there is very little tolerance and democracy. It really is a downside of the humans isn't it that we take democracy and freedom for granted till we are made to realize otherwise.  :-)

My explanation of divisiveness: we appear to have a kind of heightened/orientalized standard of politeness versus westernized/modern traditions of exchanging views. And there are three types of temperaments:
1) Some people's belief-systems being relatively robust, they don't mind people questioning, probing and poking around. Possibly, they actually enjoy the stimulation and challenge, and like to shake things up themselves. Their view is possibly that the Truth (whatever that is) needs no protection, or that it shines brighter with some intellectual friction.
2) But there are others, who are like, "Who gave you the right to come in here and ask uncomfortable questions about our beliefs? Our beliefs are ancient and venerable, and you are off-limits. You are too ignorant to ask questions. Go play in the preta realm. Leave us to discuss in peace."
3) And then there's a third set whose response is protective. They are like, "We personally don't mind your questioning, but hush, speak gently, you are hurting and offending the elders."
So, one question, and three ways of experiencing it. That's divisive.

And the onus is on whom? ;)

@AndreiVolkov Experiential knowledge (which as we know trumps all venerable scriptures) teaches us that the object of experience has the onus for all our experiences. A rose pleases us because it is intrinsically pleasant, and a rotten egg offends us because it is intrinsically offensive. In the same way, the onus for unpleasantness caused by a question is undoubtedly on the person who asked the question, which is intrinsically offensive in its very nature. It is utterly nonsensical to fault the persons who are offended, and cast the onus on them, individually or collectively. Agreed?

@AndreiVolkov - And as for those who are not offended by offensive questions, it must be deduced that they do not sufficiently love right speech and right thinking. It may even be deduced that they are supporters of and apologists for wrong speech and wrong thinking.

Wrong. The onus is on us.

If you're getting push-back it's perhaps not an entirely intellectual reaction: as an example, by analogy this WIkipedia article says, Used as an insult, "your mother..." preys on widespread sentiments of filial piety, making the insult particularly and globally offensive. I don't want to say your questions were nothing-but-offensive however there are cultures (including entire Buddhist countries) where impiety or anti-piety (a.k.a. "offending religious sensibilities") is illegal and perhaps unheard of.

So, yes, hopefully it's less divisive if you do maintain "a kind of heightened/orientalized standard of politeness"

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Who has authority when it comes to texts?
If I found a mistake in a text that you valued very highly and had learned at the feet of a Buddhist master, how would you respond if I said it needed correcting? A real life example is the Vajrasattva Mantra. In my article I  showed that the commonly taught mantra is garbled and can easily be rectified, mainly by realigning word-breaks. I've also discovered a grammatical mistake in Conze's Sanskrit version of the Heart Sutra. I have a third example of a grammatical mistake in a popular text in development that I don't want to announce just yet. But I am interested in how other people respond to these kinds of dilemmas.
Would you:

a. adopt the revised version on the basis that the text was corrupt and has now been corrected?
b. follow what you were taught, even if it is apparently wrong, because tradition is important?
c. some other course of action?

If you chose to adopt a corrected version, how would you raise this with the person who had taught you the text?

I'm posting this as an answer because it's too long for a comment, unfortunately it won't answer your question.
The "Buddhism.SE" site is one site among many within 'the stack exchange network'.

Many things are specific to this site and not shared with other SE sites

The subject (i.e. Buddhism)
The site-specific policies (which we discuss on this meta-site)
The users (many users here are only users on this site and not familiar with other SE sites)

Some of the things on this site are shared with other SE sites

Software (site layout)
High-level policies (e.g. "prefer Q&A to comments" and "foster a community of regular users" and "make the internet a better place")
Governance (e.g. each site has its own community of users, and a meta-site for formulating site-specific policies)

The main site is for asking questions about Buddhism:

Theory
Doctrine
Practice
History
Culture
...

This meta-site is for discussing the main site:

Policies e.g. Moderation policies for Questions
Specific question (e.g. how to improve a specific question which was asked on the main site)

And now to your question:

Your question doesn't quite belong here on meta; because it's not asking a question about the main site. If you wanted to make it a question about the main site you could do that:

Can I criticize texts which other people reference in their answers? If so what guidelines can I follow to avoid causing unwanted social friction here?

Your question doesn't quite belong on the main site either. If you read the second half of the current Moderation policies for Questions, one of the very few types of question which we think we're unable or unwilling to answer are questions which are polls of all the users.
So, for example a question like to following would be off-topic:

Why are you reading this site?

If it's a question which every user can answer, and where every answer is equally valid and there can be no "best answer", then it's probably not a good question for this site (because the SE sites' implementation of voting, for example, is to try to identify a "best answer" to each question).
In general any question with the word "you" or "your" in it is suspect. For example this question was closed as off-topic because it was asking "you" to answer questions about "you".

If you want to ask this question on the main site, can I ask or suggest that you try to reframe it?
For example (and I have to guess because I don't know why you were asking the above question) maybe you could reframe this question as,

I have a problem 'X' related to (the study or culture or practice of) Buddhism. Can you recommend one or more solutions?

OK Sorry. I wasn't aware I was on the meta site. But now it has an "answer" and I cannot delete it.

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


text:
How Can I find my Community Wiki Question?
I was looking forward to the answers..taking notes and everything..
this is my original question:
How to Study the Suttas?
how would i find them on community wiki.I don't know how it works.Is it transferred to a different site? Can somebody locate this question please.
I opened this site: http://community-sitcom.wikia.com/wiki/Community_Wiki
Typed in Search Box: How to Study the Suttas?
I can't find it :-( I get random stuff like Teach me How to Understand Christmas :-(
I don't know what is happening with my question or where it's gone to..
:-( :-( :-(

It's still on OUR community... just search at Buddhism.SE and you'll find it as usual.

You question and all its answers are at (i.e. continue to be found at) the same URL as before i.e. they are at https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/8462/254
When a topic is "converted to community wiki" that only means that a moderator set a bitflag (i.e. a checkbox) on the question, without moving it to another location (the topic continues to be located on the stackexchange site).
It is unrelated to Wikipedia or Wikia.
Some further information about what Stackexchange calls "community wiki" can be found e.g. in this topic: What are “Community Wiki” posts?


text:
Deleted comment
I'm curious as to why my comment in the question:
"Is it wrong to buy a Buddha statue in Thailand from a Buddhist point of view?"
was deleted. I can think of a number of reasons. Maybe it was considered ad hominem (I mentioned I thought people were too hard on the answerer), or perhaps the reflection was nonsense or misleading.
It would help to know what I'm doing wrong here to have some feedback. It would be nice to get feedback rather than things just disappear, but either way, feedback is appreciated.

The answer on which you commented was deleted by the poster of said answer. As a result, all comments to the answer were deleted. That's just how it goes :)

Thank you yuttadhammo . As you say, the way it goes. It is quite hard to go from most of SE, which is quite a boisterous place, straight to here in one click: I worry that I fail to notice the tone sometimes.

np... btw, you don't have to put an @ tag in a comment to a post by the @ person... they get pinged anyway. It's only for if you want to ping others (including other commenters).


text:
Why is this question a duplicate?

What is the purpose of the 6th Precept, eating only before noon?

I know the title is similar to a previous question but this one consists of three inter related questions which were not covered by the original. The answer is much more comprehensive and I do not want it to be lost. I think editing the title would have been better than branding it as a duplicate.

The titles suggest it's an exact duplicate. Would a better title be something like, "Can one vary (alter) the 6th precept, to accommodate one's family?"

@ChrisW yeah that sounds good.  What about, 'Can one alter the 6th precept to accommodate one's family or daily routines?'

Make that edit to the title then, and maybe Andrei would reopen it. In either case the question and upvoted answer won't be auto-deleted (the question's being closed merely prevents any further answers). Also, speaking of edits, the question body starts, "Firstly, what is the purpose of it". A better question might start, "Firstly, I've read What is the purpose of not eating after noon? and [I don't have any questions about that] or [I still have a question about that, which is, XXX]."

Oh, very good teamwork!

Thanks for the edit. I reopened it.

I am still editing it. I think the original is on monks' perspective but this one is on laity's angle. I was trying to incorporate this difference in the question. Would you mind if I do that?

If you can make the question more interesting or clearer then so much the better, especially if you preserve the OP's intent, and don't invalidate (i.e. render irrelevant or obsolete) the existing answer.

Thanks. Edited. Does it look clear now?


text:
Is answering your own question "Best Practice"?
Specifically this question "What is a Sangha? Do you have to be a Buddhist to join a Sangha?"
The Questioner seems to answer himself a few minutes after asking the question. I feel that this could lead to a conflict of interest in the integrity of this site.

It’s OK to Ask and Answer Your Own Questions

Answering your own question is fine, and considered well within "best practices" as far as I know. The problem will more be in the content of the question or the answer. If the question is opinion-based, for example, or overly-broad, then it should be flagged, regardless, of course, of whether the questioner answers it themselves or not.

"Doing that is OK" is the normal SE policy.
But on this site I think that was overridden by the consensus/voting on this answer to the meta-topic titled, "May I share my research, by posting questions on this site and self-answering them?".
Sometimes, it will happen: when you don't know the answer, you post a question, nobody answers, you do the research, now you can answer your own question ... but (to avoid flooding the site with such topics) this shouldn't happen more often than maybe a couple of times per person per year.


text:
Error while trying to sign up for this SE site using Google OpenID
I came to te Buddhism SE site and clicked a vote button as a guest which prompts the user to sign up or log in.
I selected "sign in using Google" as I do on most other SE sites but I received a message from
Google's OpenID system:

400 (BAD REQUEST)
  That’s an error.
OpenID auth request contains an unregistered domain:
  https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/users/authenticate/
Learn more
That’s all we know.

I was able to successfully link my Google OpenID to the site via this Meta site, but this sounds like an issue with the OpenID registration for this SE site (and possibly others.)

Looks like we forgot to update that spot when we switched over to Google's new sign-in method. (The old one doesn't work anymore for any new domains and we keep creating new domains when we launch a new site.) I'm on it.

I have a fix ready locally, but it needs a bit more testing. (Touching login-related code is fun!) Should be able to deploy tomorrow, but in the meantime, use the sign up/login links in the topbar as a workaround.

Thanks for catching this!
A fix will be rolling out later today. Keep an eye out for revision 2014.7.8.1692, and please report any other login issues you see.

Probably best to raise in Meta.SE.

No need. We check all site metas.

Awesome, good to know.


text:
Remove obsolete comments on badly formulated questions after they are improved?
I noticed there are several questions on the main site with comments that the question isn't very good, then followed by comments of the author what he/she means. This usually goes one for a bit and then the question is edited and improved
Some examples (EDIT: most obsolete comments in the examples are now removed)

Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy?
Are there any cultural or religious guidelines for Buddhist tattoos?
Plants may be sentient beings like animals so how do you decide what to eat?
Relationship between Buddhism, Hinduism and Yoga?
How to help non-Buddhists understand a young person's desire to be ordained as a monk?

On most SE sites the policy is to remove those comments after the question is improved because they have little value. Do we want this here also? I.e. should we encourage the authors to remove the comments themselves and flag the ones that remain as 'obsolete'?

It does make it confusing for people reading later after the question has been improved to still have all those comments. Makes us look hypercritical. ;-)

FWIW unless there's something compelling that comes up in this meta discussion, I'll clean up the comments on these later. I'm leaving them for now as reference for this post.

Yes, comment clean up (removal) is good, especially when the Q makes the comments unintelligible (because their referents are gone)

I'm very pro cleaning up stale comments and have done so on a bunch of questions. The older comments–and their context–get deleted along with back-and-forth chats.
That said, I mostly only clean up such when I come across them. I normally don't actively go looking for them, so it is easy to miss them here and there.

Great! I just wanted to make sure before I start flagging several comments. BTW, I've added another example question and will continu to do so if I find more. That is, until you say you've cleaned the questions in the list.

Please do flag comments ^_^ I'm happy to take a look.


text:
RSS feeds not working
I would like to mix https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/feeds with other RSS feeds for my website, so I put it through http://www.rssmix.com/
Unfortunately, none of the Buddhism questions appear in the feed. When I try entering https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/feeds as a single feed, nothing appears, all I get is this output from http://www.rssmix.com/u/7920441/rss.xml

Looking into it. I get a successful feed of new posts on meta, but I haven't tried main. Have you tested this on a different RSS reader?

@abbyhairboat I cannot find another RSS feed reader to plug it in. However when I plug http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/feeds into a browser it shows latest questions...

Ok, I posted it at feedburner, http://feeds.feedburner.com/RecentQuestions-BuddhismStackExchange and it shows recent questions

That's what I suspected. It sounds like the problem is somewhere between our feed and rssmix. Not sure there's anything we can do about that, but I'll certainly ask around.

@abbyhairboat Actually, I burned the Buddhism feed into feedburner, and used that feed to mix with my other feeds. Now it includes the Buddhism feed

Good workaround. I asked around here and as far as we can tell that is a bug with rssmix - everything is coming out fine on our end.


text:
Do we want community ads for other beta sites?
What do you think about the idea to have Community Promotion Ads on our site, similar to other SE sites like Skeptics have.
Here are few advert examples:

Mythology Q&A proposal which can gain more people interested in mythology (e.g. Buddhist mythology).
Mythology Q&A proposal http://area51.stackexchange.com/ads/proposal/58307.png
Health Q&A proposal which can gain more people interested in health (e.g. a buddhist perspective on health, Chinese medicine, herbs, etc.).
Health Q&A proposal http://area51.stackexchange.com/ads/proposal/66048.png
Paranormal Q&A proposal for buddhists interested in practical meditation, spirituality, Chi energy, Qigong, Feng shui and ESP abilities.
Paranormal Q&A proposal http://area51.stackexchange.com/ads/proposal/96086.png

Related:

How do we get Community Promotion Ads on beta sites?

How do we get Community Promotion Ads on beta sites?

I think that on Buddhism.SE you see ads for other StackExchange sites, is that right? In contrast, see for example this post about community ads on Meta-Skeptics.SE (which is a graduated site): those are ads for non-StackExchange web sites. So, are there non-StackExchange web sites which you'd like to advertise on Buddhism.SE ... for example, do you want to create community ads for "Access to Insight" and/or other useful-to-Buddhism sites like that?

Well if this answer is true (and maybe @abby can confirm whether it's true), perhaps you could change the topic title to "Do we want community ads?", and post an answer of your own in which you suggest one or more ads, and see whether the community supports (up-votes) your answer and/or posts answers of their own.

I added three community wiki answers, so that people can easily upvote ad/or down-vote one or more of them.

@chrisw: that answer is off the mark, unfortunately. (We're clarifying it over there, too.) Community promotional ads are a graduated site privilege unless there are extenuating circumstances.

@abbyhairboat Thanks for your clarification. You could close this topic as 'status-declined' then, or 'status-deferred' or whatever.

@abbyhairboat Why it's off the mark? I couldn't find any clarification on the provided links.

@kenorb see shog's recent comment, and the one Anna left on that question.

Yes I want community ads, but for non-StackExchange sites that are useful/specific to Buddhism (for example, for sites like 'Access to Insight' and/or other sites to be determined later).

Yes I want community ads for other new beta sites, like the ones you proposed in the question.

No, I don't want any ads because they distract my focus, my attention and my mindfulness from that for what I'm here.

No I do not want community ads: especially no ads for sites which are not solely related to Buddhism.


text:
Deleted Post In The Tradition of Kiribathgoda Gnanananda Thero
All the MP3 links in this post are valid directly refers to Metta and Vipassana: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/12770/295
Wondering what the rationale behind it being delete? The tradition of Kiribathgoda Gnanananda Thero as taught in Mahamevnawa Buddhist Monastery is pretty wide spread in Sri Lanka and abroad. This might not be directly compatible with the lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw from the lineage the moderator who deleted the post is from, though the previous post by the same OP does not meet the requirements of the question though this post does.
Also the following has a top level link promoting a site as well as a book:

https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/9107/295

If you read the OP's answers, many or most of those answers don't include links at all.

Of the answers which do contain links, for example this one and this one, many of those links are to specific topics on on the mahamevnawa.com web site. Those links and answers are not deleted because they're on-topic: the links support the answer and the answer tries to address the question.

On October 30th I edited most of the OP's answers, to remove "a signature" like this one which were at the end of every answer. Those links are not on-topic (i.e. not part of the answer) because they're generic link to the top-level http://mahamevnawa.lk/inenglish URL (not a link to any specific article).
I also posted comments, here and here and here, and other comments which I deleted after they were read, to try to explain what what our site policy is for links:

Please don't post links to http://mahamevnawa.lk/inenglish/ except in your profile. You can post links to specific pages or articles or resources within the mahamevnawa.lk site, if the page is relevant to the question and your answer.

The rule about using a generic "signature" in answers for advertising is a network-wide policy -- this FAQ topic says:

In general, taglines and signatures are strongly discouraged, and are likely to be edited out. We don't want to clutter up the questions page with a lot of redundant signature blocks and taglines and so forth.
Please use your built in profile, avatar, and username as your signature; that's what they are there for, and every post you make is already "signed" this way!

In the topic which you're asking about here, the historic sequence of events was as follows:

OP posted this answer with links to http://mahamevnawa.lk/inenglish/dhamma-talks/ and his blog:
I posted a comment asking for specific links which address the question, and deleted the answer
OP posted this answer with specific links, and a link to his blog, again:
I posted a comment again, asking for specific links (instead of a link to the whole blog), this time Lanka deleted the answer
You saw and wanted to preserve the specific links in the deleted answer:
we undeleted the answer but deleted the link to the blog.

Lanka wrote, in his answer,

I deleted the post because there was a link to the users personal blog. Promotion of ones own work should not be done on this site.

This doesn't mean you're not allowed to link to your own posts off-site. It means that you're allowed to do that, if and only when the links you post are an answer to the question.

Specific links which answer the question are on topic (and may be up- or down-voted as usual depending on their quality, i.e. depending on whether users think they're helpful).

Generic links, by definition, don't answer the question: they are deleted, especially when they only "promote" (i.e. advertise) the site or the blog in question.

In your question, you wrote,

This might not be directly compatible with the lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw from the lineage the moderator who deleted the post is from, though the previous post by the same OP does not meet the requirements of the question though this post does.

I hope you understand why the post was deleted: it was because of the "generic" link to the blog, not because of the "specific" links to the MP3 files.
I assume most people want to read specific questions and answers on this site, not "promotional" advertising.
I sorry if you assumed that the deletion was all to do with "lineage". The site's defined policy is that this site is for "all schools of Buddhism"; and I hope that all users (including moderators) behave accordingly.
There are always several moderators who review the site. There are also high-reputation users, like you and Robin and 20 other users, who have a reputation of over 2000, who can view deleted posts to ensure that nothing is deleted maliciously or by mistake.
One of the reason why I think we ought to delete "promotional" links is in order to try to keep the site looking welcoming to people and to questions and answers from all schools: I think it's better to have no "promotional advertising" than to flood the site with advertisements for one specific site or school.
I'm also a bit uneasy about discussing moderation in too much detail. Moderators are meant to intervene if there's a problem, so discussing moderation means discussing problems, and if people learn from past discussion and move on then I'd prefer to not, you know, pick over old problems again.
The Help for your "Viewing deleted posts" privilege says,

Viewing deleted posts
You now have privileged access to posts that have been removed, either
by their authors, by users with access to moderator tools, by
moderators, or by the system.
Use this privilege wisely:

Make sure what is being deleted should have been deleted, and bring unnecessary or harmful deletions to the attention of the community
and/or moderator team.

Watch for signs of abuse being obscured by deletion.

Don't abuse this privilege to stir up trouble when someone has wisely decided to remove a problematic post.

You're welcome to clarify site policy but my experience (including some years of experience as a user on other SE sites) tells me that it's basically never beneficial to accuse a moderator of misconduct.
Does it reassure you to be told that other moderators already review and discuss each other's actions?
Questions like "why was this answer deleted?" and "what is site policy?" are on-topic. Thank you for using meta to discuss that: and I'm glad that you're satisfied with the outcome.

I am not satisfied with the outcome as the blog link was deleted. The user has taken the pain to collect many English language programs aired in local channels which can compliment the answer. I feel the link to the blog is also relevant and should be restored. (Further complementing information.)

I have seen @Lanka doing just this: 'Generic links, by definition, don't answer the question: they are deleted, especially when they only "promote" (i.e. advertise) the site or the blog in question.'. You practice what you want to enforce before hand.

Also keep in mind most of the high reputation users you mentioned Lanka Robin etc. are from the same tradition hence there might be dependent.

The nature of the question http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/12768/can-someone-provide-online-resources-to-learn-vipassana-and-metta is asking for podcast while the one you edited is not. So the link to the blog is in fact relevant as supplementary information.

You should not have a sticker enforcing of the rules on on set of users than that of another set of users. Everything should be equitable.

If the OP wants to link to his blog as an answer to that question, I asked him to identify the (specific) article[s] within the blog which are "resources for learning Vipassana and Metta".

This is more strict than what has been allowed for other users in the past. He has identified some resource though not exhaustive but give then the link for further information.

How come you are always saying I am glad and satisfied with the out come. What is the basis on these comments?

There are a lot of posts which sound promotional by @Lanka worded in a promotional marketing slant!

@SumindaSirinathSalpitikorala I said it once, and when I said it I linked to this comment of yours in which you wrote, "Also I see you un deleted it. This is a great start." I thought that undeleting the answer was the outcome; that that was the outcome you wanted; and that you praised that outcome i.e. found it satisfactory.

I said it a start but not the end or closure.

@SumindaSirinathSalpitikorala Should I fix my answer (by deleting the last sentence of it which says that you're satisfied with the outcome) and then delete as obsolete these comments (which were associated with that last sentence)?


text:
Fairness and Equability to All Users
I believe we have to strive to be fair and equitable to all user. I feel sometimes there is an asymmetry on moderation practices where some users are moderated in a stricter sense than other.
E.g. the following is a timely and interesting question: The terror tragedy in France in Buddhist light but it says it is not fit for the normal format of the site. Say another user asks a similar question then it is fair and equitable that this is allowed as a moderator has set the precedence. Nothing against this question, but if some one asks something similar tolerance should be practiced. (On a side note. Also one answer given has been deleted citing anti Muslim stereo type, though the answer actually critically analysers this in a Buddhist perspective. It may not have the sugar coating as some may desire and I do not see any Anti Muslim nature in it. This might be a matter of opinion.)
Likewise I have seen posts my certain senior users actively promoting their tradition. I think this is fair. This should not deny any other user to actively promote their tradition by having a higher standers or criteria on what is checked for in another set of users. Certain questions and answers from certain seam to be moderated at a higher standers than others. This is not equitable. If you are applying a higher stander this should be done consistently. If there is precedence in more tolerant nature for posts my moderators or senior users or certain set of suers then this criteria should be applied consistently.
Also among certain set of users there can be groupthink where they stick with each other can reinforce the option of other users than being independent. This also can be a source of problems.
Also following users is put on hold. (https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/users/7254/deva-mitta) He does not seam to have go much votes. (Total of 5 votes for 3 questions.) Also he has accepted answers from 2 users for his 3 question. It says as voting regularities. This action does not have been done transparently as what these irregularities are.

Re. the last paragraph you added, moderators have some user data which they must keep private/confidential. StackExchange gives moderators a non-disclosure agreement. If a user is suspended then the brief reason is published, however the details of a suspension are private and (according my understanding of StackExchange's rules for moderators) the details are confidential rather than "transparent".

I believe we have to strive to be fair and equitable to all user.

Yes, I do too more or less.

I feel sometimes there is an asymmetry on moderation practices where some users are moderated in a stricter sense than other.

Yes, you've been trying to make it clear that you feel that.
It's not clear to me (i.e. you have not been saying) what you base these feeling on. Have you identified the several causes (e.g. the questions, answers, comments, and/or deletions) for these feelings of yours? The one post I know you identified is this one; but apart from that, you're not always very specific. You mention "groupthink", but I don't know what to do about it.
So I feel like a programmer, where someone has come and said, "There are bugs in the software", and I'm like, "Oh: really? Where?"

E.g. the following is a timely and interesting question

Well, my opinion was that question is not a very good fit for this Q+A site.
The guideline Good Subjective, Bad Subjective advises that:

your answers must be based on either:

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

The question you linked to is cleverly phrased to seem on-topic, for example it asks,

... seen from a Buddhist perspective? ... analyzed in terms of the Buddhist theory of human mind?

But to some extent it's just asking "How do you feel, what's your opinion?" In fact it says,

Please share your thoughts and opinions

I don't think I want to see dozens more questions like that one on this site.
That question is also probably a "Polling" question, and (ought to be) off-topic for that reason too.

Historically, to take another example, Andrei answered this question but he didn't like that question.
The Moderation policies for Questions now warns that questions like that might be off-topic (see "Broad comparisons"). This meant to be a site for "expert Q+A" about Buddhism, not really a site for Q+A about Buddhists' opinions of Christianity and Islam, of Christians and Muslims.
Similarly I answered this question but I didn't really like the question.

Say another user asks a similar question then it is fair and equitable that this is allowed as a moderator has set the precedence.

Being fair and equitable is one consideration but it's not the only consideration.
For example if I hit my brother, and so he hits me back, then from our perspective maybe that's being fair and equitable ... but from my mother's perspective that would be both of us misbehaving.

If you are applying a higher stander this should be done consistently.

I think my standards do vary depending on the history of the user.
If the user does something I don't much like, advertise a naked link to their blog for example in a way that's unrelated to the question, then I might think "Oh, yuck. Well I hope they got that out of their system and that they won't do that again."
If they do it again then I think "Oh dear, they're doing it again."
If they do it again and again and again then I think "Oh dear, I can't allow this." Then I edit the post, explain the "rules",  ask them not to do it again.
And then I'm stricter, with that user. If they do it again and ... again then I'm like, "I told you not to do that. I don't want to have to moderate this stuff. Please, don't cause trouble. Nobody else on this site is here to advertise their blog: that's not what this site is for, and one user who misbehaves can make the site less enjoyable for everyone, especially if they do it often e.g. several times per day."

It's possible that I am more inclined to be tolerant of high-reputation users (including you).
You're more likely to know "the rules" already, and to show self-moderation without being moderated.
And the ratio of good to bad is different. If someone posted only "acceptable", "bad", and "very bad" answers, then I'd be feeling less tolerant when I read their posts than someone who posts consistently good answers with an occasional no-so-good sentence. Even so I try to apply rules fairly.
I think that part of "applying the rules fairly" is that I ought to overlook "transgressions" and I ought to be permissive if I can. If I want someone to change their behaviour, I should ask nicely. If I can overlook a possible mistake because it doesn't happen often and other users aren't complaining, then I can and should.
If you think we ought to be stricter, though, as moderators, you can suggest that.

You can leave a comment on whatever you think ought to be moderated: to tell the user how to self-moderate their own post.
You can "flag" whatever you think ought to be moderated. A disadvantage of flagging (from my perspective) is that it alarms the moderators (and I don't like to be alarmed). But it's private, i.e. nobody except moderators knows what flags you raise.
A disadvantage to flagging is that if I disagree with a flag then I'll ignore/dismiss the flag. I can post a comment to explain why I disagree with the flag, but the comment is limited in length and it's a one-way message not a discussion. So ...
An alternative to flagging is to post a topic here on meta, to complain about a post ("I think this post ought to be moderated. Why wasn't it moderated?") or to discuss site policy ("I think that posts like this one ought to be moderated, do you agree?")

Also among certain set of users there can be groupthink where they stick with each other can reinforce the option of other users than being independent. This also can be a source of problems.

Wikipedia describes Groupthink as:

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints, by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.
Loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates its own abilities in decision-making, and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the "outgroup"). Furthermore, groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the "outgroup".
Antecedent factors such as group cohesiveness, faulty group structure, and situational context (e.g., community panic) play into the likelihood of whether or not groupthink will impact the decision-making process.

Not purely in reply to your question but to add some thoughts of my own -- you seem to think that moderation decisions are clear, black-and-white: "This user did X, therefore that user should be allowed to do X too. If that user can't do X, then that's not fair."
A problem for moderators is that deciding whether something is "X" isn't always clear; for example:

If "X" is "post an off-topic question" (e.g. "This user posted an off-topic question so that user should be allowed to post an off-topic question too"), it's still not always clear what questions are off-topic.
Moderation policies for Questions
If "X" is "post a bad answer" it's not clear what answers are bad
Moderating answers which don't answer the question?
If "X" is "post a bad comment" it's not clear what comments are bad
Posting comments to answers
If "X" is "post spammy link" it's not clear what links are spammy
How to not be a spammer
If "X" is "post skeptical questions" it's not always clear whether a question is  "argumentative"

Another problem is that I need to guess whether a given behaviour has or will or might become a problem for other users of the site. I get the feeling that people want the moderation to be fairly liberal/permissive. On the other hand if there were no moderation at all then I think there would be no site and even fewer expert users, i.e. this site is partly defined by what content it doesn't contain.


text:
Should content the from a Buddhist POV or Perspective or presented in relation to Buddhism
This answer is more generic advice than Buddhist specific advice, as it was originally written. In the comments the OP ties hard to rationalise by making an analogy (similar to writing an essay about a fly when asked about a fish, citing that flies come a fish market) after the the post was make.
I feel it should:

rewritten from a Buddhist perspective or POV
if the above does not happen, deleted

Having a Buddhist POV does not necessitate citation though this will be good, but should be that a beginner reading will see relationship with this and a Buddhist Concept. A reader should feel, "Yes. This is a Buddhist answer.". If a reader feels this is a Buddhist answer then it should be "on topic" (related to Buddhism, about Buddhism, from a Buddhist POV or perspective). Again this has nothing to do with being: strict or not, having quotation of not, citations or not, providing or not providing links. It is more how it is presented. E.g. (this may not the the perfect examples and hope it does not lead to more diversions from the issue at hand) It is like layman's terms and technical terms. (This does not again imply content should be full of technical terms, there should be enough parallel to relate this to a Buddhist concept.)
Put it another answers should not be like something put together through general knowledge, or other form of domain knowledge, alone, i.e., not expert answer. What I mean here as expert is someone with some domain knowledge vs not domain knowledge on relative basis than someone with little domain knowledge vs deep domain knowledge. (Aside from this: when leaving comments some demonstrable research may be warranted as update additional information will require attention and effort. Also people may lose faith in the site when trivial or things taken for grant is asked.)

Something like "guarding the sense door" was one of the motives I had in mind when I was writing the answer, especially as detailed in this previous answer.
Even if the OP can't control thoughts, maybe they can control what they physically do and see.
Isn't that useful and practical? Even if, in this answer, I don't try to tie it to theories like 12 nidanas?
In their question the OP wrote,

I have read many related answers from all time favourite “Suminda Sirinath S. Dharmasena“, but regarding this answer all answers sounds very theoretical

So in this specific answer I tried to avoid theory (e.g. referencing suttas) and to give a more experiential answer. Do you think that makes the answer off-topic on this site?

I'll add that I think that other users are not averse to "practical" topics being considered on topic. E.g. Andrei liked "challenges one faces in one's practice", and Lanka wrote "my approach has always been founded in the practical/insight-meditational aspect of Buddhism and not in the scholarly/intellectual aspect".
I'm not claiming mine is a good answer or as good as theirs would be, but I think it is within the bounds of what might be considered on-topic for this site.
Also since other users are able to give expert answers, I try to be helpful by giving less-expert answers (and this one was especially anti-theoretical, to try to match the OP's question).
Because it proved useful to the OP (and upvoted), though I don't want to cause trouble I'm reluctant to delete it only because you consider it too generic or too "blatant" etc. I don't think I'd delete it if another user had written it (I'm think I'm quite timid, and permissive about not deleting other users' answers).

Any person with some common sense can say it. It is not presented in a Buddhist perspective. It does not show the link to Buddhist concepts, which is left for interpretations and speculation.

Also the comments imply you are searching for justification after writing it from what I see.

When I wrote it, as I was writing it, I thought it was an edge-case (i.e. nearly off-topic) but justified. What you're seeing now after I wrote it, is a subsequent discussion (because you maybe want to discuss it, instead of being silent about it).

Not every one see the justification as on topic. Also anyone can claim their content is justified. Justified according to what?

"Justified" (adj.): within (not far beyond) general bounds of what can be considered acceptable according to (my view of) the site's norms and policy; answering the specific question; and understandable by (potentially helpful to) the OP. Also, not immoral or harmful or untrue. Possibly "expedient" (i.e. if it bends the site rules, if it's on the boundary of what's normal, that's OK in this specific rare circumstance, where the OP seemed to be asking for something less theoretical).

Buddhism has theory (pariyatti), practice (patipatti), and realisation (pativedha). Practise should be on topic. practical/insight-meditational aspect of Buddhism and not in the scholarly/intellectual aspect. How it is presented though you trying to find twisted justification as it is presented now does not have a proper link to meditation aspect or the theory. A common sense practice is not necessary a Buddhist meditative practice. As of now it has 2 down votes as well as the other post of yours.

You seem to have a clear idea of how you should answer the OP's question. I thought maybe this OP might benefit from a different way to grasp the problem (e.g. by controlling their physical environment and activity, rather than their mental ideation).

This is great but not a Buddhist answer. This is Buddhism.SE not SelfHelp.SE.

Well guarding "the sense door" is a Buddhist practice, which "might mean different things to different people, i.e. that different people at various levels of development might use different techniques" -- and I think that what I suggested is an example of that (analogous to hiding your eyes from the world), even if I didn't try to justify the answer when I wrote it by explicitly inserting that kind of theory into the answer. So, as far as know, it's not entirely a non-Buddhist answer.

Scrambling for justification again! It does not demonstrate this link in the answer. Again this is supposed to be an Expert site not to post ameture answers. So answer should demonstrate some expertise in the topic answered, than being just generic.

It does not demonstrate this link in the answer. Yes, that is so. And I deliberately didn't (don't?) want to demonstrate this link, in this answer, because the OP had said in their question that they had read "many related answers" and found them to be "very theoretical" ... so I thought the circumstance (the question) justified (for once) a different kind of answer.

This is supposed to be and expert site and content should reflect this.

Ven. Yuttadhammo expected this to be a site where "questions are asked looking for expert or well-cited answers", and has left. I don't think I have the authority to be stricter about enforcing/demanding expertise in every answer. "Expert" is what Stack Exchange advertises, but in practice users are a mix of expert, practitioner, and elementary. If I tried to be stricter in the past, maybe people pushed back (against being strict), saying that this site don't have enough traffic and ought to be more permissive/welcoming, and not more strict.

I think that in What about providing sources? the community definitely decided that references (to sources) cannot be required -- it's not trivial for a moderator (me) to judge whether an answer is sufficiently expert. So, cast your vote (upvote or downvote) on specific answers but please don't be too cross if I don't always agree with you about whether the border-line is ... the border is a bit fuzzy. I do agree that this specific answer was marginal.


text:
What should our Policy be on Link only Answers
What should our Policy be on Link only Answers?
How descriptive should the answer be to consider as not Link Only Answer? E.g. is this one: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/14863/295?
How do we educate people on the Linked Only Answers? Should it be in the welcome message? Should we have have links to SO other SE sites which have good guide to writing good questions and answers or have over own dopted from them.

Usually I would read the reference in the answer, and edit the answer myself to make it match our standards:

To demonstrate what our standards are
To make it easier for the new person who answers

In this case, though, the link is to an hour-long video (so not something I can read, something that would take me more than a hour to listen to), and on a topic which doesn't interested me ... so I don't want to watch the video.
I could read the "Aganna suthra" again though, and summarize that (but I'm still not very interested in the topic, so I might not do a good job of answering, and I don't intend to do that).
Another very good option is, if you think the answer could be better, add your own better answer to the topic.

To ask the author to remedy their answer, you could post a comment under the answer, to:

Ask that they provide a summary in the answer
Explain why

If you're looking for an explanation of some/any policy, good places to look for the explanation include:

The Help Center topics (below our list of "Useful Resources")
This Buddhism.SE Meta site (where we've defined site-specific policies)
The SE network's main Meta site -- for example if I search that site for 'link only' and sort by votes, I find topics like, Are answers that just contain links elsewhere really “good answers”?
Create a new meta-topic (like this one which you just created) which you can refer people to in future

As for moderating these answers, my moderation policy for answers is more-or-less defined by the answers to the meta-topic, Moderating answers which don't answer the question? -- i.e. an answer is permitted (not deleted) until or unless other users downvote it.
I might (very occasionally) moderate an answer for other reasons (e.g. if it seems to be hostile or off-topic), even without other users complaining about it; but I currently don't delete "low-quality" answers (e.g. link-only answers, or very short opinion-like answers), because I think the community has said that it doesn't want the moderators to do that.
There are, for example, a lot of answers on this site which are relatively "low quality" in having had no upvotes at all (but these aren't deleted). The answer you liked to in the OP currently has one upvote (so presumably at least one person found it helpful, or better than nothing, to be encouraged).

My opinion is we should allow linked only answers for reference requests but not as an answer itself. The answer can be short if it answers the question or adds value. Long answers does not necessarily mean good answers. Keep It Simple and Stupid (KISS) response with some some additional references to dig deep also may be a valid response as it is informative and has or add some value.
Especially audio and video links my option is there sould be a reasonable summary where relevant as it takes long to go though such content.
I guess large number of readers will not bother with links. Forums like Discourse display the number of click throughs on links. In such forms the click through rates are very low hence I would expect the same here. The rates would be lower for multimedia links.

You wrote, "allow" -- are you suggesting that link-only answers should be strictly "not allowed", meaning that moderators ought to delete them?

No. We should educate the users to be more descriptive by providing appropriate resources and references to improve on the answers initially. If they same user continuously does post link only answers then it can be considered spam but only after multiple instances of trying to educate the OP.

Also moderation does not always mean deleting in my opinion. It is easy to delete but difficult to provide resources and educate uses on the direction we are taking in the site.


text:
Advertising the Site
I came across the following: https://ell.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2635/community-promotion-ads-2015
Wondering if there is and interest to promote our site in other SE sites.

We can't at the moment: that feature is available only to "graduated" (not "beta") sites.
It's one of the "perks" of graduation.

Following is just a proposal: http://meta.ell.stackexchange.com/a/2671

ELL is promoting a site which is still not even a beta site: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/82841/language-learning?referrer=sg-MbJAGOjNnNFDS7ptHjQ2 as in 2nd site from top they are promoting. I think it is we cannot promote but other sites but graduated sites can promote us if they agree. Perhaps we need to double check this. If so the main question would be which site will agree to carry our proposal. But any way only if there is interest from other to do this.

@SumindaSirinathSalpitikorala I think maybe you're right: you could post an ad for our site there, and then if they upvoted it then they would see that ad on their site. Normally, maybe it's the ELL community (I don't know whether that includes you) who suggest what ads they want to see on their site. FWIW our site is already advertised network-wide sometimes, by one of our topics appearing in the Hot Network Questions list.


text:
Downvoting Based on School
In the following answer there were multiple downvotes. One of the explanations given was it was from another school. I do not think voting should be school based. It should be understood there will be variation in how this is understood by different schools. Also one will consider one's school acurate but I do not think voting should reflect this if it is from another school.
Also another answer more or less expresses the same which support what I wrote.
How should such instances, where downvoting is based on school of thought, be dealt with? How are they dealt with in other SE sites?
I feel these can be dealt with in few ways:

sweeping it under the carpet - ignoring it
solve it leaving all parties unhappy - imposing self opinionated solution could be one example
solving it leaving one side unhappy - one sided solution
solving it leaving both side happy - this would be hardest to conceive the cause of action but the best way to handle it. Also after such solution repeating of this type of issues popping up less. This actually solves the problem or uses problem solving.

Another recent answer is this. In this case it seems to be also influenced by the translation being quoted.

I do not think voting should be school based.

If someone asked, for example, "what is the role of koans in Buddhism?", and someone answered, "Buddhism doesn't use koans", then I think that I myself would probably downvote (or delete) that answer, and suspect that the answer was untrue.
If the answer said, more specifically, "Theravada Buddhism doesn't use koans", then the answer would be truer.
I sympathise with your view that there's only one "Buddhism", nevertheless if you want to answer from a Theravada-only perspective I think it may be more helpful to the OP to say so explicitly.
Otherwise it may be confusing for the OP to read different, mutually contradictory, answers.
More than one of the downvotes was reversed when you added "Theravada" to your answer (which you since removed again).

Also another answer more or less expresses the same which support what I wrote.

Dhammadhatu's answer starts with the words, "Pali Buddhism", as well as references to suttas which justify or explain the claim (so that readers can see the reason for that answer).

The downvotes were not reversed. There are 3 down votes.

I wrote "were reversed" when you added "Theravada". After that you removed "Theravada", so...

It was -2 before and was so after. So there was not reversal after adding Theravada.

Anyway, the Wikipedia article, for example, starts with a section titled "Development of the concept" and then has many sections for many "philosophical schools or tenet-systems". So it wouldn't surprise me if a single answer were thought to be misleading (or uninformative, confusing) unless it was specific about which school or tenet-system it was explaining.

So you are endorsing that a content which is uninformative, confusing because you do not understand the tenet system and does not have the tenant system specified is a good candidate for downvotes and this is acceptable behavior for a use of the site?

I think that if a statement is true according to (or within) one system and less true according to another, and you make that statement, IMO the statement is less likely to confuse people or be considered "wrong" if you identify which system you're writing about. I guess that people aren't downvoting because you're writing about a Theravada view: it's because you're not (or weren't) saying that you're writing about a Theravada view. Anyway, that's my impression. If it's true that sunyata has no distinct meaning in Theravada, perhaps it became more important and more distinct in later schools.

I sympathise with your view that there's only one "Buddhism". This is generally the view in my country. It is not specifically my view. Also where will this end. 1st you have to label yourself Theravada perhaps getting called Hinayana later on. This is like making a Jew to were the Star of David for being a Jew in WII. It will save a lot of through if the labellings are not used.

Also if you take another user, in this case, kept asking what the linage as from other uses but was reluctant to label his posts according to linage when asked.

It is not specifically my view. Yes English-language "your" is ambiguous, it's singular or plural. Also where will this end. I was suggesting that if you've no evidence that the OP knows about different schools, if the question isn't tagged for a specific school, and if the answer to the topic may vary from one school to another, then it might help the OP not if you label yourself but if you label your answer (specify which school the answer is explaining), instead of posting an answer which might appear to be making its claim about any and all (unspecified) schools of Buddhism.

When you label it also becomes sectarian where as Dhamma is universal. Any sectarian school may make that claim as it is according to this sect. This should be up to the poster. But now I am mentioning the Pali Canon and also quoting. This should be adequate information for anybody to know the basis and reverse the votes if it was based on misunderstanding.