text:
Types of Questions and answers which are allowed
Is this a site for asking questions about the traditions of Buddhism and for finding out what the beliefs of Buddhists are. Or is it to ask questions about those beliefs i.e. if a belief seems a logical contradiction for someone, they ask how it can be, and some user answers using his Buddhist knowledge how it is possible, almost like a teacher would. Or is it both or neither?
Basically would it be reasonable for someone to ask the question "How can buddhists believe there is no self and yet also believe that the self is reborn at death?" and have it answered, maybe referencing sutras, like "Because there is a continuum not a fixed atman, +surangama highlights that the seeing nature is immutable therefore its destruction is impossible, so rebirth is certainty"
I have just read the other similar questions, which don't quite address this but are in the same area. (Is this question off-topic?)

I'm not sure I understood this question of yours: because you already answered more than a dozen questions on the main site, so haven't you seen what kinds of questions are asked there? Let me know if my answer below doesn't answer your question.

I realise now that you had already provided Moderation Policies.

This is a site for asking questions about almost anything related to Buddhism: mostly doctrine probably, also practice and ethics, and some questions about culture.
It has elementary questions (from non-Buddhists), and more specific questions (from Buddhist practitioners and scholars).
It supports (at least in theory) all sects or schools of Buddhism, so if you want to ask a question and get an answer from the perspective of a specific school, mention the school in question or use an appropriate 'tag' (without which the question might attract answers from several schools).
The question, "How can buddhists believe there is no self and yet also believe that the self is reborn at death?", is a question about Buddhist doctrine: and therefore it's on-topic. A more precise/specific/expert question might get a more precise/specific/expert answer. There have been questions about rebirth before (currently 98 questions with the rebirth tag): can you avoid re-asking a question? In general we don't want to copy-and-paste and answers, so ideally try to make a new question specific enough that existing answers (to existing questions) don't answer the new question.
Perhaps you're familiar with other StackExchange sites. This site has slightly unusual Moderation policies for Questions.


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How can we improve traffic to the site?
The site is growing at an enormous pace.
So, how can we help increase its growth further and help make it a central repository of quality Buddhist resources and doubts.

One idea would be cross-posting top questions and answers on the Buddhism Reddit site, which is very active with a huge community and excellent engagement stats.
I have cross posted one, and it was well received and fared nicely there.

Thanks for this. I'm never sure how these sites actually work - etiquette more than anything. Can you just post any question that you find interesting. There are loads of questions that have been asked on the site that are of interest. Can you just post it on? Is that the done thing? Thanks

@CrabBucket Yes, I have posted that question on the site just for testing on how well it would get receive, and it did a pretty nice job.
So, I think nice questions can be posted on that site.  Would help acquire users and increase traffic.

Also https://www.voat.co/v/theravada maybe an idea through not as active as Reddit.

I started it too. Good idea :)

The page which you linked to says,

Eventually, 90% of a site's traffic should come from search engines.

I suppose we have at least two jobs, i.e. to try to ensure that:

Past and current questions are answered well (so that these questions and answers are helpful when people find them using search engines)
The site retains a community of users who answer new questions

Yes i found the site in the same way and it has been a month since i joined

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
May I share my research, by posting questions on this site and self-answering them?
There are some interesting new discoveries that happened in last few years in science that cemented our religion's teachings.
I did many years of research on things like:

Four Great elements
reality
Realms
and many more...

My goal was to find scientific facts that go along with Lord Buddha's teachings, so I can better understand Buddhism through what I have already learned: "Science".
A few days ago I ended one of my researches and wanted to share my work with this new community I found at Buddhism SE.
What is the modern understanding about Four Great Elements and Reality?
So what I am asking is, if you like what I have done, will you be kind to allow me to share more of my research with you?

I vote yes, because what the big difference between posting a sincere question and finding the answer your self ten days later and posting a sincere question and the answer immediately.
In the linked question, the system worked, the self posted answer got downvoted. If the question was a stinker too, by SE terms, the I would expect the system to work and it would get down voted/closed too.
This is a comment in my confidence in the SE software, not a comment about my confidence in people to post good questions and good answers, regardless if it is an answer to their own question. No doubt, I've seen a bunch of stinkers here and elsewhere.

Apparently the French distinguish between "allowed", "forbidden", and "tolerated". For example, parking your bicycle in the courtyard might be "forbidden but tolerated". What that means is that, if one person does it, then it's not a problem for anyone, which is why it's tolerated. But if everyone does it, then it's a problem, which is why it's forbidden ... and the rule exists on paper so that if the reality becomes a problem then the rule can be enforced and the previous laissez faire no longer tolerated. Or we could say like, "sure, anyone is allowed to do that, but only twice a year."

When Andrei did it once that wasn't a problem and it was tolerated (and similar posts might be again). But don't you think it would be a problem to let the OP use the site for preaching? Because I think that's what the OP asking for permission to do, in this topic.

Hey if i wanted to preach would i ask for anyone's permission? This is what i get for being polite! @ChrisW

Thanks @MatthewMartin

@ChrisW Yeah, posting a rhetorical question & answering it is bad business (for this site, fine for a blog/discussion forum tho)

@Theravada in all the tense situations I've seen online, I've decided that there isn't necessarily bad content that leads to conflict, but bad locations. Factual Q&A questions work poorly on forums, opinion pieces work great on blogs, people looking for a knock down debate do well on forums.

I've vote for yes, and upvoted your answer too. And yes, I trust the system too. Sure enough worked well with his answer linked in his question above.

@MatthewMartin I think it's obvious that SE isn't designed to be a forum (or blog).

My vote would be "no": that this site is to ask questions and to get answers from other people.
Other SE sites allow people to answer their own questions -- but my personal vote/preference/opinion is that this site should not encourage that behaviour.

There's almost no precedent on this site for self-answered questions (the only one I remember is this one), i.e. other people on this site don't do it and haven't done it before.
You wrote, "here is a brief answer to many of your questions about Reality"; previous users of this site contributed by answering other people's question, not by posting answers to their own questions.

Some of the users (or former users) of this site have blogs of their own (for example here or here) with hundreds of articles. Although such articles are interesting and useful (and may be referenced in an answer if they're relevant to a question) however I don't think it's appropriate to post them on this site.
In other words if you want to publish unsolicited articles of your own, I suggest you do that on your blog.

Asking and answering your own questions might be indistinguishable from "preaching", which has not been popular in the past.
It's also a form of "seeding" questions.

And people have been writing "popular" books about quantum physics since at least the 1970s -- see for example Quantum mysticism -- my personal preference would be to read no further on that subject.
Because it's true that "Quantum mysticism is considered by most scientists and philosophers to be pseudoscience or 'quackery'", I fear that unwisely associating it with Buddhism could portray Buddhism and/or this site as disreputable (see also Buddhism and relativity).

The site has a built-in mechanism to discourage nonsense, in two ways: 1) if someone asks a silly question then it won't get answers 2) if someone posts a silly answer to a good question, other people will post other, better answers.
If people asked and answered their own questions, then there would be nothing to limit how much they post and what they post. It wouldn't be a community effort, there'd be no sanity-checking.

In summary:

Post your question because you want other people's answers (not because you want to answer it yourself)
Post your question because you want other people's answers (not because you hope the answers would be useful to someone else, although not to you)
Post an answer if it's inspired by and relevant to  someone else's question

I hope that kind of discipline helps to ensure that questions and answers are genuinely helpful and aren't 'unsolicited'.

I understand the rules and you have helped me before and for that i thank you. But Quantum physics is no longer a pseudo science and it is now the most exiting field of science even as to people like Dr. Steven Hawking. But Chris can i suggest you to at least  watch one of those videos mentioned in my answer.Because i am not giving my personal view,i am only pointing at well accepted experiments like "The Two slit experiment".Please be kind to at least watch one video given before taking a final decision.None of those sources are my creations and i am just tying to share some good information.

I was taught applied maths (i.e. theoretical physics) at school and university.

Ok just forget science and please watch the video for 2 mins.

@Theravada I watched the video, at your request. More generally (i.e. without wanting to comment on that video), there are already (a huge number of other) blogs and books and wikis and videos available via the internet ... I think we should keep this site for genuine/sincere questions and their answers. We've previously seen some "preaching" i.e. using this site to "push" a point of view (by asking "leading questions") and the community consensus was that we don't want posts like that.

Ok i understand : )

@ChrisW♦  We can't post videos or audio? That would explain the lack of all media but text :)

@ChrisW♦ I assume that Quantum mysticism means something like  mixing contemplative ideas with science?

@Uilium People do post audio and video sometimes, one example is that people link to e.g. Ven Yuttadhammo's videos sometimes, when (but only when) one of those videos is relevant to the OP's question and their answer. To use that as an example, he has hundreds of videos on Youtube and what doesn't happen is their [all] being posted systematically or deliberately on this site in order to promote them, by someone's asking a leading question and then self-answering that question with a link to the video which they want to promote. If that were to happen it would (IMO) kind of flood the site.

@Uilium I think Quantum mysticism includes using something like "Heisenberg's uncertainty principle" to start with the (scientific) theory that "observing a particle changes the location or speed of the particle", and from that end up with the (mystical) theory that "observation i.e. consciousness affects the universe" and thus possibly "mind exists outside matter and, the disembodiable mind's observing matter lets it use Quantum woo to affect the world (including e.g. to change one's own physical brain and/or brain-waves)".

Also logic like "Buddhist doctrine teaches that everything is empty. Physics teaches that atoms are mostly empty. Therefore modern science confirms Buddhist doctrine and Buddhist visionaries were prescient."

@SamanaJohann  There are many ways in which this is unlike other SE sites. All the questions listed as "These kinds of question do not need to be closed" on this site's Moderation policies for Questions would be closed on other sites. What doesn't change is that this site is for question-and-answer: not for "secondary discussion", not for extended disputes, etc.

Unless the site's grammar police changed it, this site allows you to answer your own question but leave it open to other scientists with answers.

If somebody had a collection of many videos or audios, which they wanted to advertise, I fear that a too-naive policy would let them post each one as a separate topic on this site, using a format like "Q: What is Metta?" and "A: Here's a link to a dhamma talk and/or video and/or article about Metta.", etc.

Also if you disagree with other answers please comment to explain why, and/or downvote those answers. This meta site is meant to have/allow more discussion/debate than the main site; and the up- and down-voting is meant to show policy-proposal have people's support (i.e. "community" support) from how many people.

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

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


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What should we do?
I saw this question and realized that there is more to this than a LOL moment.
Fat, white American Buddha Maitreya the Christ

As a Buddhist community we can easily see what the point of this person (the imposer) is. And it is no opinion based statement to call this man a lair as we all know that this has nothing to back it's claims and as to any school of Buddhism this is a lie.

So my questions are.....
Shouldn't we edit the question more appropriately and answer it with some seriousness as this person seems to be harming two religions at the same time?
Shouldn't we reach out as a community against this butchering of Buddhism in other places like social media (We can easily link our point of views from all schools of Buddhism with the help of our friends here)?

If you think i'm wrong for saying this i would like to remind you of that moment when a monk said "We are free from that great sage,now we can do whatever we want" while Lord Buddha was living the last moments of his great life.The other monks did not stood by, they gathered and had the first Buddhist council (Dharma sangayana) to counter the corrupting factors of any kind.
What i see is an equal event where vigilance is needed. There is no debate over what this imposer needs. What we have here is not an occasion to laugh but a chance to show the world who Buddhists are and what Buddhism & teachings of Buddhism really are.

If someone want to talk about freedom of speech here and say that it is OK to let this guy expand his little cult i like to propose that person read this.
The reason for the first Buddhist council

I would like to invite our friends here to use their contacts on social media & be vigilant to fight these kinds of cults that has formed. Laugh at this and just chill out if you want but before you do that i would like to point out that millions of innocent Muslims are at a threat as of now in almost every continent because they failed to denounce the little cults that formed claiming to be Islam's, look at what those cults have done now. Their brutality has taken world to a such a misunderstanding in which every Muslim has become a person of interest for the society.
We ignore this guy today but tomorrow another one or two will appear, who knows what these guys are preaching.
Finally what i have to say as a descendant of Sinhalese,we fought for centuries to protect the teaching, everyone from indians to chinese to english to Portuguese wanted to capture my country and destroy the religion if my ancestors said LOL and moved on the world would not have tipitaka today
So if you claim to be a Buddhist,put your money where your mouth is and fight for what you stand for because today the fight is not with blood and sword it is with a functioning mind that sees.

Good points, But there is no need for us to define who a Buddhist is because Lord Buddha gave the measures for us to do it. As we already have a solid idea of who a  real Buddhist is there is nothing to hold us back from denouncing what is not Buddhism. And this kind of action is not a form of extremism because it happened many times  in the Buddhist history, Those incidents are called "Buddhist councils". These events occurred to save the teaching from imposers. And all of these events were done by the Great Arahants.

it is no opinion based statement to call this man a lair as we all know

I'm not really keen on reading (nor on people posting) "rants", on that or any other topics: i.e., firmly-held, fixed opinions which are disguised as questions.

There is no debate over what this imposer needs.

Perhaps that means that there's no useful question to be asked.

What we have here is not an occasion to laugh but a chance to show the world who Buddhists are and what Buddhism & teachings of Buddhism really are.

Perhaps we should do that with Q+A about "what Buddhism & teachings of Buddhism really are".
If you think that this person isn't Buddhist, maybe for that reason it becomes off-topic on the site.
See also previous topics, What can be done about fake monks? and Real Monk vs Fake Monk.
I don't much want to use the site as a platform for dismissing people who we think aren't sufficiently orthodox/Buddhist.
Some comments like that exist elsewhere on the internet already, and there's no need for such "discussion" on this site. If you created a new topic for everyone you reckon has dubious lineage, doctrine, or morals, that would be a more-or-less endless supply of flamebait.

It is a fine point that you make and there is no doubt about it but can we address these kind of issues with decency. We have always  been thought provoking can we try explaining this so we can be a source of guidance to people who might misunderstand this as Buddhism?

I think communities like this can be guardians for the correct path, if we blindly look away when Buddhism itself is edited to fit personal agendas soon services like Buddhism SE will be irrelevant because no one will know what Buddhism  really is.

There is a story in my country called "The pot of seven beggars". Long story short it goes like this....    one day seven beggars came to one place and started to cook but everyone pretended to put rice in the pot but everyone did not thinking others will and no one will notice their rice missing. In the end cooking was done and they went to eat and saw that there was nothing to eat. ........   This is what happens when people say this is not our issue someone else will take care of it.

There is also another saying-A sword that does not see war is only good to cut vegetables.If people only come here to show how genius they are to the new guys and hide their tails between their legs and talk nonsense when a real issue in real world comes to existence that only goes on to show who they really are. What i see with some people here is that like those geeks who play battlefield all day long they come here to satisfy their god complex over the fellow minions and soon as they see something off their comfort zone the technicalities  come out with few links to the site policies.


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Moderator created Chat opportunities
Here's my idea
How nice would it be if the Moderators here can start permanent chat rooms / Live discussions for the community on various topics, The chat rooms will be permanently available so the experts can choose what rooms they join and people with problems can join in and start live / normal chat.
I mean something like this....

Breathing meditation chat room
Vipassana practicalities chat room
Mindfulness in modern society chat room

The reason why i'm saying this?

This must be started by the moderators because it gains easy merit in
that way and only they can send a massage to all the users of this
community.
If this form of chat exist it would be easier for Bloggers and other
web masters to link our community properly.Because it is hard to find a question once you see the need to link it (Say someone wants to link his site's Mindfulness video to a discussion to our SE, There is no place he can actually link it to unless he is able to find the question himself)

But if there was a chat visitors will easily see the community and join in. This would also be a good way to promote because they are not joining a community blindly. They have seen us and what we do.
Example - Join the chat about Mindfulness on Buddhism SE

We can even have announcements

Example - *Tomorrow Ven.Yuttadhammo will answer your questions on breathing meditation in this chat room on this day at this time, Feel free to leave your questions if you are busy that time*

The biggest reason of all is once you are in discussion you get to learn what you do not know, And this give the opportunity for people to come up with questions that they themselves did not know existed within.

I would like to propose fellow members of the community to not to
  argue about technicalities or practicalities and just jump in. Because
  as far as i see it here in Buddhism SE every good idea is well
  discussed but never taken beyond this Meta.

Even without/before creating a new chat room, there's a chat room here which anyone almost any user of this site can use any time for almost anything.
What you can't easily do is tell other people to be there in that room too.
Sometimes, if there's something to discuss, someone can post a message here on Meta like this one (A chat session about the direction of Buddhism SE) and some people will join in then, temporarily.
It is also possible to have (i.e. I think that software maybe supports announcing) scheduled events, however we have no scheduled events like that to announce.
Also any subject matter experts might find it easier to answer questions on the main site than in a chat room (for various reasons, including that people can take their time to ask well-asked questions, and people don't need to coordinate their schedules to be in the chat room at the same time, etc.).
Some other SE sites have ultra-active chat rooms (e.g. CodeReview.SE has this chat room) which has people chatting all the time ... IMO having a dedicated core of users in the chat room (and on their meta) is part of the reason why they're graduated (not a Beta site any more) ... I think however that they use[d] their chat room for chat ...

To discuss the weather
To discuss each other
To discuss their site
To encourage each other to participate (post, vote, and edit) more on their main site
To discuss what to post on their meta

... but not instead of posting content on their main site (the content remains as Q+A on the main site).

If this form of chat exist it would be easier for Bloggers and other web masters to link our community properly.

I happened to notice recently that, for example, this page (and probably every other lecture of his) links to Buddhism.SE as a place to ask questions about the lecture. The link include an 'alan-wallace' tag (currently the site contains no questions with that tag).
Probably that's a proper way to link to the site. See Can I support my product on this site? Maybe there are users who are 'watching' (i.e. who have favourited that tag.
Alternatively I suppose a blogger could link to a tag like mindfulness if they thought that would interest their readers.


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Shouldn't we have a "Sankhara" tag?
Snaskara or Sankhara is a commonly used term in both questons and answers so wouldn't it be nice to have a Tag for it?

You cannot create tags independently on this site. They should be created when asking the question by users who has enough privileges to do this. I believe you wanted this tag added to the following question: What is the process that creates "Saṅkhāra", which I have done. This would add the tag to the list of tags for future use.

Thanks Suminda!

I'm not sure I have an answer but here are a few thoughts.

Tags aren't really important for single well-defined words. Take "dukkha" for example: you can find lots of posts by searching for 'dukkha' ... because it's easy to search it isn't very necessary to have a tag.
Tags are useful though for the following purposes:

Searching doesn't work because of translations -- a post might contain the word 'dukkha' or 'suffering' so it's good to have a tag (see also What language should our tags be in?)
Tags are good for categorizing -- for example a question about alcohol might be tagged with 'addiction', 'precepts', 'sila', etc.
Tags are good for schools -- we try to use 'theravada' or 'mahayana' etc. for example when we want the answers to reflect the orthodox perspective from one specific school
Tags might be useful for users to 'favourite' or 'ignore' -- for example I might decide I never want to read questions which are tagged 'science' or 'kamma', in which case I could add those tags to the list of topics I won't see, in my user profile

A while ago I sanitized the tags on meta (i.e. reviewed and edited every topics to ensure its tags made sense) so I think that all the tags on meta are used in a regular/predictable way.
People haven't done that same job on the main site, so the use of tags there is hap-hazard and random, with people adding tags whenever they feel like it, not using existing tags, not knowing what the existing tags are, not having a grand plan for the way in which tags ought to be used, and so I don't find the existing tags-in-general there very useful/understandable/reliable.
The one bit of clean-up that has ever happened so far is that @CrabBucket reviewed and retagged all the meditation topics/tags (see Proposal for retagging meditation questions and corresponding chat in the chat room plus CrabBucket's corresponding edits to topics).

thanks for the answer, you got a good point here.


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Cannot tag a question using the Android app and therefore cannot post a question
I've been trying to use the app, but I'm really disappointed. It's a good anti frustration and patience practice. But I'm sorry to say, it's not been a good app experience.
I've lost a lot of questions, because they keep getting deleted. When trying to add tags, it's just not working. No tags shows up and I can't post without tags.
What is wrong? Something I can do - other than uninstalling it?

When i'm navigating this site from my phone, i just do so from the browser on my phone instead of my app; works just fine. not sure if this is an option for you.

Sorry you're having trouble with it.
I changed this topic's tag from discussion to support. It's possible  but uncertain whether someone knowledgeable will reply (I'm not knowledgeable:I didn't know there was an app, I only use a browser).
There is another web site, meta.stackexchange.com (this site, meta.buddhism.stackexchange.com, is mostly for questions about the content of buddhism.stackexchange.com, and questions about the StackExchange software which we can answer ... whereas meta.stackexchange.com is for problem reports about the StackExchange software, and issues that aren't specific to any single site).
In summary you might find an answer if you read or post a question on meta.stackexchange.com.
You didn't mention what kind of app you're using but Posts containing 'app' there show that site has topics with android-app and ios-app tags.
I'd search on meta to see if there's an existing post that's like the problem you're reporting using a search like https://meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=%5Bios-app%5D+tag however I don't quite know what I'm looking for.
For example your problem might be similar to this one or perhaps there are others like that.

Thanks for your help, it is mainly on the phone I have prblems. The tags are the biggest issue I guess, as I can't post without tags.

As we are still not getting enough question (10 per day) is it possible for some one to investigate and undeleted these accidentally deleted questions.

I think you can see recently-deleted posts (answers and questions) here: http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/tools ... from the description I'd guess that the questions weren't "deleted" as such, instead they were never posted to the site (by the app), and also never saved on the OP's device.

I'd like to add that I really like the site and all you do both on the tech side and otherwise. Because of my job I use the phone/APP, because regular web is a bit small there. Hope it will work out - )


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Functionalities on APP and APP tag
Are there any functionalities in the APP apart from plain writing and cut/paste? Is there no toolbar, I cant seem to find one. And how about HTML/link and the simple > _ and ** tags, do they function in the APP?
It also seems that when I use the APP on the Android phone, it don't allow tagging which is a condition for posting the question. That makes it a bit difficult. Am I the only one experiencing these challenges?
Should there be a tag called app or functionalities APP (probably not good English, but you get the point)?

Unfortunately no-one on this site seems to know enough about the app to be able to answer questions about it.
See also this answer.
I suggest you ask on the main meta.stackexchange.com site instead. It's quite a busy site, I apologise in advance if any answers there are brusque ... let me know if you need extra help with posting there.
There is an android-app tag on that site.

FYI, though I use the regular desktop browser, I never use the toolbar ... I type in ** and > and []() and so on by hand, using the keyboard. Those markdown characters are interpreted by the server, not on the client side, so it doesn't matter how (keyboard or toolbar) you get them into the post.

Thanks. I'll put on my armor of concepts (Mr. Concept's Iron Shirt) and dive in!


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Footnotes in Q and A?
I think I've seen someone put footnotes in both questions and answers? Is this a feature I just can't find, a feature for only moderators or not a feature at all? Would it be an idea to have this feature if it's not already one?

Would it be an idea to have this feature if it's not already one?

Beware that there are 20,000 feature requests on meta.stackexchange.com.
It's not that they never implement new features, but generally I hope to learn to make do with whatever the existing features are.
Markdown footnotes? (which I found using this search) is tagged 'status-declined'.


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Why does sexual promiscuity not lead to the three lower realms?
I posted this in an answer:

Regardless, random acts of performing consensual oral sex outside of committed relationships leads to 'rebirth' in the hungry ghost
  (addiction), animal (shamelessness) & hell (suffering) realms. It is
  quite obvious the significant amount Western women over 40 years of
  age using
  antidepressants is probably largely due to their former sexual
  promiscuity & broken relationships.

Then I read the following comment to the above:

I am downvoting this answer with regards to overgeneralizations that
  doesn't reflect buddhism .

Why does sexual promiscuity not lead to the three lower realms?
Also, why are sex addiction, wrong views, chronic loneliness, chronic anxiety, loss of self-esteem, depression & chronic sadness not "lower realms"?
Why does the 1st comment not reflect Buddhism?

Hi DD! I really expect to keep this conversation in the kindest way possible, without passive-agression or subtle insults to each other. About the question, I don't have a proper answer, but in my opinion, the assumption of depression because mostly about sexual promiscuity and broken relationships might be an overgeneralization. There might be lot of other, even more predominant causes for insatisfaction in women of that age, but as I don't have any study or evidence at hand, I'm not in a place to say what those causes and factors might be. Kind regards!

Why does the 1st comment not reflect Buddhism?
Consider, "Shark attacks cause of loss of limb. It's quite obvious the significant number of people without limbs is probably largely due to shark attacks."
That's some theory but I'm pretty sure that it's diabetes (or, in a few areas, land mines) that's the more common reason for loss of limb.
I guess that's what the OP meant, by "over-generalisation".
I presume there are other reasons for antidepressants;
they say common causes of depression include:

For some people, an upsetting or stressful life event, such as bereavement, divorce, illness, redundancy and job or money worries, can be the cause.

... also ...

Stressful events
Personality
Family history
Giving birth
Loneliness
Alcohol and drugs
Illness

If it were me rather than you diagnosing a cause (not that I should, especially), I'd suggest e.g. perhaps a lack of kindness or generosity, possibly a lack of physical exercise, maybe system social oppression (sexism) -- as well as society's ignoring, failing to teach, the causes of happiness and unhappiness.
Possibly you've seen some examples (of anti-depressant use) in your personal life, and attribute that (unhappiness) to broken relationships. I don't think it's kind to generalise to the population at large -- people might experience "broken relationships" even though they were never promiscuous, or become depressed for other reasons. You might to be tempted to say, "they must have done something wrong", but I'd fear to engage in "victim blaming" and "adding insult to injury" and general misogyny.
Also it might useful as a cautionary tale ("don't be promiscuous, kids, or you'll become depressed!") -- but I don't see it as an especially "Buddhist" diagnosis -- because something I admire of Buddhist doctrine is that it's prescriptive and actionable. So it isn't ...

You were bad in the past so now you're in hell, your fault

... and instead it's ...

The present and future aren't predetermined by the past, your action in the present is effective

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


text:
Where is the question that I can put this answer about sexual and rebirth?
The question that I answer for has deleted. However, I think this answer still useful. So I searching for the question that match with my answer.

You need to recite paṭiccasamuppāda-pāli & ariyasacca-pāli. Everything
  perfectly and completely taught in tipitaka.
Rebirth (jāti, upattibhava) depend on avijjā & taṇhā (upādāna) &
  kamma (3 saṅkhāra, kammabhava).
3 taṇhā = kāmataṇhā, bhavataṇhā, vibhavataṇhā (sacca-pabba).
Whatever is good kāma/bhava/vibhava (piyarupaṃ, sātarūpaṃ) such as
  beautiful nun, is what is attached by
  kāmataṇhā/bhavataṇhā/vibhavataṇhā such as you love to sense about
  nun/you love to be a nun/you love to leave your male faculties
  (purisindriya).
Bhavataṇhā cause of kamma, so the example cases are:

Your love (kāmataṇhā) to sense (kammabhava) about nun, will cause a male rebirth.
Your love (bhavataṇhā) to be (upattibhava) a nun, will cause a female rebirth.
you love (vibhavataṇhā) to leave (upattibhava that cause of the other difference kind of upattibhava) your male faculties, will cause
  a female rebirth, that is difference kind of male rebirth.

You can receive bad effects in every sex, so tipitaka and commentary
  never specify the sex as an effects of kamma, except when the sex is a
  very significant cause of good/bad effects, such as
  purisindriya/itthindriya. For the example, a woman must release blood
  every month, so a regular woman often week more than a regular
  man, in physical body. So in regular case, female rebirth is
  suffering more than male rebirth.
However, that example doesn't mean that tipitaka of commentary specify
  the sex as an effects of kamma. That example is just an effect of
  kamma-bhava that depend on taṇhā. So, if male in the example has an
  enough strong taṇhā, he will not rebirth as a woman, but he can
  rebirth as a bloody man instead.

The question that I answer for has deleted.
Yes, its author deleted it.

I don't care the deleted answer. I just finding the question about sex and rebirth to place my answer. I have searched, but I didn't found. What kind of keyword I should to use for searching.

Are you saying you don't care about the deleted question, but that instead you want to find and answer any other different older question about gender and rebirth?

There is According to Buddhism, how can a woman get a male soul? although I'm not sure that's about rebirth. There is Gender : Is it truly what it seems? but that's a downvoted question and tagged anatta rather than rebirth. There's Karma of Birth? but that's not specifically about gender. And probably many more...

To search question I add is:question to the search, as explained in the Advanced Search Options. So for example https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/search?q=is%3Aquestion+kamma+gender

That search find Is gender a result of Kamma? which might be just what you're looking for.


text:
How can I explain hundreds page in this topic?
How can I explain hundreds page of the path of purification chapter XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, some part of chapter I&III, and Abhidhamma knowledge to @dhammadhatu?
I think he asked the reason to number saṇkhāra. And I answered by the method to number saṇkhāra with source and example. What I was wrong?
https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/30171/10100

I tried to explain (summarise) your answer in comments ... starting here.
I guess one might need to "chat" with DD ... and/or try to summarise (in your own words) whatever you link to ... summarise, quote from, and explain (in your own words) how or why what you're quoting and referencing is relevant to (i.e. is an answer to) the OP's question ... which (a summary) isn't always easy to write.


text:
What is Buddhism and who is Buddhist?
There was recently a question about chakras -- What are the original colors of the 7 main chakras? -- which, while not being particularly well asked, was closed with a raft of negative comments saying things like “chakras are Hindu not Buddhist” and “Buddhism doesn’t accept chakras”.
It is not hard to find chakras in Buddhism. Ancient Buddhism no less. There are long-standing systems and Buddhist traditions that have been practicing with and teaching chakras, going back as far as the 6thC or before.  Sure, they aren’t found in the Pali canon - but “Buddhism” as a topic does not stop at the Pali canon.
It would be far more honourable and noble for editors and answerers to stick to the areas of Buddhism that they know something about, rather than to make spurious claims and pronouncements about what they know nothing of.
As I commented in the said question, to claim that chakras are not found in Buddhism is tantamount to saying that the Dalai Lama is not Buddhist. Not only him, but all four schools of traditional Tibet, as well as numerous other traditions of Vietnam, Nepal, China, Korea, Japan, and elsewhere.
You may not like it, but these traditions are long-standing Buddhist, traditions and are recognised as such globally. From the ‘50s (and earlier) vast amounts of work was invested into recognising the importance of working together as Buddhist traditions - not some weird unified catholic sangha but a mutual recognition of diversity and practice within the framework of the teachings of Our Lord Buddha.
Can we please get this sorted out once and for all?  Those who can close - please close for good reasons, not for ignorant ones.
And commentors - really. It’s important to qualify the scope of your comments: who could dispute that ‘chakras are not found in the Pali canon’? But it is too easy to dispute ‘Buddhism’.  You only need to open any number of Buddhist texts of eg the Tibetan Kanjur (the repository of Sanskrit source texts translated into Tibetan) to find mention of chakra.

For instance, "Death Intermediate State and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism" / Lati Rinpoche & Jeffrey Hopkins from pages 14 ... 67 are all about chakras and how they interact with various states of consciousness at death.  There are many publications that detail chakras this way.

Can we please get this sorted out once and for all?

If you do see a mistake, then thank you for commenting as you did, to help correct it.

Tibetan Buddhism and Vajrayana are certainly recognized as part of Buddhism on this site.
I was genuinely unaware that chakras are a part of this tradition and so was another moderator.
The question has been reopened.

I didn't know one way or the other (and so I didn't close it). An alternative to closing it (in case of doubt) might be to leave it open, or to post a comment to ask which school/tradition they're asking about.

@ChrisW Chakras are quite famous as being part of Kundalini Yoga in Hinduism, which has exactly 7 chakras, each with a visualization, color and sound, plus the two nadis and the serpent energy rising up the spine. OTOH, chakras don't seem to be very prominent in Vajrayana. I think the original questioner has no idea either.

@ruben2020, while the questioner is indeed ill-informed, the use of chakras in Vajrayana is very prominent within what is known as the 'completion stage'.  The very oldest tantras are involved with chakras via 'winds/channels/drops' language.  Cf. my comment above (Lati Rinpoche) - a non-tantric text that is informed by tantra, discussing the physical mechanism of rebirth.  The reason why you may have seen less of it is that it is a 'hidden' practice.  I would be interested to know what sources you use for Vajrayana.


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What can we do to attract experts?
It's a fact SE sites that are successful have many experts available to answer questions. Presently, experts are what Buddhism.SE sorely lacks. What can we do about this?

There were many more experts contributing in the past, from different traditions. Some have become completely inactive or left the site. A rare few have disciplinary issues and become banned periodically. Many from older times return once in a while to make a few new posts. I missed the time when we have seen not just Theravadins, but also Chinese Mahayanists, Tibetan and Zen Buddhists posting questions and answers. Unlike StackOverflow, Buddhism.SE also competes with other sites like Dhammawheel / Dharmawheel and SuttaCentral. There are too many sites with too few experts spread across them.

This is suffering from text overload! Most of what is said here doesn't answer the question. Can we have some focus here?

Thank you for everyone's interest in this. I've not read everything written here, but scanning through gave me a better sense why Bud.SE has been having trouble taking off.
What can we do to attract experts?

THE TERRAIN This is the most important factor. Let Bud.SE be as SE sites are meant to be: a Q&A site. Don't turn it into a forum about Buddhism. (Experts don't want to waste their time with free-flow discussion.)
ACTIVELY INVITE EXPERTS Don't be eager to answer question. It's better to let the questioner wait, than to give a poor answer. Use the "share" link. Email experts if you know them personally. Go to websites where you know they are found and place the question and the link in the right places.

That's all and that's a lot.

To be clear, are there examples on the main site where it has being turned into a forum and not a Q&A site? I ask because I think we know that theory (i.e. that SE is for Q&A and not a discussion forum); but have we been failing to implement or moderate that in practice, if so may I see some example[s] of what you're referring to?

I'm not saying it's epidemic, but it happens enough where "answers" aren't answers, but side opinions (which should be comments, if at all). There's also assertion of that (as an "answer" and other comments) in my first self-answer effort.

I see yes, you're right -- a lot of those answers are quite tangential on the main part of the question.

@ChrisW Here's a job for the Moderators!

Tangential answers are not too unusual (and not forbidden) e.g. on SO -- if another answer already says 80% of what can and needs to be said, and if you have something to add, you might add that as an additional answer, and that's assumed to be potentially relevant to readers (and the OP) interested in the topic. Unfortunately in this case many of those additional answers addressed the bit of your question where you said that people are "teaching" on the site, which might be splitting a hair and a relatively uninteresting meta-topic. But you're right, maybe we should be stricter about answers.

What kind of question would you like to answer? Re. invitations, Lanka would obviously (because he put a bounty on it) like an expert answer to this question: How to deal with our aversions & judgements? I'm not sure it's an "expert" question but perhaps an "important" one -- so, may I invite you to answer it.

Maybe a reason it can seem more discussional is because different Branches of Buddhism may have very different replies to certain types of questions. And another: there may be simply mediocre answers which are helpful & are intended to be helpful, yet leave things out.

"Don't be eager to answer question. It's better to let the questioner wait, than to give a poor answer." - I think anyone is free to attempt an answer to a question. Whether it's a good answer or poor answer can be evaluated by votes.

@ruben2020 I thought this comment, from when the site started, was a fair summary. And IMO the only possible remedy for a "poor answer" is to attempt a better one, given there's no mechanism for deleting "poor" answers. Still I gather from this answer (and Ven. Yuttadhammo's last meta-post) that experts like they don't want their answers to be "lost in the noise" -- but I don't know how to fully accommodate/implement that (except to some extent e.g. try to moderate anything hostile).

Some thoughts on this:

Experts in Buddhism (at least Pali Buddhism) would be experts in the language of the texts (Pali) and may other forums questions and discussion on Buddhism goes hand in hand with that of the language of the texts. Even in universities in Sri Lanka, the Buddhist departments are named Pali and Buddhist Studies where the word Pali precedes Buddhist Studies as without knowledge of the language of the texts one cannot lean the doctrine properly. Forums which have attached experts allow Pali as they naturally discuss Pali along with the doctrine.
Improvement of the quality of content also will lead to having experts participate. The content would be largely directly from Suttas or Suttānuloma and also from Atthakathā. Most of the content here are Attanomatika or personal interpretation and opinions and where Suttas are referred to what is discussed are the translated meaning of the English words than the original meaning in some cases. Experts may be put off in participating on a site with largely questionable content. So every participant would be encouraged to lean thoroughly from a formal source or authority then contribute what one has learned.
Community members who ask questions are not experts themselves who vote and accept questionable answers which are well formulated and articulated than based on the correctness of the content provided. I am not sure if anything can be done about this than trying to get experts to participate in which case proper answers will get the deserving votes, still acceptance is up to the user and will be limited by their knowledge.
Also, people voting for the sake of it can also be a problem as doctrinally wrong answers can get a lot of votes implying to a novice that this is correct. Also, voting should take into account other content from a particular user vetting it to be doctrinally correct otherwise their reputation may imply mastery of the doctrinal position or depth of practice.
Not use certain terms in a derogatory sense which might put off experts in the area especially monks. E.g. hinayana - noun: a pejorative name given by the followers of Mahayana Buddhism to the more conservative schools of early Buddhism. The tradition died out in India, but it survived in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) as the Theravada school and was taken from there to other regions of SE Asia. (source:hinayana) when In 1950 the World Fellowship of Buddhists declared that the term Hīnayana should not be used when referring to any form of Buddhism existing today. (source: Hinayana).
Content from all traditions should be equally welcome without trying to limit content on whatever pretext both intentionally or unintentionally (due to lack of knowledge). When moderating care should be taken not to alienate or lean toward any particular tradition (knowingly or unknowingly) especially in areas which different traditions subscribe to opposites or emphasize different aspects holding the other opinions to be controversial. If one lacks the knowledge to make an impartial decision I think it is best that one holdback. E.g. question on Jahana and Sukkha Vipassana should be equally welcome as Thai Forrest, Pa Auk and other Samathapubbangama vipassana schools emphasises Jhana practice and deemphasizes dry vipassana while Mahasi and other Sukkha Vipassana Schools deemphasizes Jhana and lean towards dry vipassana. Similarly use of noting and not using noting Mahasi and Goenka traditions.
We should accept both Pali and Sanskrit tags on equal footing not to alienate or prefer one tradition over the other as Theravada practitioners will want to use the Pali tags and Mahayana practitioners will want to use the Sanskrit tags. The questions should have the tag added by the user. Inability to have the relevant (Pali) tags may put off some Theravada contributors who might be experts.
Have more complicated or challenging questions. Experts may not be attached by mundane or simple questions. They will want something which is more challenging and stimulating. E.g. some sites have a challenge questions scheme:

How do weekly topic challenges work?
https://quant.meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=Question+of+the+week
https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=Question+of+the+Week

Are there specific current site policies which need to be changed to implement these suggestions? Your item #2 for example suggests that answers to a question about the meaning of a sutta must be based on Pali commentaries, and we should prohibit answers based on a user's personal interpretation of their reading of the suttas' English-language translations?

Item #3 (and #4) suggests that people shouldn't be trusted to vote. Or perhaps that there should be another quality control mechanism -- e.g. deleting "questionable" answers -- to ensure they can't be upvoted.

Re. your #6 I don't know enough to prefer one tradition or school of vipasanna over another! So I presume I "hold back" as you say a moderator should. Though I remember your being suspicious that a previous moderator belonged to one tradition rather than another -- even then I don't remember that affecting whether "content is welcome" and whether the moderation leans to one tradition (though the moderator as a user may have taught one more than another).

Re. your #7 I think you want to undo these decisions -- Bug report; “suttas” tag is automatically changed to “suttras” after posting -- maybe delete the tag synonyms and ensure that 300 existing topics are correctly retagged with either suttas or sutras.

I am not saying prohibit anything. #2 means base answers from the Tripitaka, if such an answer cannot be found then extrapolate from the Triptitaka failing which refer to commentaries failing which authoritative texts, failing which give one's opinion in and hierarchical fashion. Though I have not mentioned it above, if it ones opinion state that explicitly.

#6 even after the change of moderators where were some question on Jhana which were closed if I remember right.

#7 can be implemented for newer content if there is a technical issue. Also if I remember right there are 2 types of tag equivalence in one case both co-exist. Maybe we can get SE's help here.

#3 & #4 unless we have a larger user base with more experts votes are an unreliable indication. As votes signal acceptance of content, this might send a wrong message to experts, but there is nothing we can do about it other than trying to get more experts involved.

#7 Moderators can undo tag-synonyms: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/70710

#6 essentially is don't poke the hornet's nest in areas and topics where practitioners may sensitive and/or cherished opinions on.

#7 Moderators can undo tag-synonyms I expect so. But I imagine that reviewing and retagging 300 topics would take most of a day, and I don't know that doing that would attract even one extra expert. Is that something you want to do yourself by the way i.e. systematically review all topics tagged sutras and retag many of them to suttas? All the tags on the main site are haphazard, at one point I reviewed and rationalised all the tags on Meta posts, but never tried that on the main site.

I am not sure if this will attract any experts but Sanskrit tags (Mahayana preferred tags) will not be forced on people who want to use Pali tags (Theravada preferred tags). Old posts can perhaps stay Sanskrit which the OP or someone answering can edit it if they care about what tags are used.

I see there are other synonyms which might be more worthwhile and don't make sense to undo -- e.g. anatta/anatman and paticcasamuppada/pratityasamutpada etc. suttas/sutras might be used as a meaningful distinction, the others less so. It was originally you who suggested they be merged.

I said ... merged, if both can be used.

I think the best is to use synonyms with the master being English which is a neutral language. Sutta&Sutra -> discourse,  paticcasamuppada&pratityasamutpada -> dependent origination, anatta&anatman -> not-self, etc. but again the posts may not retain the original tag or will they retain the user-provided tag?

Looking at your first point, do you think it may make sense to allow Pali Q&A on this site?

@ruben2020 To be fair any question about the meaning of a specific Pali text is probably on-topic. What was once considered off-topic was a question about Pali ("how do I learn Pali?") unrelated to any specific doctrine. It was thought that the language as a subject isn't on-topic (though any use of the language might be) -- similarly this isn't a site where Chinese and Sanskrit (and so on) are on-topic.

@ChrisW Yes. I agree. Otherwise, the floodgates will open to other languages too.

Pali is held at an esteem position by Theravada Buddhists and Pali is exclusively used to write Theravada texts. Same cannot be said about general Chinese and Sanskrit as these are not exclusive to writing Buddhism. Successful forums on allow Pali also. As for Chinese and Sanskrit dialects specifically and exclusively used to write Buddhist scripts should be on-topic also to be fair. Also, https://dharmawheel.net/ (Mahayana) does not have Chinese and Sanskrit but https://dhammawheel.com/ (Theravada) has Pali. https://discourse.suttacentral.net/ also allows Pali.

Saying Pali is off-topic would sentimentally put off quite a few people. People who are proficient in Pali would be naturally experts in Buddhism also. So this would be put off many experts in chiming in. Theravada Buddhism is also called Pali Buddhism and in our country many university departments are named Pali and Buddhist Studies with Pali appearing 1st. Removing Pali being off-topic will remove at least one factor which put off in joining and contributing. Pali being off-topic will be poking people in an area they might be sentimental in. ...

... This evident as many past Theradadian participants didn't take it well also and also left the site. When making decisions like this one must pay attention to peoples sentiment, culture and value systems. Afterall Buddhism has a cultural and quasi Religious side also. Otherwise, we cannot hope to attract new participants if we keep rubbing them the wrong way.

I kind of agree, I'm personally only interested in Pali to the extent that it's meaningful Buddhist text, and I don't want to say officially that Pali is better than Chinese, but if someone is interested in the linguistics of Pali that seems relatively harmless and not worth the risk of offending them. I don't remember it (i.e. saying that Pali is of-topic) being a big decision, it's come up about 3 times in the history of the site  -- one of which was here which was actually answered (usefully) several times as well as being closed.

Re. your #8 another initiative I liked was [meta-tag:book-of-the-month] -- unfortunately I spend a lot of time here moderating and answering questions, not sure I ought to spend more time participating in another initiative myself. Would you like to try to organise a "topic of the week" program (posting on Meta or in chat and so on)?

Another instance when a monk came to the site his 1st Pali question was also closed (but later reopened after you made it related Buddhism). But he did not participate afterwards. I think Pali should be on-topic to accommodate potential experts.

#8 for this to be successful one should have access to people who know certain topic areas so a someone who teachers dhamma with access to other teachers would be the best candidate to organise it. Maybe @KumāraBhikkhu can do it?

I guess there's already an SE site for Chinese language. Do you think that Sanskrit should be on-topic too? Sinhala and Thai, Tibetan and so on?

Only languages in which the Tripitaka is exclusively written in. The Theravada canonical texts are in Pali hence this can be on-topic. So Sinhala, Thai, Chinese will be off-topic are these language not exclusive to writing canonical texts without other use. Both Classical and Vedic Sanskrit will be off-topic as well for the same reason. With the exceptions of the dialect exclusively used Mahayana canonical texts (Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit) to be fair to Mahayana participants. Essentially only Pali and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit  will be on-topic any other languages will be off-topic.

Everyone is welcome to vote here -- Proposal: Pali should be on-topic

Are others of your suggestions actionable -- i.e. new policies to make or new actions to take?

#5 Some old decisions on the use of Hinayana. #7 try to have both Pali and Sanskrit tags if not use English tags as the master with both Pali and Sanskrit linked.

Looking at the current synonyms, which English words would you like the site to use instead of anatman (no-self I suppose?), sutras, nirvana, karma, samatha? And you'd want to use alms instead of dana, craving instead of tanha, dependent-origination instead of pratityasamutpada? And do you want to replace (with English) other Pali tags, like dukkha, which don't currently have synonyms?

If the Pali and Sanskrit word is the same like Dana(generosity) and Dukkha(unsatisfactoriness) not need to change but can have an English synonym. sutra + sutta - discourse, nirvana + nibbana - liberation, karma + kamma - action, samatha - tranquillity (since we have not used ś we can leave it as is), anatta + anatman - not-self, atta + atman - self,  paticcasamuppada + pratityasamutpada -> dependent origination, sunyata + sunnata - emptiness, etc. Retaining the tag the OP added is be the best solution, but if this is not possible, then change to English is the next best.

Maybe leave them Nonchanged: Maybe create a brief glossary somehow, perhaps within an introductory, for very oft encountered directly translateable terms such as कर्म/karma/kamma/etc, darma/dharma/damma, but to affix new metameanings to additional English terms would create additional ambiguity & specialised memorisation burden, And would require exacting knowledge ofl the variations of the terms & Sanskrit Pali Thai Khmer +++ characters, and many contexts, in order to be done well, and then in the end it would tend to be arbitrary, since there might not be exact English equivalents

And different Branches of Buddhisms may have differing usages: an immediate example being that of dukkha/(unsatisfactoriness), which can be extremely unclear to many people since unsatisfactoriness can be very nonspecific, cf the borrowed term dukkha is already fairly established & considered; eg, in a Buddhist sort of context, karma would generally be understood as karma, but the word action might mean karma, or a sort of adventure movie category, or a tort suit, etc, and thus could be less plain when reading it, especially if a question asked re karma effects re viewing action film

As the site changes pali tags for sanskit i.e. sutta is auto changed to sutra etc., the site is unfriendly to Theravadin, EBT, or let-me-speak-in-words-I--have-chosen experts. Increasingly, this seems a sectarian preference for Mahayana. To attract experts across sectarian lines, reduce these discouragemments, and educate people as to why diversity is cultural rather than an aspiration.

It is sometimes the little things like this which go a long way either for the better or worse.

I assume it must be important to improve the quality of questions, in any way possible.
I recommend for example this description of 'a good question' -- perhaps a question which "shows research effort" etc.
This site's Moderation policies for Questions is exceptionally lenient (permissive) of any "low quality" in a question, for the sake of being Welcoming to new users.
I usually upvote any question that's on-topic, which I think is worth answering and/or which I hope someone else should answer.
I propose we begin to consider holding at least the regular/established users to a higher standard -- and vote down (or even vote to close) their question if it's "unclear" or "shows no research effort" -- i.e. if it isn't asked well.

perhaps questions/ answers are sometimes deliberately more generally phrased in order to include a broader range of meanings

All the most popular (upvoted) questions that I've asked (see here) have been quite long, including references to what I didn't understand

Your link is much appreciated, and the question list! Thank you!

As well as "being attractive" there's "not being off-putting".
I always imagined that seeing people arguing on the main site, or being argued with, would be off-putting to experts, and that's one of the reasons why it's my job as moderator to prevent and/or delete that.
I'm mindful of something a Pacifist (a young Quaker) told me when I was young,

I'll discuss anything with anyone -- but as soon as it turns into an argument, I walk away.

I kind of get that impression from Ven. Yuttadhammo's parting words,

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

and,

What I was looking for here was a place where I could answer specific questions about topics on which I was somewhat of an expert, under the assumption that I (or anyone) could provide the single right answer to the question as a resource for Buddhists searching for answers online, without having to deal with (much) controversy or opinion.

So it's been my (not always successful) intent to shield people who answer from controversy, to limit the number and tone of comments.
Simultaneously (and perhaps at odds with the above) I think Yuttadhammo also suggested we exercise stricter quality control over content:

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

suggests that some questions which are currently allowed should be off-topics (our moderation policy for questions is unusually permissive compared with other SE sites)

answers based on personal opinion are acceptable

suggests there should be more quality control on answers too, and that perhaps a site policy like What about providing sources? should be reversed (and/or some other mechanism for the moderators or community to police answers.

Given that he doesn't have time or interest to answer all questions, that's a reason why I've tried to answer so many questions myself. I try to answer some of the questions with a reference, I figure if any expert also wants to post a better answer that would be welcome, otherwise at least the OP gets some answer, and the users who are relatively experts might be free (i.e. had the time) to answer question that I couldn't.
And so I've been a prolific poster though I'm relatively novice.

Anyway I see my job here as being to provide a hygienic, sheltered, orderly environment in which people can post -- with a minimum of "rules" they need to learn, and a minimum chance that their post (questions or answers) will be criticised -- because I think that's the kind of policy and moderation that the community asked for (the majority of people expressing their views on Meta when the site started).
Some SE sites are a bit exclusive. Stack Overflow is for any programming question, but some people find it hostile (their questions are easily closed), it's mostly for professional or professional-level programmers.
Mathematics.SE says it's "for people studying mathematics at any level and professionals", there's a separate site (MathOverflow) for "research-level mathematics".
Our policies are unlike those of other religion sites on SE too, which forbid "pastoral" questions.
It would be slightly counter-intuitive tome to imagine that changing our policies to increase quality -- to forbid more types of question and to criticise or delete more types of answer -- would make this site more "attractive" (to experts) or "popular" (to users in general).
Anyway you might want to criticise or give me feedback on:

The policies we defined -- see the faq topics
The way in which I moderate -- whether I have a right balance between permissive, advisory, and prohibitive
The way in which I post -- given that I'm a prolific user I hope I'm not "part of the problem" and doing more harm than good here (and a reason for the "sore lack of experts")

objectively evaluatory,cf judgementally categorised: Seems to be largely excellent moderation: fair, thoughtful, calm, receptive to information, evenhanded, knowledgeable, consideration for information preservation, eclectic analysis re eclectic topics & contexts, diplomatic, straightforward, noncondescending, considered, polite, good English skills, appreciates & demonstrates The True Spirit of Buddhism, helpful, reluctant to trash people, helpfully guides, appreciation of context, unselfish, attention to detail, respectful, overall perhaps singularly beneficial to site, instructive, kindly,+

The interest to encourage new participants with knowledgeability re Buddhism at this site is a reasonable, and people with knowledgeability/ expertness re Buddhism would be expected to be ordinarily present within a typical group of persons looking up a Buddhism website! So encouraging new & continuing participation on the site for All people will result in a larger pool of text analysis scholars as well! So, encouraging new & encouraging continuing participation by everyone, & avoiding discouraging things, is sensible & would result in more new participation & more continuing particpation by everyone, including knowedgeable/ expert people!
*It may be good to continue to be, as some put it 'more lenient' cf some other sites: Buddhism is broad subject with thousands of specific analytic topics,  existential aspects, & tangible topics. Buddhism is a broad philosphical/religion area generally based on participation, honesty, helpfulness, generosity, & kindliness, and so to be presented in the same format developed for some other sites. Persons(including Buddhists) tend to perceive Buddhism as being associated with kindliness, so if they see something which to them seems contrary to that, they may consider it unappropriate. And the more that persons might be familiar with The Teachings of The Buddha, the more they might notice both obvious & subtle aspects of a site.
*The site seems somewhat directed to speakers of English: so encourage having the English used be more usual English usage. For example, maybe stating what an 'expert' is being defined/considered as could be helpful. The term expert re Buddhism is considered by many here to be a person who has studied/ studies Buddhist books and is knowledgeable regarding Buddhist texts & lists of texts. That might confuse some persons, since they might construe a Buddhism expert to imply unusually scholarly Monks/Nuns, Abbots, Masters etc.
*Encourage/ allow having scholarly questions indicate at their outsets their textual analytical nature by having a specific relevant Name/ word in the Title, (maybe even in actual Pali etc), before presenting most of the text of the question. That could make it easier to notice questions of more technical/ analytical content, as well as make it easier to notice less analytic questions: more efficient for everyone.
*Scholarly analysis of Buddhism texts can be very helpful, and is one of many aspects of Buddhism. When most people(including knowledgeable experts)see sites named Buddhism, they might tend to expect a broader site than only textual analysis, which is comparatively specialised. Also, posts dont seem to currently contain much Sanskrit/ Pali/ Etc text, which terms & text can be useful(& many persons' PCs can support the character sets to some extent), since Romanisations can be ambiguous for the same actual terms. And pronunciation of Romanised material can be misleading, especially if exact Branches & Texts aren't cited. And some links seems divergent from the material theyre listed as references for, and if new participants encounter that, they may be less inclined to continue.
*Some things, which if observed, might be unencouraging/ offputting of participation re a Buddhism site, maybe moreso the more knowledgeable re Buddhism the oberver, such as:
+aspects of the format of the site: the scoring listings etc is part of the basic featuring of the site. But perceptive persons would likely notice & appreciate how this site is operated evenly & nicely wrt all users! (eg, this site might be operated less like a mathematics or programming site: Buddhism q&a isnot the same as, eg, what does 1+1 equal in a standard Decimal System, so instead of deleting anything other than 2, in Buddhism, there could be correct aspects to several different answers!) And if something is actually Incorrect, then maybe suggest something gently in a comment: And knowledgeable/expert people will notice such things, even if that q&a hasn't anything to do with them directly.
+re extensive replies which are interesting & correct yet would seem likely to be nonunderstable by the Asker, or are out of context re the context of the question: leave the answers up if theyre nice & well intended
+avoid automatic favouritism to high scores: yes, listing scores is apparently part of the structure, but may discourage new participation, especially if seen as such
+avoid automatic disfavouritism to low scores: eg, please dont shoo them away because they arenot deemed worth paying attention to: experts/knowledgeable persons observing that might be unencouraged by that & other such barriers to participation. Buddhism isnot like an arcade game where certain sets of scores need to be arrived at & then all of a sudden scores for the same thing are multiplied by a hundred or a thousand: the accounts are largely nonfunctional & languish until they accrue a certain number of points. Simply the listing of scores may tend to bias impression(which may be intended), yet new contributors will be encouraged if they observe that contributions from people of all score levels are appreciated & respected.
*Be encouraging and nice to everyone! Nicer for everyone, and will encourage sincere study of material which guides such kindness and helpfulness.
*Synopsise text, & reply in helpful ways to people sincerely asking asking for advice (a kindly example of this is a helpful comment below from a Participant who is clearly knowledeable re Buddhist texts)
*Continue gentle editing etc of all answers & questions, which encourages participation from people with technical knowledge to reply to perhaps mundane questions; kindly steering questions, & answers which may seem sort of tangential to reply to a specific question is encouraging. And seeing such atmosphere may encourage everyone, including new technically knowledgeable participants!

An "expert" can be Ganthadhura and/or Vipassanādhura. Ganthadhura - "The Duty of Study necessitates gaining a knowledge of the Word of the Buddha in a manner conformable to one’s understanding, the mastery of one or two Nikāyas, or indeed of the whole Tipiṭaka, bearing it in mind, reciting it, teaching it." Vipassanādhura - "On the other hand the Duty of Contemplation, which leads to Arahatship, involves frugal living, satisfaction with a remote lodging, fixing firmly in one’s mind the idea of decay and death, and the development of Spiritual Insight by persistent effort."

In my uneducated personal opinion/understanding, "expert" is relative -- "anyone more expert than me is expert" would be one definition. If you are an expert then "my peers and colleagues" might be another definition.

I think you're saying you'd prefer to see Pali written in a non-Roman script (character set)? All the translated Pali I see anywhere is in a Roman script (with extra accents) for example Ariyasāvako saddho hoti

yes, excellent points, as long as persons are kindly & helpfully replying and part of it isnt literally uncorrect(re something very fundamental eg The Noble Eightfold Path etc) & hence literally misleading, then thats good, and if something is uncorrect then can gently guide to correctness! the essential aspect to try reply understandably to Askers' questions &  share The Teachings of The Buddha!  Thank You

Pali does not have a written script so the local script is mapped the Pali alphabet. The following might be of interest Pali Rosetta Stone

Yes, & संस्कृतम् , though looking now, online texts currently seem obscure or unavailable in character format (so guess that idea isnt so helpful); & the very nice link to the Romanised Pali Text will be helpful for developing smoother pronunciation reading Romanised Pali! Thank You for the nice comments & links!

& Yes, អក្សរខ្មែរ seems easier to read than Romanised Pali, & the Older includes several characters used especially in Buddhist texts, but it isnt as widespread outside of Asia, so mightnt be very immediately helpful for many persons likely to be viewing this site. Thank you

To create a new question from this
As suggested by Suminda, I think a weekly or fortnightly topic challenge might be interesting, though I'm not sure how much participation would be generated.
This question shows a good example.
Topics can be like:

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

Good topic list. Maybe best to spin off a new thread with these topics on "weekly or fortnightly topic challenge".

@SumindaSirinathS.Dharmasena OK. Will do.

@ruben2020 Turning this into a typical Buddhist website?

@KumāraBhikkhu Bhante, No. Please see this page. The idea is to stimulate question generation using the topic challenge. But so far, nobody is interested except Suminda.


text:
Is Buddhism.SE meant for theoretical/scriptural purpose only, and not for real-life practice?
I ask because I'm surprised, in fact disappointed, that this question was closed: How do I deal with idle chatter/people that talk a lot?
(I've retitled it as "How can I talk to my mother (who idle-chatters) without getting angry?")
The question is about dukkha, not the kind in the books, but in real life. It's about defilements, specifically anger towards the mother. It's asking for a way out this dukkha, to be free from the anger. Is this not Dhamma?
If Buddhism.SE does not allow such real-life Dhamma questions, please specify it.
(I've added "bug" as one of the tags because it's the only one among those I have to include that seems most appropriate. That the question was closed at all is a 'bug'.)

[meta-tag:bug] would be for reporting an apparent bug in the software to SE -- not for discussing with the site's community a site-specific policy like "what's on-topic?" and "was this question rightly-decided?" etc.

Agree, but I had to add either this or another irrelevant tag, or the system wouldn't let me submit the question.

Buddhism.SE is meant for real-life practical questions and not only for theoretical/scriptural questions.
Or as the Tour says ...

Buddhism Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people practicing or interested in Buddhist philosophy, teaching, and practice.

... though there are also a few questions about Buddhist art or iconography, and that kind of thing.
I think Andrei mentioned once he even personally prefers practical questions -- see this answer:

To me this site is supposed to be primarily about Buddhism (i.e. the teachings/narratives inside the Buddhist universe). I personally also encourage questions requesting to relate specific Buddhist narratives with personal practice.

I believe the question was closed for the reason given, i.e. not because the question was practical but perhaps because it didn't seem overtly Buddhist.
I posted this comment ...

It might be worth asking this question on the Interpersonal Skills site or even on the Parenting site?

... because I thought it might be on-topic on those sites -- and, because the question didn't mention Buddhism, the communities on those site might be able to answer the question skilfully or expertly (to help the OP).
I suppose Andrei took that a step further and closed it here.
If this question were reopened I'm not sure where you would draw a line, that a question must be "about Buddhism". Maybe it should be reopened. I realise that there is material in Buddhism (or "Buddhist narratives") about anger and speech and parents.
I think that normally in the past we've been permissive about questions but less permissive about answers -- if a question can be answered without the answer being based on Buddhism, even so it shouldn't be -- and if it is then that answer may be deleted (by a moderator). The argument is, "The question isn't explicitly Buddhist but by posting on this site it's implicitly asking for an answer based on Buddhism, so an answer that isn't based on Buddhism isn't on-topic".
(If the question were asked on other sites, any answers there wouldn't have that constraint.)
Moderators deleting answers can be kind of unwelcome too. Or an answer might be challenged -- "Explain how this answer is based on Buddhism, otherwise it will be deleted". An answer ought to be both, an answer to the question and based on Buddhism. If a question isn't explicitly about Buddhism then that may be more difficult.
Andrei's of the opinion that questions have an incline:

The fact that question can be answered well, does not mean it will be answered well. A good question has an incline, so its answers naturally turn out good.

I expect the question could be reopened if there were an extra hint of Buddhism in it -- if it were evident why the OP posted the question on this site.
Questions from new users are more difficult to answer, in that you have no clue about what they know already, "where they're coming from" (and this user is not only new but "unregistered" and didn't reply to comments etc.).
And it's difficult to edit someone else's question, you don't want to change the meaning of it, to make it ask something which they didn't intend to ask. But -- if you want to reopen this question, and without any further clarification from the OP, perhaps it would be a good edit to simply add your introduction as a new first paragraph to the question:

How can I talk to my mother (who idle-chatters) without getting angry?
The question is about dukkha, not the kind in the books, but in real life. It's about defilements, specifically anger towards the mother. It's asking for a way out this dukkha, to be free from the anger.
How do I deal with idle chatter/people that talk a lot? Specifically with my mother. I talk [etc.]

Why does it even have to "seem overtly Buddhist"? I consider myself relatively an expert in Buddhism, and I'm happy to help people out with the Dhamma that I've established myself in—online or offline. Imagine someone, knowing what I'm capable of, coming to me for help, but have not phrased her problem in a way that "seem overtly Buddhist". Do I then tell her I don't help in that sort of thing and ask her go to someone else?

Andrei has reopened the question, I look forward to being able to read your answer.


text:
Are questions about Sanskrit off-topic?
I think Buddhism involved Sanskrit, but Sanskrit is a language.
Are questions about Sanskrit off-topic?

I think that people previously (a bit more than a year ago) argued that questions about Pali, specifically about learning Pali, were not on-topic -- see "A good source to learn the Pali language? [closed]".
I'm not sure why that is, but it may be partly because there are an infinite number of questions you could ask, and they're not interesting to people who don't want to learn the language (and flooding the site with questions about Sanskrit would alter the main interest of this site).
Note that Buddhism also involves Chinese, and other languages, but those languages too are not themselves on-topic on this site.
So, for example, I suggest that you shouldn't ask questions about Sanskrit grammar etc.
On the other hand if the question is directly related to Buddhism then it's more on-topic, for example,

"What does the Sanskrit word nirvāṇa mean?" would be on-topic (though probably a duplicate), used with the terminology tag.
You might also ask a question about the meaning of some (Buddhist) Sanskrit text, if you don't understand it (if you can't find a translation of it that you trust and understand elsewhere).

I don't think we've had that type of question before, so I don't know whether such questions will even be answered (i.e. whether there are users on this site who are able to willing to answer them).


text:
Can I post like this topic?
See in this topic:
What are timeframe were pali canons, included commentaries done, especially Mahavihara-Theravada?

Did you intend to post it in order to answer this question: Which suttas in the Pali canon are relatively early or late?
It looks relevant as an answer to that question, and I would welcome it there, if you posted it as an answer.
Or did you intend to post it as a new question? If so can you be more precise about what question you're asking? Currently it looks like you're not asking a question, instead you're answering a question (i.e. you're asking "What timeframe?" and answering that question yourself).
If you're asking a question that you want other people to answer, can you be more explicit about what question you're asking? Are you just asking whether they agree with everything you posted, possibly trying to start a discussion?
Usually on this site we prefer it if you ask questions for other people to answer (and answer questions which other people have asked).
See FAQ index (summary of site policies) especially including May I share my research, by posting questions on this site and self-answering them? -- generally we prefer that you don't post questions only in order to answer them yourself.
Does that make sense?

I don't mind about topic combination. But I think a smaller scope topic should put inside a biger scope topic. I decide to begin that new topic, because of topic title's scope. If I post on a smaller scope topic, it will not make sense to reference that topic in the future. The example: the author ask about a,b,c but he has know only a and c, so his topic title has only a,b. But the answer must has c, too. Then when I reference to c in that topic's answer, the title will not make sense.


text:
What is wrong in my answer?
What is wrong in my answer?
He ask about "no believing == no kamma".
I answer "kamma can give their resultant, although people do kamma without believing" by the example.
But why vote down?
https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/21710/10100
I don't mind about vote, but I want to know what is the problem in my answer?

People downvote even good honest attempts to answer, just because they disagree with something. And your answer might seem not serious: mosquitos probably are not intelligent enough to hate people; and virtually all people kill mosquitos, so anti-killing people would hardly really hate for that. So your answer might look to someone as a poor attempt to joke. besides, the answer was not very polished and didn't explain the core mechanism of karma, so it was obviously not of very high quality; that might help people to decide to downvote it. Just my guess...

How can I modify it to be better? For polish.

@BonnWarapol, when I see high quality answers, I feel: (1) they are well thought over, and point precisely to the most important, core ideas, (2) they are thoroughly formulated, (3) with apparent clarity of mind. In other words, every such answer is like a tiny scientific article or Dharma talk. I myself try to make my answers this way, even though that requires some time and efforts every time. Not sure that I always succeed in that, but probably often to some degree. Check my answers and tell me what you think.

That is called 4 paṭisambhidā and 5 paṭiveda of ariya.


text:
How can I know and contact pa auk's people who living inside this site?
I want to contact them about tipitaka-translation, meditation, asking, and answering.
How can I do?

I don't know.
If you removed "inside this site" and just asked, "How can I contact pa auk's people?", that might be an appropriate question to ask the main site.
Have you tried pages of contact information, for example

http://www.paaukforestmonastery.org/contact.htm
http://www.visuddha-m-c.com/vmc%20sg/contact.html

Asking questions to identify people on the site (e.g. "How many people here are Theravada?") is one of the few types of question that's defined as off-topic ("Polling questions"), so if you do post on the main site (and I guess that more people will see the question if it's on the main site, some people won't even notice that you posted on Meta), try to keep the question impersonal: i.e. "How can I contact any Pa Auk people who might help me" and not just "How can I contact Pa Auk people on this site?"
If you do that, and if there are any Pa Auk people on the site who saw your question and who wanted to volunteer, then they might.
So maybe ask a question like:

How can I contact Pa Auk's people?
How can I contact Pa Auk's people? I want to contact them about tipitaka-translation, meditation, asking, and answering.

Also, "contact them about asking and answering" isn't very clear. Did you mean, "I want to contact them, to ask for help with translating the Tipitaka, and with questions about meditation?"

It would also be on-topic to ask specific questions, for example about meditation, on the main site. I don't know what questions you would want to ask, but any question, for example (perhaps a silly question, but an example of how to format it so that it's asking about Pa Auk):

Pa Auk and jhanas
Why does Pa Auk teach that jhana meditation is optional? Who decides, how is it decided, whether someone does or doesn't omit the development of jhana? And how does that work in practice: are all types of student together or do they practice in different places?

You could also search the main site to read all topics which mention "Pau Auk".