text:
What makes a comment obsolete?
This question is difference than Guidelines on flagging obsolete comments.
In this question I want to know what exactly makes a comment obsolete. I was looking through my flag history and noticed that the only declines I have are on obsolete comments.
When should I flag a comment as obsolete?

I use it for anything that's been taken care of with an edit. I don't flag obsolete comments very often but when I have I think they've all been accepted. Got any specific examples of what was declined?

I'm pretty sure I flagged this one by you actually and the one below it by FMS. Both were declined. without a comment given. I think that's it really.

I do have obsolete flags that are helpful, I'm noticing now, so maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing.

Not to be too obvious, but it's for when a comment is no longer needed, typically because the question or answer was edited.
For example, an answer that originally cited no references, if someone commented pointing this out, and the post was edited to fix, the comment would then be obsolete.
The same might go for a question that was off-topic. Someone comments, question get fixed, the comment is now obsolete.


text:
What is the best way to address inaccurate comments or invalid reasons therein?
Ward was kind enough to respond to my inquiry on a negative downvote on this post. I admire, as before, his forthrightness, and I will be the first to say that I appreciate feedback to a post because it can assist in clarifying, and shaping a post.
The question here is that Caleb has not accorded me the opportunity to address what to me are inaccuracies and invalid reasons that Ward was kind enough to share. My comments have been deleted and only Ward's remain. Aside from the unfair bit, any future reader of the post may get a skewed view. For reference see the original comment thread screen-shot.
How should this be addressed?
cf. This comment. Similar action by @El'endiaStarman as Caleb.

Is your constant use of "Mod Caleb" meant to sound sarcastic and disrespectful? I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you don't intend it that way, but as an FYI, it really comes across that way. We all know Caleb is a moderator, so there's no point in phrasing it that way if you're not mocking him. Doing so isn't going to get you anywhere.

@DavidStratton  Please go back to our past correspondence and you will note that once I realized you were a Moderator, I believe I even started using Sir to address you. I use Mod as I would say Mr.. The site as well has a distinguishing symbol next to the Mod's name. You all know what you would have done to me had I been disrespectful to any user let alone a Moderator. Because of the perception, I will stop using it. Doing so isn't going to get you anywhere. - All I would want and expect is a fair shake.

If my 2¢ is worth anything, I agree with David. I've been trying to give you the benefit of the doubt but it's always bugged me. Additionally the way you over-format your posts contributes to this. There are formatting conventions that are related to tone and italicizing names usually means a slowed-down emphasis that, in something like "_Ward was king enough to share.", comes across as sassy as if you were trying to imply nobody else was kind enough. Names don't get special formatting like that in ordinary English typesetting so unless you intend some funky intonation, better to leave it be.

"Ward was [kind] enough to share." How is being cordial, courteous and acknowledging to a person meant to sent a message to the others that they aren't.?

@FMS I didn't say anything about "meant to". Your intentions are for you to judge. What I did just explain is how it does comes off in way you may not have intended. There are normative patterns in language usage and typesetting that, combined, give tone to printed words. I just explained one of those norms and how it conflicts with your non-standard usage. You can take it under advisement. Or not. But I'm not going to hang around to turn this into a debate.

What is the process to address the disturbing issue of a Moderator censoring a user?

"Ward was [kind] enough to share." How is being cordial, courteous and acknowledging even come across to anyone as sassy as if you were trying to imply nobody else was kind enough?

... especially in light of the comment trail that has now been provied that shows me thanking AffableGeek, being appreciative of his answers and his contributions to the site.

If you want to mark out a word as referring to someone's username then use the @ symbol, not italics.

After pointing a comment - with @-to-one-to-whom-comment-is-intended, one cannot use @another-name in the same comment. I am not sure why someone's chosen style to italicize a name should even feature here in this discussion other than 'look at what you are doing' when that's just a chosen style.

It's because putting someone's name in italics makes it look like you are meant to read their names in a hoity toity voice.

@curiousdannii Please see this answer of mine. Please look at the second bullet point under Further reading. Perhaps you may be able to give me the benefit of the doubt.

@FMS I'm not saying you meant it that way, I'm saying using italics to indicate an alternative inflection is very common, and that you should be aware some people might interpret your formatting in that way. Formatting in references is entirely different than in normal text though.

Why the "[nearly all]" qualification and implication that we are hiding something? The screen-shot I provided you has literally every single comment that was ever on that post, deleted or not.

@Caleb I was mistaken and I am sorry. I will correct. It was why the -1 downvote before Ward's comment that I thought was missing and now I see it.

@curiousdannii Thank you for the education. I will make the adjustment.

@El'endiaStarman Any chance to provide the comments deleted?

It should be addressed by not continuing to carry on conversations on comments. That's always been the rule. If it gets beyond one or two comments back and forth, it's become a discussion and should be moved to a chat room.
It's fair to address inaccuracies or ask for clarification, but if it gets too long, take it to chat.

one or two comments - where are those in response to Ward's? There isn't one comment in response to Ward's. That opportunity has not been accorded to me or accurately all my attempts to respond have been shut-down by *Mod Caleb' who kept on deleting my comments.

Perhaps screen shot all comments with the deleted ones so we can see them. I think it becomes a public matter when a mod is accused of censoring a specific user.

@Caleb Did you get a screenshot of what you deleted?

@fredsbend With a reminder that comments are meant to be ephemeral, here are the deleted ones. This has nothing to do with censoring anybody, it has to do with debate and discussion not belonging it comments. The only reason Ward's got left (and the theological half of it made me want to include in the cleanup) is that part of it was solicited DV feedback that could be acted on but wasn't yet.

@Caleb Both you and DavidStratton haven't shown to fredsbend and others why this is cannot be considered censorship. Why should someone act on feedback unless we first sort out inaccuracies and invalid reasons contained therein? Thereby you have judged that Ward's feedback is valid and correct while my response to his comment isn't. For example I corrected his statement on the location of the sanctuary lamp with links to two pictures that are not in agreement with his statement. So unless he provides say a church law, that's not feedback I can act upon.

It's feedback on your question, so it's up to you to act on it or not.  (Keep in mind that you recently rejected someone else's attempt to improve one of your questions.) Nit-picking debate over one part of the feedback is pointless.  The point of the feedback is to (possibly) improve the question; debating where a lamp should be placed is not going to improve the question.  What about the point that it's obvious Pope Francis is bowing towards the Tabernacle?

What is the process to address the disturbing issue of a Moderator censoring a user?

You can ask the Stack Exchange staff to intervene. Information here. I'm pretty sure they would side with Caleb on this issue though. After reading the comments I cannot see why you are claiming to have been censored.

@FMS  I don't know why this isn't sinking in, but comments are not the place for hashing out the accuracy of answers. If you wish to have a discussion with someone, take it to chat. Period. Do not hold discussions in comments. That's right in the help center. Enforcement of site guidelines isn't censorship. You are free to discuss the accuracy of anything you like, in chat. Quit begging for feedback and then arguing with it when you get it in comments. If you must argue with others because you disagree with them, do it in chat.

The comments interchange here is arguing?

No one has yet to answer:  My comments have been deleted and only Ward's remain. Aside from the unfair bit, any future reader of the post may get a skewed view.

@curiousdannii Thank you for the information. Let the Stack Exchange staff do what the need to do.

@FMS - That comment exchange wasn't arguing, but it was too chatty. Thanks for pointing it out.  I've cleaned it up. It was also an extended conversation in comments, not constructive, and not what comments are meant for.

Only 6 more comments and this should be auto-flagged and I can move this all to chat where it belongs.  This is also an extended discussion, not meant for comments.  I'm only not deleting the lot of them because that would look like I'm censoring the OP.

@DavidStratton Let's exhaust this discussion before I take it up. I am in agreement to moving this to chat. Please note its the weekend so I do not foresee as getting through in the next couple of days.

@DavidStratton On meta, I personally would just let all comments remain, save offensive or truly non-constructive ones. Meta is a place for discussion, so why move it from meta?

@Caleb I'm with you that there was too much there and deleting most of it was the right move. However, I think when someone makes a comment for their downvote reason, then there should be allowed at least one comment rebutting it, however poorly made, especially if it comes from the OP, assuming the OP does not want to take the suggestions of the DV comment. Optionally, the whole thread could be deleted, leaving none to claim preferential treatment or abuse.

@fredsbend I would agree with you in the case of a rebuttal comment that was defending the accuracy of the answer against criticism, but such was not the case here. Even the title of this meta posts hints at the difference. The objection here was purely nitpicking the accuracy of a bit on a comment, the resolution of which would have had no bearing on the original post. As ward himself pointed out, right or wrong, that comment issue would not affect his vote and his explanation of other reasons why he down voted would still stand.

@fredsbend That being said I did (several hours before your comment here) end up deleting all comments as the OP has clearly read but apparently doesn't intend to do anything about the feedback and it doesn't serve any on-going purpose for other readers.

As I'm sure everyone knows, comments are not considered an important part of an SE site's functioning.  They're for limited supplementing of the information in a question.  They're always subject to deletion at any time.
And one thing that comments are specifically not intended for is extended discussions.
Now, keep in mind:
You're the one who's always asking "Why the downvote?"  You keep asking that question here, you've posted about it on meta.SE...
If someone volunteers a reason for downvoting or answers that question when you ask (and I really should know better than to do so), it's not an invitation to debate.  It's just to provide feedback - feedback that you keep saying you want.
So if you want the feedback, take it.  Don't complain about it and don't try to refute it.  If you aren't willing to learn from it - or at least accept it quietly - then STOP asking.
The only thing you might have a valid issue with concerning that particular comment exchange is that my lengthy explanation of why I downvoted looks out of place since your "why the downvote?" comment was deleted.  But OTOH, it shouldn't look out of place to you since you think it's desirable for people to explain downvotes.

I don't think it's appropriate to tell an OP to just quietly accept your reasoning for downvoting. If the OP legitimately disagrees, then a comment in rebuttal is perfectly appropriate. As a passive reader of a post like this, I would want to see both comments then decide for myself if the reasoning is valid and I should up or down vote. If the issue remains unresolved then I think both comments should persist. But I think more than two comments from each is excessive; move it to chat at that point.

@fredsbend The OP doesn't have to "accept my reasoning" - if I leave a comment saying why I downvotged, it dosn't force the OP to do anything.  And if you're going to vote at all, you should be doing it based on your own evaluation of a post - not mine.

Incidents like the one that led to this post, and comments like this reinforce my conviction that explaining downvotes is actually a bad thing.  :)

Any comments I might read under a post are effectively part of that post. The point I'm making, if someone chooses to comment their downvote reasons, then the at least one comment objecting to the reasons is acceptable, especially if it comes from the OP.

I think perhaps that you need some personal, practical advice. So I'll be looking at you specifically in this post. I might say things that appear harsh or such, but I am not trying to offend you.
The first thing I will note is that I notice you often organize your sentences oddly. I almost wonder if English is not your first language. If it's not, that does explain a few things. If it is, I'm not sure what we can do here or why it seems this way to me.
The second thing is that you format your posts and comments oddly, or non-conventionally. For example, when quoting someone in comments you italicize instead of "quote". A few others do it to, but I think "quotes" are much more common. The convention for italicized text is that it is for emphasizing the text. You might want to emphasize a single word in a sentence to imply a stressed inflection if it were spoken or you might want to emphasize text that holds the crux of your statement to ensure your audience gets it. In your posts, I feel like you would do well to use headings when necessary, but sparingly and a little less bold text. This is more of my personal opinion though and about posts not comments.
Now on to some rules for you that I think will help you when replying to downvote comments.

Get the gist of the downvote comment. Read the comment carefully and start with the assumption that there is a legitimate issue with your post and the comment points it out.
Realize that the comment might have more information in it than the specific issue with your post. Neglect replying to that other information; it distracts from the problem in the post.
Examine your post closely from the point of view that the downvote comment has given you. You are trying to determine if the comment is accurately describing a real problem with your post. If there is a real issue with your post, then fix it and let the downvoter know. If it's not a real issue with your post, comment in the follow way:
Start your comment by repeating what the downvote comment is saying. Something like "So you are saying .... ?"
Because you disagree, follow that with "I don't think that's a real issue" or something similar.
Explain why it's not a real issue in one or two sentences. Try to be very clear and concise. Avoid commenting on anything else; stay on point.
If there are other things to comment on that are unrelated to your reply to the downvote comment, keep them out of your reply and make a new comment instead.

I hope this helps you.

The following is a reply to a comment on this post:
The mods tell me there are 28 deleted comments on that post. They tell me it was a disaster of all kinds of talk; it was not just about your post. I've had such exchanges with Sklivvz before, so I have a pretty good idea what it looked like. Further, I've worked with the mods a good deal in the past. I trust their judgement and consider them upstanding persons. I also have seen two clear examples that don't favor your accusation of censorship: The one with Ward, which all can see, and the one with Sklivvz that I personally saw and replied to. I'm convinced that deleting them was the correct action.
In light of:

the massive exchange of 28 comments,
that I trust the mods because of personal experience,
that those mods inform me that the 28 comments were filled with all sorts of nonsense, including ad-hominem, and
that I have personally seen two examples that justify the deletion actions,

in light of those four points, I am inclined to believe that posting those comments will further distract from the real issue, and will likely not prove moderator misdeed.
I will ask them one final time, but whether they do or do not screen shot them, I'm pretty confident that every comment that has been deleted should have been deleted.
Either way you should take my advice above (the seven points). Separate the issues with separate comments. Do not post meta related content on the main site, save for when a specific question is being discussed in meta, then link to the meta from main. Try sticking to the guidelines I've given you above for a while then see if your comments get unjustly deleted. But remember, all comments are meant to be deleted eventually anyway. Trust that we (mods included) are not taking part in any censorship, and you should assume that we protect site quality first, then we protect your interests to keep you posting good content. We earnestly want to help you understand the nature of comments on this site. So I suggest following the guidelines above for now, then you will eventually see how it works.

This OP wasn't looking for advice but to resolve issues resulting from unconscionable Moderators conduct.

@FMS The title of the post is "What is the best way to address inaccurate comments or invalid reasons therein?" Then the body says something else. The advice is here for you if you want it, even if it is posted in the wrong place.

@ fredsbend Can't fit everything in a title can you? The complete question is the Title and Body: "What is the best way [...] because Mods continue ..."

@FMS Every time you say things like "unconscionable Moderators" and "the disturbing issue of a Moderator censoring [me]" you lose a huge amount of credibility.  Until and unless you have SE staff acknowledging that a moderator did something out of line, you should avoid those sorts of exaggerations.  They instantly take the focus off of what objectively happened and turn discussions into an exchange of complaints.

@Ward I think the phrase from FMS is missing a apostrophe. It should have been "unconscionable Moderators' conduct." The conduct is unconscionable, not the moderators, which wouldn't make sense anyway. In general, I do agree that the heavy language hurts his case more than helps it.

@DavidStratton said above, "It's fair to address inaccuracies or ask for clarification." How is that fairness accorded me when moderators delete comments meant to do just that? These are the issues at hand.

@FMS Sort of. The example with Ward is a little nitpick on small fact the comment presented and doesn't really address the complaint about the post. Whether you or him are right about the nitpick, it doesn't change that his main complaint remained unaddressed. It took the focus off of the post and onto that. The one I saw with Sklivvz was a little difficult to understand and also brought meta issues, this meta issue, into it, again taking the focus off of the post and on to something else. You can see there that El left my comment there to Sklivvz, but deleted my other meta related comments.

@fredsbend I keep refocusing ALL on this issues at hand. Please recall as regards Sklivvz, even you pointed out that his comment and vote were not justified, yet my response to him was deleted leaving only his, hence my complaint.

@fredsbend Either way, "unconscionable" is an opinion, not a fact, and leads to "Someone is wrong on the Internet! I have to fix it!"

@FMS The comment I saw brought meta issues to the main site. That will be deleted every time, whether it's in a comment, question, or answer, and regardless if that comment also contained legitimate input about the post it is under. It's an action I agree with. I made some additional comments to you on that post about this meta issue as well. They were deleted too (which I expected would happen, but sooner than I thought). My comment that remains there is about the post only. If you keep a comment about the post, it will remain there until it becomes obsolete. I don't know about other comments

@fredsbend Not a single comment of mine that addressed the comment of Sklivvz remains, not one. That's a problem. And It is not the first tine. Now two Moderators have done it. This ought to be disconcerting and concerning to ALL.

@FMS Your removed comments include ad-hominem attacks. I cannot defend Sklivvz's miss-use of the comment system (and will take that up separately) but your comments were removed either for that reason or for including meta issues and being discussion unrelated to the post. There were comments left addressing the issue of Sklivvz's comment, but only the ones that stuck to the issue of the post stood a chance. You have to separate what you're doing with posts from whatever personal issues come up. Comments are simply not the past to debate theology (much less attack individuals).

@FMS It would be concerning if your comments didn't also include meta issues, and other things, as Caleb says above. But your comments did include other, unrelated-to-the-post stuff, so, no, it doesn't bother me that they were deleted; I support that action. If your comments keep to the post, then they will remain until they are obsolete. Remember, all comments are meant to be deleted eventually.

@fredsbend Let the Mods produce the comments that were deleted before you take sides. That would be the fair thing to do.

@FMS I've made an edit to address what's going on. I'll ask the mods again for the screen shot, but I'm not going to dance around anything if they give it to us. I will be blunt and to the point. I will take a copy of that screen shot and and give one to five word reasons why each comment should have been deleted. If I am convinced of unfair deletion then we will go from there, but I do not think that is going to happen.

@fredsbend That's fair thank you!

@fredsbend 1) The person who first brought up censorship, if I remember correctly, was you and not me. 2) DavidStratton answered above, "It's fair to address inaccuracies or ask for clarification." I keep asking, in the two sample posts Mods have deleted my comments, where is a single reply comment from me that addresses the comments from others that the Mods left? This accusation not is not from me, but from Mod DavidStratton to the other 2 Mods who deleted. Look at my post above, I edited in DavidStratton's statement in to focus the post and Caleb has edited it out.

@fredsbend 3) After deleting our comments El'endiaStarman, said, "After Sklivvz and FMS, both of you should know better than to carry on a discussion in the comments", any evidence in this to support ad-hominem attacks against Sklivvz, as a reader without seeing the actual comments may be inclined to conclude from Caleb's comment above? Numerous of my post were not even theological, as again Caleb seems to imply, in fact they were very similar to your questioning Sklivvz's attributing to my post something my post did not say. Please note Caleb now agrees Sklivvz's abused the system.

@fredsbend ... yet his comment remains ....

@FMS Sklivvz's remaining comment is about why he downvoted your post, and it is about that only. Two of your comments I have seen either did not address the gist of the downvote comment, or dragged other issues into it, like this meta issue. I'm inclined to believe the mods when they say something because of my personal experience with them.

I don't know how many more times I can say this in how many more ways. Your replies do not seem to indicate that you have learned anything from my efforts thus far. I feel like I have gotten nothing through to you. If the mods give us the snapshot of the comments I will go through it and if I conclude no unjust deletions, I'm going to drop this issue and be done with it.

@fredsbend Just the comments please! And we can go from there. I do not believe you saw the comments before El'endiaStarman intervened. I am the only one not afraid to face them. Wasn't it only after your exchanges with Caleb that finally ALL comments were removed from the first post that lead to this Meta post?

@FMS Oh, I've butted heads plenty with Caleb, especially when I first started here. He can be difficult. I'm not afraid to tell it like it is to anyone, on SE or otherwise. I simply don't agree with you, and do agree with the mods and comment deletions. Caleb deleting Ward's comment eventually was probably an effort to appease you and drop the issue, but we are still here. In light of that, Ward actually has a legitimate complaint, but he really doesn't care that much. Most of us don't care if our comments get deleted because they are supposed to be.

@FMS I'm not going to look at this issue any more until/unless the mods snapshot the deleted comments. I don't feel like I can convince you that the deletions were acceptable.

@fredsbend Thank you! If you noticed, I have selected DavidStratton's answer. That answered me and that showed that the other two Mods were  not right in unfairly deleting a response comment. I am sorry you do not see it that way. Thank you again for some stretches in which you tried to be balanced. I am moving on. And I agree on the screenshot, I am the one ready to face them.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Is there a reason the site-local Meta privileges page is blank?
The main, network-wide Meta has a privileges page that lists the privileges for that Meta, but it looks like none of the local sites have that information on their privileges page (e.g., Christianity's privileges page; I checked Writers and Stack Overflow as well and they also lack the information provided on Meta Stack Exchange).
Is this a bug, a misfeature, or is the problem on my end somehow?

It's empty for me too. Probably a bug on their end.

Mine's empty as well. My understanding is that privs on meta match privs on main, so it not necessary to really have it. On MSE, however, it is a full site of its own with rep and everything, so it makes sense that it is there.

I'm pretty sure it's NOT a bug.  You can actually earn reputation points on the main META site.  You can't do that on this META.  ON all other META sites, the points shown are those from the main site.  On the main META site, the reputation is independent.  Since you don't earn rep on the other META sites, there's no need to explain privileges.  Your Privileges on this META are exactly the same as those on the parent site - Christianity.SE.  You'd probably need an SE developer to answer for sure, so maybe this would be better asked there.

Oh, look!  My guess was good!

@DavidStratton Your search skills are impressive. I looked (admittedly briefly) for reputation limits on Metas at Meta.SE, but only found arguments about adding rep. requirements distinct from the main sites. I suspected that the fact that rep. isn't earned on local Metas was involved, but I wanted confirmation that posting an answer on Meta had a 1 reputation requirement (because of a suggestion I made on Writers about enabling new uses to chat about NaNoWriMo).

More than anything, this was an oversight on our end.
As David Startton surmised, child-meta sites (sites that have an attached parent Q&Q site - such as this meta site, meta Stack Overflow, meta Writers and so on - which excludes Meta Stack Exchange, as it doesn't have a parent Q&A site) do not have their own privileges, given that both reputation and privileges of each user on it are inherited from the parent site.
As such, all existing links to the privileges pages point to the privileges pages of the parent site.
However, we were not accounting for direct access to these pages via the URL - people actually typing in the address of the page on a child-meta.
I have made some changes on our end - when trying to go to the page on a child-meta, we will be redirecting to the parent site pages.
This will be deployed in the next build (rev 2014.10.7.1915)

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


text:
Why are C.SE questions no longer well received?
Please see these newest C.SE questions, and go on to select page one and compare with page 196.
On page 1 the votes on questions range from -4 to +5, whilst on page 196 the range is +13 to +56.
It appears to  me that questions are no longer well received as they used to be. Perhaps those who have been here for sometime can shed some light on this.
It appears odd that a question might have a total negative vote yet have a few answers with positive votes.
What could be contributing to this and how could the trend be reversed?

I'm absolutely not referring to you here, but... It would help a lot if experienced members would quit answering off-topic questions, and just vote to close them instead.  I've seen several questions that should have been closed outright that have answers with positive scores.  Not only are they bucking the site's guidelines, they're getting rewarded for doing so.  Sticks in my craw, that does...

You should a) link to some specific questions and b) be more precise about "well received."  At this moment, the 3 newest questions have no answers and are rightly closed and downvoted.  Actually, a better idea might be to focus on your second issue, e.g. : Why do some questions with net -ive votes get answers with +ive votes?  Are those good questions?

Thank you both. You welcome to edit my question in a manner that may encourage the discussion. Please allow me some time to digest and incorporate your good comments.

I took a quick look at all the newest from Oct 8 (today) to Oct 3. All the closed ones look justifiably so and it's probably about 25% of the total. Doesn't seem too bad to me.

In the first two pages there are only two open questions with negative scores, and they're -1 or -2. So I don't see any big kind of trend happening.

I don't get it... This is your question, and you say "I am hoping for a discussion and..." and "may encourage the discussion." so you should figure out what it is you want to discuss, or to clarify what you think the problem is.

Question has been amended.

Comparing the vote ranges with a 'random' page of questions that just happens to have one of the "all star" questions that show up on the first page of the questions sorted by votes list is hardly fair. The questions on that list are some of the first most new visitors poking around end up seeing and they collect votes for the mere fact that they already have them. When doing statistical analysis you have to throw out the outlying anomaly numbers or you won't actually end up with meaningful patterns.

@Caleb I sorted by 'newest'. My understanding is that that sorts from most recent to the first ever posted. Is the not what 'newest' sorting does?

@FMS I didn't say anything about how you sorted. I said you picked a page (196 in your case) that just happens to have one of the top questions sorted by votes. That makes it a poor choice for a statistical comparison (in addition to the issues mentioned in my answer). It's not like 56 is a normal vote range for questions from that era.

@Caleb picked the newest and the first page ... the youngest and the oldest ...

On page 1 the vote on question ranges from -4 to +5, whilst on page 196 the range is +13 to +56.

This is a common pattern across every single SE site I participate on - early questions get lots of answers and votes, then as time goes on the number of answers and votes goes down.
There are a few reasons:

When a site is new, the "easy" questions can be asked, later on, an easy question is likely to be closed as a duplicate and it's harder to come up with good questions.
People are more excited and active in the early days of a site

The drop in participation of early joiners typically causes a big change in the dynamic of the site - the early participants are typically more intensely involved and put a lot of work into asking, answering and other activities.

As an SE site grows and shows up in more Google searches, people come and ask questions without really understanding the site - what's a good question, what's on topic, etc.  So those questions get fewer votes, or more downvotes, and are more likely to get closed.

I don't pay as much attention to the voting patterns here as I do on ServerFault, but on SF the amount of voting is ridiculously, pathetically small.  Lack of voting changes a site in a big way:

Good questions don't get as much recognition and people who join later don't rise as quickly in rep
Bad questions don't get voted out of the way

I don't think this one is a big factor here: some really bad questions show up, but they often get a few downvotes and generally get closed.

I think (of course I would!) that the single biggest thing people can do about this is vote more.  Votes are meant to be a crowd-sourced sorting mechnism: good stuff goes up (overall) and bad stuff goes down.

And my understanding is that this site in particular had some major changes in what was considered on-topic along the way. Some questions that are downvoted and closed now may have been legitimately upvoted and left open a couple years ago.

@Ward You have captured it well! Thank you!

@curiousdannii Good comment. Crossed my mind as well.

The comparison in your question is like concluding that a Christmas tree farm must have bad dirt because the tree growth is so under-developed compared to an old-growth forest. The factors Ward mentions are true as far as they go (and I wholly agree that more voting participation is always better) but the "new site syndrome" is only part of what you are seeing. The other issue is, I believe, that you are forgetting to factor time into your perspective.

It takes time for voting patterns to emerge.
There is no way a front page question is ever going to have large scale voting the way an older question might. By definition those are new questions that just got posted. Only a few people will have even seen them yet. On the other hand a page nnn question is going to have been seen and evaluated by a lot more eyeballs, especially if it was a good one and gets some Google juice.
Whats more old questions keep collecting votes over time so they will keep going up. New questions are, in a sense, late to the party and will always tend to be behind the curve.
Questions have a life cycle in which poor ones are improved.
This is not a discussion forum in which all chatter survives to clutter up things for future readers. Instead we are assembling a collaborative mini-encyclopedia like resource that has been curated to be as useful as possible for future readers. Questions aren't just for the person asking them to get an answer and then leave it to rot. This is why we insist on well formed questions and edit so much. Even if the OP got what they want the posts get massaged to be of maximum usefulness in the future.
Questions have a life cycle in which bad ones are removed.
Question deletion doesn't usually happen right away. The first pages of questions are going to be littered with duds that have been closed and/or downvoted for various reasons. However that doesn't mean they hang around forever. Eventually if these are not improved and fixed they will get deleted. You're page nnn example is naturally not going to show all the bad questions from the same era as many of the closed ones will have been deleted by then.

Combined these factors may make it look like the past was a prettier place than the present but that is not necessarily the case. Those of us that have longer memories (or are the ones always taking out the garbage) know that the effect is just the result of the ongoing housecleaning that is part of the SE system. This is how high signal-to-noise levels are achieved.
In order to make the comparison you want to make you would need a snapshot of the first page of questions on some day in the past. That is information you don't have and comparing the current front-page to a set of older questions is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

See your logic. Thank you!

I fully understand and appreciate the need for high level, well thought out, supported ideas, interpretations and theology.  Without these the site becomes simply any old forum of people's opinions.  However, I see way too many questions closed or voted as off topic or not from a specific viewpoint.  At the least downvotes should be required to include specific suggestions how to reword the question.  My favorite rewording is "from a Biblical perspective".
Sometimes it seems the primary purpose of closure is to avoid controversy.  Jesus was highly controversial.  This is the temporal reason why He was killed.  The tendency to insist a question comes from a specific denomination or tradition is highly overemphasized.
If we are all mature or maturing Christians, ultimately there is one answer.  I have visited or attended many different denominations- Roman Catholic, multiple Baptist flavors, Church of Christ, Episcopal, Assemblies of God, charismatic, full gospel, Wesleyan, Methodist and Presbyterian.  Among the great churches I have found far more in common than differences.  A church of Christ minister once told he agreed with a neighboring Baptist pastor on 99% of issues or theology.  It seems overemphasis on denomination hinders the site.
If we are all mature or maturing Christians, ultimately we will come to agreement on the substantive issues.  "God is not the author of confusion."

"In Christ, we [Christians] are all one"  "that day there were added about three thousand souls. ... They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; ... And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart,  http://biblehub.com/acts/2.htm
  Three thousand souls added one day and the next couple verses suggest unity several times.

and

Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. ...  Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.  Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?` "
  http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/1.htm

Certainly, discussions do need to be focused.  Given the open nature of the internet, it is possible to swing the other direction and enable useless controversy by being too open.
There is one right answer to most questions.  I have visited or attended many different denominations- Lutheran, Wesleyan, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, multiple Baptist flavors, Church of Christ, Episcopal, Assemblies of God, charismatic, full gospel, Methodist and others.  Among the quality churches I have found far more in common across denomination than differences.  A church of Christ minister once told he agreed with a neighboring Baptist pastor on 99% of issues or theology.  I guess it boils down to maturing in Christ.
It is still entirely possible on this site to ask "What is the Biblical basis for x?"  Isn't it?  Of course x needs to be a specific question and not a general area.  If this is no longer a valid question format, then given the emphasis on specific denomination, the site should be renamed to denominationalChristianity or academicChristianity or something similar.
Arrghh, I wish I had time to edit this with summaries, highlight my point, etc.  Hopefully, I can back another time to clean this up, simplify it, even shorten it.  Feel free to do so if the substance stays the same.

Wow! What a perspective and approach!

"A church of Christ minister once told he agreed with a neighboring Baptist pastor on 99% of issues or theology." That doesn't mean anything, those two denominations are almost identical. Ask them how much they agree with the Catholic church or with Mormons and you'll see a lot more differences.

There are more questions types that are within community guidelines that you do not mention. Types of questions that are within community guidelines I don't know if you have seen that yet, but new users often find it helpful and there has been little in the way of correcting the analysis, so I think it is a pretty accurate description of the community attitude toward certain questions.


text:
Is there a prohibition against posting another answer?
Background
Before I amended this answer with Update 2, I posted the Summary of the findings so far as a separate answer.
When I selected Add Another Answer a dialog box appeared:

The page at christianity.stackexchange.com says:
Are you sure you want to add another answer?
You could use the edit link to refine and improve your existing answer,
  instead.

Obviously I by posting, wanted to do the former and not the latter.
@Caleb deleted my newest answer and made a comment

Please don't post multiple answers. If you have something to add that
  directly addresses the original question, edit it into your other
  answer.

Issue and question
I am at a loss as to why @Caleb deleted while C.SE allows me to post another answer and after I thought that this was the better approach as my new answer needed to stand on its own. The older answer as can be seen could not be refined and improved to include the new answer.
How should this be addressed?
Given this recent post, how can I not but think this a case of Moderator censorship or targeting?
That deleted answers clearly, correctly, and adequately answers OP and corrects their approach and some statements.
Also, even if only one answer was admissible - and it appears that's not the case - shouldn't I the user be given the opportunity to decide which answer I wanted to keep? After all they are my answers.

I don't see what censorship has to do with this at all. This is a case of correcting site usage patterns, not of suppressing people, views or content. The choice of which answer to keep was based purely on the post date with the earlier one being the natural choice as the base for a canonical answer. The other content is still available to you to use in editing into your post.

@Caleb That choice I should be allowed to make and not have it made for me. And C.SE does not prohibit another answer.

I bet you have probably seen this post, but I wanted to make sure you read through it. Also, I know your not a new user, per se, but you have been a member for only three months, which is not too long. Newcomers: Be patient. You will get there if you follow our direction. Keep trying

@fredsbend Thank you for this I hadn't seen it, But what's its relevance to the post at hand? Please guide me to the relevant section of that post as it relates to this post.

@fredsbend Your comment above is actually the feeling I get, it isn't about 'helping users get to there' but actually molding them into what some have become already and are using unconscionable methods - unbecoming of committed Christians - to remain there. None of answers and comments so far have addressed the issues at hand.

@FMS I linked to the post because I have seen frustrated users eventually rage quit, and it is a shame because they make good posts. I would bet you probably have feelings of frustration right now and that post is designed to encourage you to stick it, work through it, and keep posting. I don't want to see you rage quit and never come back.

@FMS Re: your second comment. Yes, the community on this SE stresses communal behavior, meaning conformity, over individuality. Not that the community wants to change you, but just keep posts in general within strict guidelines to protect the site. SE sites have failed in the past, and with a topic like Christianity, where everyone has an opinion and people get emotional, its a marvel we've made it this far. Every guideline that has developed came from experience and is an effort to increase post quality (or maintain it) and, more importantly, keep debate and personal opinion out.

@fredsbend Wonderful! You are a gem! Btw that was an excellent post you made! You do care! I am grateful you are here. Back to the issue at hand, please go back to the post in which my answer was deleted. Had I given up, that action by Caleb could actually haven been damaging and prevented what we have now. His action ultimately is not productive to C.SE's main aim which is get a correct answer.

The tools provided by the Stack Exchange engine are generic and used for many different sites, but are not all equally applicable. Posting multiple answers makes sense in some cases on sites that could have more than one approach to solving the same problem (for example programing questions looking for an algorithm that solves a problem that might be provided in different languages or there might be multiple solutions). Such is not the case for C.SE. Virtually no questions on this site request anything that could be would equally completely by separate answers. Instead in virtually all cases one comprehensive answer is preferred that covers all the bases and organizes the information in a way that makes it applicable to the original question.
By posting two answers you created a false dichotomy where the answers compete with each-other rather than build on each other. I'm pretty sure that's not what you intended. In the case of your answer almost all the content was complementary and would be better served by being assembled and edited into one cohesive answer that is organized by points, does not duplicate content, and gives the final results in an organized fashion and not necessarily the research process.
Additionally your choice of wording with expressions like "updates", "progress", "so far", etc. are extra strong indicators that there really isn't more than one answer here. This site is not a forum. It's more like a wiki. We don't care so much about the process of assembling information and the "blow by blow" view is not what we keep around for future readers. What we want to see is not an interactive discussion with back and forth between posters, we just want to see the end result where everything is brought together. The most useful answer to a reader a year for now won't be the one that is broken up into segments by research date, it's the one that reads like an encyclopedia entry and organizes the data by topic.

C.SE does NOT prohibit posting another answer!

@FMS I think with your meta post and this answer by Caleb having +6/-0 already shows a mild support that the community does not think multiple answers should be allowed on this stack exchange site. If we get to a +10 I would call that a good support, which makes it a working site policy (which really actually comes from what we are already doing, not usually a suggestion of what to do). It doesn't make sense in nearly every circumstance to post multiple answers. The fact that the system allows it has little to do with the preferences of the community.

So essentially, yes, multiple answers are highly discouraged on this site.

@fredsbend community does not think multiple answers should be allowed on this stack exchange site Then it should be be a feature added to C.SE and not based on a Moderator's own arbitrary rules. Another unanswered question, if an answer is to be deleted, I get to decide.

I agree this is more of a technical defect with Stack Exchange than a social/managerial issue. (Though it definitely isn't censorship.)

@FMS Site specific features (or removal of features) have never been implemented, as far as I know. You can always edit your original post, so you actually do decided what is written under your name. You can simply copy and paste the second answer into the first post, and delete the content of the first post. Personally, when I feel like there are two answers (and I am giving both) I prefer the use of one post and I integrate both of them together. In it's most choppy form, which you could do, I just put a horizontal rule between them.

@fredsbend What I ended up doing. The post does not look pretty.

@FMS See the revisions to this post. I made two majorly significant edits as new information became available. I'm sure you can come up with something to synthesize a single answer from your two.

@fredsbend Thank you! You have been very helpful and I am grateful for that. From you comments here do you think you can post an answer here?

@FMS I doesn't look "pretty" yet because you haven't taken the suggestion to integrate the content and organize it by topic instead of tacking it on in segments by your research timeline.

@Caleb Please allow me some time to review fredsbend's example and figure out the best way to shape and present the answer. Please note the timeline: I said it was not pretty then fredsbend's suggestion was given on possibly  - it might not be achieved - how to achieve that, not the other way around.

@FMS You might review the way some of the top answerers oven on [hermeneutics.se] organize their answers with either an abstract segment to lead off or a summary/conclusion segment to finish with clearly organized supporting points in the body. Jon Ericson, Davïd and ScottS all regularly employ that pattern to good effect.

(e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.)

@Caleb Thank you very much Caleb! This is so very useful! Please give me this weekend to review and then I will be in a position to amend my answer. I was also thinking of others in a similar situation, any chance to amend your answer to include incorporate your comment above into your answer?


text:
Proposal for tagging questions that concern marriage, both traditional and non-traditional forms
UPDATE:
I've since made most of the changes laid out in this tag proposal. This included the creation of the same-sex-marriage tag, the editing of its excerpt, the removal of gay-marraige, and the editing of the polygamy tag and marriage tag excerpts.
To still be done:

There may be questions misusing the marriage tag. There are currently 117 questions with the tag and almost all of them were drafted before this proposal.
There may be questions that should be tagged same-sex-marriage or polygamy. These tags were created relatively recently.

The actions taken can be seen in the tags history and on questions containing the tags.
ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:
We've had a recent headbutting concerning the [tag:marriage] tag. It started when a new user simply thought the tag ought to be inclusive of all the forms of marriage that various groups within Christianity accept. In hindsight, it wasn't the right course to jump in and make that first edit (yes, it was me), however, the tag, or tags, for these things do need clarification and rewrites.
Something does need to be done for these reasons:

There is confusion on how to use the marriage tag. This is our primary concern; users need to be able to quickly learn from the excerpt how to use the marriage tag.
The topic is vast and emotionally charged. We need to tread lightly so as not to offend traditionalists and yet remain inclusive of non-traditionalists.

I propose that we create separate unique tags for the non-traditional forms of marriage and keep the marriage tag reserved for the traditional view.
Evidence of need:
There already exists the polygamy tag and for the most part the community seems to be using it appropriately. There is no bigamy tag nor other polygamy related tags, but I'm not sure we need them as polygamy seems to be inclusive of those variants. There is no monogamy tag, but I don't think we need that either as Christianity's traditional view of marriage is monogamous.
There does not currently exist any tag for gay marriage. There is the homosexuality tag but it is not correctly used on a question about marriage, however the community is inappropriately using it on questions about same sex marriage. See the search results for questions containing gay marriage, same sex marriage, and to a lesser degree homosexual marriage.
How should questions about same sex marriage be tagged? There seems to be at least three terms to refer to this:

same-sex-marriage
gay-marriage
homosexual-marriage

I've ordered these by personal preference and usage. To me, same-sex marriage is a far more appropriate and inclusive term and is just generic enough so it does not exclude any variants nor include any variants that are not the same type, as a plain non-traditional-marriage tag would do. Gay marriage seems both informal and somewhat exclusive to male-male marriages. Homosexual marriage seems more formal, but has the same feeling of excluding female-female marriages. It also seems to bring some baggage with it. Homosexual is a loaded word, bringing biology, psychology, history, and religion with it. That's too much for a single tag to bear. same-sex-marriage is descriptive, formal, and carries no baggage.
The marriage tag proposal (pun intended):

The marriage tag will be reserved for traditionalist views of marriage, that is, strictly one male and one female. This is the vastly predominant view of marriage in Christianity, hence the confusion of attempting to lump in non-traditional views of marriage with it. The excerpt should read:

Use this tag for questions about the attitudes and doctrines regarding traditional marriage (one male and one female). For non-traditional marriages, use the appropriate tags, such as polygamy or same-sex-marriage.

Naturally, the info tab should be rewritten to clarify this, perhaps link to this meta post, and also include links to hallmark questions that are using the tag appropriately (as is already there).
The same-sex-marriage tag will be created for any marriages that are meant to be between two males or two females. The tag excerpt should read:

Use this tag for questions about the attitudes and doctrines regarding marriages that are between two males or two females. For other non-traditional forms of marriage use the appropriate tag, such as polygamy. For the traditional view of marriage (ie. one male and one female) use the marriage tag.

The info tab should be similar to the info tab for the marriage tag, clarifying this, reasoning with a link to this meta post, and links to hallmark questions that use the tag appropriately.
The polygamy tag should be reserved for any concurrent marriages revolving around a single person (ie. one male with two wives) or marriages that are inclusive of more than two persons, whether male or female (ie. "group marriages"). The tag excerpt should be changed to:

Use this tag for questions about attitudes and doctrines regarding polygamous marriages. Polygamous marriages often describe one man married to multiple wives (polygyny); they can also describe one woman married to multiple men (polyandry). The tag also includes marriages among multiple men and multiple women ("group marriages").

This excerpt is in large part brought to you by Matt Gutting. If a need arises to make separate tags for the kinds of polygamy, then we can do that then. Right now, I see no need. Like the others, the info tab should clarify the excerpt, link to this meta post for the reasoning, and link to hallmark questions that use the tag appropriately.

So how about it, C.SE? Will you accept my marriage tag proposal?

I attempted to follow this advice for when tag wikis need to be edited combined with our community need to beat the confusion:

The excerpt is the elevator pitch for the tag.
Avoid generically defining the concept behind a tag, unless it is highly specialized. [This seems necessary in this case.]
Concentrate on what a tag means to your community. [This was the driving point to break non-traditional marriages away from traditional marriage, the marriage tag.]
Provide basic guidance on when to use the tag. [This was the paramount effort in drafting the above excerpts, which is why they all start with "Use this tag for ..."]

This meta post ultimately lead to this one: Suggestion for a minor change to the marriage tag excerpt

What problem is being solved by this proposal? Simply the sensibilities of those who think the marriage tag (not to be confused with actual marriage) is sacred? If so, then I think this is not an appropriate proposal--it violates the purpose of tags, for the sake of political (in?)correctness.

@Flimzy You need to make an answer not a comment so I can downvote it. I think I made it clear why I've made this proposal. I actually spent about half of this post on the reasons and demonstrating the need. If there is legitimate criticism on my reasoning then I'm willing to hear it.

Overall, I agree with @Flimzy on this issue (no surprise there, I imagine). I just wanted to point out that bi people do actually exist, and may be in same-sex relationships. That's yet another reason not to use [homosexual-marriage] as a tag. Of course, genderqueer people also exist, and with them the entire concept of same-sex/opposite-sex can get a bit fuzzy.

@TRiG If you have the time and desire I would love to see a full answer. I think if a need for "genderqueer" type tags arises we can tackle it then. I'm not sure such a need will ever arise.

Upvoted, but with an answer offering a potential modification - I'd appreciate your comments on it.

I whole-heartedly accept your proposal.  Thank you for a well-thought-out and measured recommendation.  It sounds great as is.  It won't entirely please everyone, of course, but it probably won't entirely offend anyone either, which is evidence of a good compromise.  I think defining the marriage tag as the place for questions regarding the traditional form of marriage is appropriate, just as I would expect the marriage tag on Judaism.SE to be about the traditional Jewish view of marriage and the marriage tag on Islam.SE to be about the traditional Islamic view of marriage.

This isn't really an answer, but a comment that's too long for a comment.
I think the key thing to remember when discussing these tags is that we are not defining, nor defending doctrine.  We are using language to talk about complex concepts about which there are many opinions.
Acknowledging that there is a word "marriage" which can mean to some, "one man, one woman" and to others "one man, 1,000 women", and to others "two men", or whatever, is not, by any means, to say that any of these forms are or are not legitimate according to any religions, moral, or social standard. It's simply acknowledging that they do and/or have existed, and that they require terminology with which we can discuss them.
If we refuse to allow a 'marriage' tag to include the possibility of gay marriage, we are not making a statement that "gay marriage is immoral", as many might seem to think. Rather, we are making a statement that "we cannot talk about gay marriage, because that vocabulary is off-limits." That's not meaningful. Even those who wish to make statements about their perceived immorality of gay marriage must use that vocabulary!
So lets keep this discussion on the merits of vocabulary, and not on the perceived legitimacy of particular types of unions.

Why does anything that doesn't apply almost all Christendom need to be mentioned in the first paragraph?

@PeterTurner: But it does apply... to practically all Christianity. Because "gay marriage" and "plural marriage" exist as concepts within Christianity, even if only to say they are illegitimate.  "What is the Catholic stand against gay marriage?" cannot be asked if the concept of gay marriage doesn't exist (regardless of its legitimacy). Words have meanings. Their meanings have no bearing on morality--only on communication.

@PeterTurner: If we follow your reasoning to its logical conclusion, we must rid the site of tags for blasphemy, sin, idolatry, etc, because these practices are illegitimate as well. And if we go even farther, we'd have to rid the site of every tag that not all Christians agree with, so book-of-mormon, apocrypha, free-will, predestination, etc, etc, etc

I think this is good with the exception of the "polygamy" text. You have that reading

Use this tag for questions about the attitudes and doctrines regarding polygamous marriages. Polygamous marriages are typically in the form of one male with multiple concurrent marriages to two or more wives. The tag also includes one female-multiple-males marriages. The tag also includes marriages that among any number of male or female persons (ie. "group marriages").

I've highlighted what seems to me potentially confusing terminology (is a polygamous marriage a single marriage, or "multiple concurrent marriages"?)
Here's a possible alternative:

Use this tag for questions about attitudes and doctrines regarding polygamous marriages. Polygamous marriages often describe one man married to multiple wives (polygyny); they can also describe marriages with one woman and multiple men (polyandry). The tag also includes marriages among multiple men and multiple women—group marriages.

This is shorter and (I believe) clearer.

Yes, much clearer!

I believe I agree with you. Thank you for this. I was quickly running out of mental energy when I first drafted this.

If this were Catholicism.SE, the nomenclature would probably be same-sex-unions, I realize it isn't, but that's my two cents, thank you very much for taking the time to think this out!
How simple is this:
Marriage is the union of a man and a woman with openness to children.
and be done with it. If you want to make it non-confrontational (and still true), we can say:
Most Christians believe marriage is the union of a man and a woman with openness to children.
What really annoys me is that these definitions of marriage leave out starting a family, that's more reflective of our times and culture than anything.  It's not very inclusive of most Christians either.

I don't care if people tag their questions about same-sex 'marriage' as marriage,  they're still asking about what I defined above, they're just asking something to the contrary which is still the same subject.
Marriage is a very broad topic.  It's one of the Seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church. But I don't care if that's in the tag.  The tag should encompass all those unions and I think it's OK to use it in conjunction with homosexuality and polygamy to find what you want, it can even be used in conjunction with same-sex-marriage if you want (I can't prevent that, but it should be a synonym with same-sex-unions).
All, I'm trying to say is that Irregular Situations should be a footnote, not the basis for how marriage is defined talked about in the tag wiki.

Hmmm. I see why union would be preferred, not wanting to equate it with traditional marriage, however, that implicitly creates a support of one as moral and the other as immoral. If we use union instead of marriage, then we would have to do it for all of them, but then no one would use the tags because they cannot find them (people search for "marriage" not "union").

The excerpt is an attempt to guide users on how to use the tag, not define marriage, though some defining turned out to be necessary. I see your suggestion as adding doctrinal definitions to the excerpt, which is better left to answers on questions using this tag. For example, someone might ask what the Catholic definition of marriage is. Your bolded part is the answer. As a tag excerpt though, it confuses things and doesn't really tell when to use the tag. I'm proposing that users do not use "marriage" for questions about same-sex marriage, but use "same-sex-marriage" instead.

@fredsbend FWIW, I made my edits to the [tag:marriage] tag

I liked those edits. I approved it in the review queue. Probably needs two or three more. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable about LDS teaching will add in a bullet for them.

"What they consider to be marriage". Charming as ever, I see, Peter.

@trig, hey I'm at least acknowledging subjectivity.  That's a step towards tolerance!

This proposal is a case of Christianity.SE tacitly endorsing traditional religious definitions of marriage through its tag system. That is contrary to the nature and guidelines of the StackExchange system of sites.
Christianity.SE is a secular site, not a religious one. It does not represent nor endorse any particular religiously-based beliefs. It is a site about Christianity, not a Christian site. (See Brothers, we are not Christians‼)
To define tags related to marriage based on religious definitions of marriage is to violate the secular nature of this site, and to adopt definitions of commonly used English words based on particular denominational beliefs--a practice that is inappropriate on a secular site.
StackExchange, Inc., the owner of the StackExchange sites, is a U.S. corporation based in New York City (see Wikipedia --> StackExchange --> History). Although the site certainly has a wide international reach, it operates under U.S. law, which sets the basic legal and cultural parameters under which the site operates.
Same-sex marriage is now legal throughout the United States. Legally, there is no distinction in the U.S. between "same-sex marriage" and "marriage." Though there certainly is religious opposition to this among many Christians and Christian denominations, the secular definition of marriage in the United States (and increasingly in most Western countries, see Wikipedia --> Same-sex marriage --> Legal recognition) includes same-sex marriage.
And once again, this is a secular site, not a religious one.
Therefore, it is contrary to the nature and intent of this site to continue to define "marriage" as "traditional marriage between one man and one woman," thus excluding same-sex marriage.
Though a "same-sex marriage" tag will, I think, still be useful, the "marriage" tag should be revised to accord with the secular definition of marriage that is current in the country in which this site is based. This, I strongly suspect, is also the secular definition of marriage in the countries where the majority of the StackExchange user base reside.

The tags on this site are meant to serve this site's purposes, therefore the definitions and usage guidelines do not necessarily have to match any real or perceived definitions that exist elsewhere. How US law currently defines marriage is irrelevant to the study of how Christianity is practiced.

Additionally, your concession that a [tag:same-sex-marriage] tag is still useful reveals that at least in your own mind you agree that, to this site's audience, dividing "marriage" and "same-sex marriage" into separate things is useful. And you would be correct to note that. It is abundantly clear that the first thought on most people's mind after hearing "marriage" in a Christianity context is not "same-sex-marriage".

If your objection made sense, you would offer instead that [tag:marriage] tag be renamed as to exclude same-sex marriage from its definition and usage to something like "traditional-marriage" or "opposite-sex-marriage". Then of course for consistency we should also decide that polyamory  is the same thing as well, so we will need to include that in the renaming of the [tag:marriage] tag to something like  "monogamous-opposite-sex-marriage". But just so we aren't confusing anybody, I opt for "traditional-monogamous-opposite-sex-this-is-ridiculous-marriage".

Leaving it as "marriage" is a consideration in brevity and existing usage. It is certainly not a tacit endorsement of any persuasion.

@fredsbend I am surprised that you are defending "traditional marriage" so strongly. It's not as though even all Christians define it that way. There are large Christian denominations that include same-sex marriage in their definition of marriage. To adopt the definition of one branch of Christianity in preference to that of another is, once again, to impose religious definitions on a secular site.

@fredsbend I would support the addition of a "heterosexual marriage" tag as well. Then "marriage" would be in the nature of a general category, and the various other tags would be sub-categories within the main category.

FYI, I believe this is a very important issue—important enough to appeal to the parent company about it. Defining "marriage" as the site currently does will mark this site as a religious site. It will also align this site with conservative Christianity. And it will be seen by a broad swath of the Western public as being discriminatory. I do not think that the parent company would want one of its sites to be taking such a discriminatory stance.

Let's continue in chat.

This meta answer ultimately spawned a suggestion for a minor change to the marriage tag excerpts. Read through the chat room linked above for context. Suggestion for a minor change to the marriage tag excerpt


text:
Are we allowing shopping questions or not?
This recent question was deleted yesterday: Drawing of a christian helping his own assailant
It was certainly a shopping question, asking for help to find a picture of a priest who was helping someone who had just assaulted him and for more information regard the picture.
I linked to our two current meta posts about this to indicate that it seems like the community is wishing to allow these questions:

Should we accept "Help me find this thing" questions, or "identify this" questions?
Are we now allowing "shopping questions"?

So now we're here with a Christianity related shopping question now deleted. The meta attitude seems to be to allow them while the main site attitude seems to be to disallow them. So I propose we clear this up right here and now.

I've added a third answer because the current confusion stems from mistakenly lumping two distinct categories of questions onto one category. And thanks for asking again so that could be cleared up.

Related: Where's the boundary line with the “verse-identification” tag?

Shopping questions: no
Help me find this thing questions: yes
There is a difference between a "find this thing" (aka "identify this") question and a shopping (aka recommend something to me) question as was pointed out in the comments to my question.
We can look to sites that thrive on "identify this thing" questions like SciFi and movies and tv stack exchange sites.  They both allow "identify this" questions while banning "shopping" (help me choose) questions. Examples of closed questions I've seen on Sci Fi include "in which order should I watch the Star wars movies" or "Can you recommend a good Sci FI series to read if I enjoy LOTR, Dr. Who, and Eragon?"
Those involve opinions, not definitive answers. There is an easy to see distinction.
That said, the question that triggered this question is clearly a help me find this thing question. But it would be closed on those other sites, too because it lacks enough information to get a definitive answer unless the answers got very lucky. It should be closed as "unclear what you're asking".

There's actually a fairly reasonable chance the question was asking about this drawing of Dirk Willems, as it's a very famous drawing depicting that which is conveyed in the question. But now the question is deleted, so I can't really answer it... :/

That could be. It was deleted by the OP, not a moderator.  I un-deleted it.  As I say above, it's a "help me find something", not a "Can you recommend something" question and is on-topic.

Indeed, I see the user deleted it. I voted to undelete, but apparently that requires an amazing 8 votes... unless a mod undeletes it (which I'm not really advocating), I doubt it'll happen :)

@Flimzy - It just happened.  Go answer.

@DavidStratton The OP deleted!? Well that kind of changes things a bit. I posted the metas there to encourage him to stick it out even though he got a downvote. I didn't think he would take that as "you should delete this."

@fredsbend - I'm still glad you posted the question.  Flimzy had suggested this distinction be addressed, and it never was.  Now it has been.  We'll see if we get enough votes for a consensus once and for all.

Perhaps (like SF) we should have a specific tag for "identification" questions? Or do we?

@MattGutting Not a bad idea.

@MattGutting Late to answer, but [tag:verse-identification] is basically the bible only version of this.


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What justification is there to flag this question as a duplicate?
What justification is there to flag this question as a duplicate?
The question flagged was the one which was asked first and not the other that is being said it is a duplicate of.

The "SE definition" of duplicate is that a question (call it Q2) is considered a duplicate of another question (Q1) if the answers to Q1 also answer Q2.  I know this isn't the situation you're asking about, but this sometimes trips people up e.g. when they are asking a fairly limited question and there is already a broader question and some answers.
It's my impression (I don't know if it's SE policy and I can't be bothered to go looking right now) that it's ok to mark an older question as a duplicate of a newer question if the newer one has better answers.  I'm pretty sure I've seen this happen even with a months-older question being marked as a duplicate of a newer one, and it could make sense.  Again, using my example of a limited vs. a broad question, someone could ask a more general question later.
It's also my impression that SE recently changed policy and doesn't allow a question Q2 to be closed as a duplicate of Q1 if Q1 has no answers at all or even no upvoted answers.  This sort-of makes sense - how can you close something as a duplicate if there are no answers to judge?  I'm pretty sure I've seen this sort of duplicate before, but recently on ServerFault marking something as a duplicate wasn't allowed because there were no upvoted answers.
OTOH, you can certainly imagine cases where it's obvious even w/out any answers to either Q1 or Q2 that they are duplicates.
So for your recent string of 3 questions, the fact that an older one was marked as duplicate of a newer one seems to be fine as far as SE policy goes, but I think current SE policy wouldn't allow them to be closed as duplicates because there are no answers yet.
On the gripping hand, I look at those 3 recent questions and it sure seems to me that the answers would be very very similar...

Ward is right.  It is legitimate to close older questions as a duplicate of a new one.  See this post

@DavidStratton I cannot think of an objective, non-arbitrary reason why it would not be. It's not something I've ever been troubled with. I always mark the lesser question as the duplicate. The one that is just not as well written.


text:
How do I delete my Christianity.SE account and make my email private?
Could somebody help me delete this? It is showing my email, and I do not want my email public.

Your email is only showing to you. We can't see it.

Instructions for deleting your account can be found here.

I think both points were addressed in comments, but to make it official:

Your email is not public, it only shows on your profile when you view it. Other users cannot see that field.
If you still want to initiate deletion of your account there are instructions in the help center.


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Analysis of Patristic Texts
So, say I have a question concerning the translation of a Patristic text, say, of Gregory of Nazianzus. It would go something like this:

In his first discourse, Gregory of Nazianzus wrote,

εἴπωμεν, ἀδελφοὶ, καὶ τοῖς μισοῦσιν ἡμᾶς, μὴ ὅτι τοῖς δι' ἀγάπην τι πεποιηκόσιν, ἢ πεπονθό σι·

Such and such translated it as,

Blah blah blah

I believe it would be more accurately translated as,

Yada yada yada

Can someone offer some insight on the translation of the Greek text?

I don't think that question belongs on BH.SE. Does it have a place here at Christianity.SE?

My personal feeling would be "no".  This site is more about doctrine, and less about accurate translation from Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic to English.  But I don't feel strongly enough about that to post that as an answer.

I was feeling the same way. Just wanted to be sure. Thanks!

@H3br3wHamm3r81 Why is that off-topic at BH?

@fredsbend: I thought BH only involved scripture (i.e., the Bible).

@H3br3wHamm3r81 I honestly, don't know. I thought you knew.


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What are the guidelines for church shopping questions?
In revisiting this issue:
What should we do with "church shopping" questions?
I find that we have sort of supported this kind of question, but we have not laid down any clear guidelines.
There is a recent question that was quickly closed by a regular user and a Mod (so only the two): In what churches does this set of beliefs and behaviors best fit?
I edited it to hopefully be amenable to the community. Basically I followed these simple guidelines:

The title asks clearly in which churches these beliefs, behaviors, etc. fit.
The body immediately lists the basic points that any church listed in an answer will meet.
I created a new tag church-identification. I'm open to other suggestions.
I put all the other stuff that might have hidden details at the end and headed it "Background". Effectively, if the person asking is not sure what other details might be important they can put it there.

I think these are fair guidelines for the question format. What we need to decide is how specific they must be.
I suggest that all church shopping questions contain statements that address christology, soterioloy, and approach to the Bible at a minimum. Christianity in large part is about Christ the person, Christ the savior, and the story we have about Him, so requiring it in all church shopping questions helps keep the really fringe requests in focus.

Hmm. The thing is you're likely to end up with two groups of these questions. For one the answer will be some kind of generic protestant baptistish church. The others will be some fringe heterodox requests with probably so many specifics that there will be no answer that matches completely.
Underneath it all, these questions are seeking affirmation for someone's beliefs without the possibility of critique or discipleship. This site is not the place for addressing the truths and falsehoods which anyone believes, but if we want to actually help people, we should be encouraging people to humbly reconsider what they believe, because everyone is wrong about something!
I think maybe we should close these questions by pointing people to talk to the ministers of some of their local churches about their beliefs. In a way these questions are pastoral care questions in disguise.

"Underneath it all, these questions are seeking affirmation for someone's beliefs without the possibility of critique or discipleship." I don't think so. That's a pretty big statement. Besides, we don't critique beliefs either, so everything you say from the quote on doesn't quite make sense.

@Fredsbend It really depends on what their criteria are. So for example, If they asked for churches who affirm homosexuality, we could answer that objectively. If they asked for churches which affirm a specified sex act between teenagers it's a pastoral care question in disguise.  That's the kind of distinction I was trying to get at. I don't think firm guidelines would be helpful for these questions - we should judge their ontopicality on a case by case basis.

That particular example falls into the "Is X a sin?" bucket (or very close to it). The criteria for church-shopping questions are fine, especially for real shopping questions. Dressing a question up as a church-shopping question should be ruthlessly dissected: but then your example question is unlikely to address christology or soteriology, which is an easy way to discriminate.

I disagree with the addition of church shopping questions. They are too personal in nature, because they may require tailoring the answer to a specific person, which may or may not be applicable to everybody. On a second note, a church is composed of people. I am afraid that church shopping would reduce people to merely beliefs and stereotypes of certain denominations. For example, someone may choose to affiliate themselves with Roman Catholicism, because they are raised Catholic all their lives. It's an integral part of their identity, and they may identify strongly with the Catholic culture and tradition, and may still live by a Catholic lifestyle to some extent, even though their beliefs may be less strict or traditional than the Vatican. Is it our job to say that the said example is less of a Catholic?
Some people convert to Christianity, because they believe in the exact doctrines of the church beforehand. But there are also some people who convert to Christianity, because they just happen to have friends who are affiliated with a church, and a church allows them to do social networking and maintain social connections. Usually for these individuals, beliefs and prayers come later.

I think you only make one good point: These might be too localized. I'm not sure if that should actually matter in this case. Yes, I think some can be too specific and on the fringe, such as the given example, where an answer the OP is content with is unlikely. But these questions have success on other sites as well. The rest really doesn't seem to matter to this topic.


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How to fix "Do Christian Feminists view Eve as a role model?"
How do I fix the following question:
https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/35471/do-christian-feminists-view-eve-as-a-role-model
I feel that this question is theologically sound, yet it has -8 votes. I would like to learn how to ask this question in a way appropriate for Christianity.StackExchange.com
Thanks!

Some questions will just never be appropriate for Stack Exchange. I'm not saying this is one of those, but it might be.

I think your problem here is that “Christian feminists” are not, really, a defined group. Both Christianity and feminism are, if you’ll pardon the expression, broad churches. There is much room for disagreement within each camp. And, while there’s a fairly large intersection between the two groups, that intersection does not really form a group in its own right.
What I’m trying to say is that your question has scope issues. It asks about a broad and disparate range of people, with little to unite them. As Flimzy remarks in a comment,

I’d be willing to venture there are at least two Christian feminists who consider Eve to be a role model, so the strict answer to your question would be “yes”.

You need to find a smaller group to ask about. A group with a reasonably clear boundary, and with reasonably defined beliefs and/or practices. I’m not sure that such a group of “Christian feminists” actually exists, but you might find one. In the finding, you might also find an answer to your question, but that can only be a good thing, right? And doing some research before asking a question is desirable behaviour on Stack Exchange sites anyway.

Really? You think there's 8 people downvoting due to scope issues, ..., rather than the site being overtaken by a bunch of angry feminists? :-)

@31415926 Absolutely. We downvote for scope issues all the time.

@curiousdannii http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/35351/is-there-any-biblical-basis-for-saying-that-wives-should-divorce-their-physicall has even wider scope, yet is +10 votes.

@31415926 That's a biblical-basis question. They have different scope expectations (and there's some disagreement about them too.)

@curiousdannii : the question had no scope -- it asked for answers from any denominations (even those viewed heretical by reformed theology: JWs, Mormons, Catholics). However, people were happy to up vote and answer it, because they want to be a knight in shining armor and defend a hypothetical wife from being abused by a hypothetical husband.

For Biblical basis questions the scope is those who believe the doctrine in question.


text:
Please delete this account
I have already filed 2 deletion requests of this account.
It has not been deleted yet.
What else do I need to do to get this account deleted?
Thanks!

Note – a new deletion process is now in place, as per: We've drastically simplified the user deletion process!

There is a 24 hour deletion request queue From the time a staff member takes action that accounts are placed in when you request deletion.
This is to give you the opportunity to change your mind (people do that sometimes), before it takes a lot of effort to recover your account.
I can tell from your profile that the request to delete has gone through. However it is still pending action by SE staff on your request. You should be deleted 24 hours after a staff member processes your request.
This will show up in a timer on your profile when it has been processed.

Got it, thanks!


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How do we deal with problematic questions going forward?
How do we deal with problematic questions going forward?
In this question, How does the Catholic Church explain their belief that Jesus picked faulty Peter to build upon?, I found some issues (which may not have been necessarily what others had):

Clarity:
a.   Title does not match Body.
    b.  The 3 questions do not match, and only the second one can be answered for a Catholic Perspective.
Title presents an erroneous understanding of the Catholic belief: there is no Catholic Belief And Jesus picked faulty Peter upon which
  to build the Church.

How do we deal with problematic questions going forward?
If one answers, and the answer perceived incorrect, it may cause flags to be raised, the answer deleted/locked, etc.
In this case, I chose to answer after raising the difficulties from my end, and proceeding to answer the question that I could draw from the post.

Of course the question you are referring to is from a non-Catholic perspective on 'peter the rock',..still i think title and questions do match up from a non-Catholic  perspective, and this is implied in the 'way' the question is worded do you see what I mean?

There definitely is a Catholic belief about Peter that christians who are non-Catholic do not share about him, only Catholics believe that Jesus built the church on Peter, non-Catholic christians believe Jesus built the Church on the revelation given to Peter and on Jesus Himself, who is a non-faulty rock, and also called rock, cornerstone, and was the rock of the OT too, who followed the Israelites in the wilderness, scripture claims.

The basic issue is deciding whether you understand what a question is getting at and whether it is an appropriate question for the site.

If yes to both, then consider answering. You can clear up any apparent difficulties is the course of addressing the main issue that was raised in the question.
In no to either question, then vote to close. If you're not sure through all the issue with the question what exactly is being asked, vote to close as "unclear what you are asking". If the scope is too broad, is a truth question, or otherwise falls outside the scope of the site, use the appropriate close reason.

Optionally in either case, you can help improve the question. Poorly worded questions can be worded better if you are sure about what is being asked (and what is being asked is on topic for the site). Ones that are out of scope can use pointers in comments to what they need to do to ask a question that is in-scope.

Thank you! This is good stuff. So a case to case basis and practice makes perfect?

Generally, if the question is coherent, but slightly confused, it's worth answering straight up. Please don't spend time challenging the frame of the question in answers.
If you do have questions about the intent of the author, ask them in the comments, but don't get into long drawn out discussions (if you feel like it's going to be long, take it to chat).
As far as this question in particular, while the question is not a great one. It's still a legitimate one that can be answered.
I find your complaints about the question to be overwrought though. The question is asking how the Catholic Church explains the fact that Jesus chose an apparently faulty instrument for his work. The question then becomes why is this important isn't everyone broken? That's something to ask the OP in a comment. Maybe they'll clarify.
The title's presentation is a bit off. But only in that they are trying to cram too much into one sentence. It's fundamentally 2 parts:

The Catholic church believes God chose Peter on which to build his church (and that the office should remain in perpetuity)
It's clear from scripture that Peter is faulty.

The question asks for a Catholic reconciliation of the two ideas. It does not explain why there is an inherent or apparent conflict between the two ideas. And that's what I feel is missing here. Why are those two things in conflict (is it an erroneous understanding of the Papacy? Is it something else?).
A good answer here explains both why Peter was chosen, why God choses to use flawed vessels, and finally, addresses why there is no conflict between these two ideas. And does so in a presentation that presents sources that a Catholic driving by would consider authoritative (likely a concert of Church writings and their scriptural sources where applicable).

I'll consider this. Looks like my answer could use some improving :-)

@waxeagle MattGutting's comment + Flimzy's (under OP)are informative and so is a Mod explaining for the original poster. Please, I am not arguing here. PS your post above is to me a "minefield". I can be tripped up at any point following guidance and instructions.


text:
Have you seen this user?
One of the most infamous users on the Stack Exchange network has been moved to the top of the Christianity Stack Exchange most wanted list.
fredsbend - Christianity Stack Exchange's Most Wanted User

As a result of the effort to apprehend this user he has gone into hiding, but reports of suspicious looking characters have been made. He may appear in some of these disguises.
Aliases and Disguises of user fredsbend

The other users on the list remain just as wanted:
Christianity Stack Exchange Most Wanted List

Our only current lead in apprehending these animals is the code name "winter bash". Winter bash is either a hideout location or the sole supplier of these disguises.
These users are extremely dangerous. Approach them with caution. They have been known to provide answers that will blow your mind and questions that will kill your ability to think. They also tend to support SE with a fanaticism that makes the most radical militants wane in comparison. There really is no telling what they might do.
Please report any information you may have on the whereabouts of these users. Please also report any suspecious characters that you think might be connected to the code name "winter bash".

UPDATE:
It seems that there is a likelihood that the user fredsbend has now become the leader of a large Methamphetamine manufacturing operation in New Mexico. Authorities are now looking into this possibility. fredsbend is now considered extremely dangerous. Do not approach this user if you see him in person.

I like the fun tag

@LCIII Yeah, I figured it's good to build site culture and post fun things every now and then on meta. Considering the looser guidelines on the meta site I figured most people would be okay with it. Just don't abuse it.

I'm all for an abuse-of-fun tag

This user looks suspicious http://meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/users/3961/fredsbend-the-grinch :)

@Belinda Indeed.


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Why does the verse-identification tag still exist?
We're pretty settled on removing it, I think.
So how do we go about doing that?

But now there are lots of questions which are badly tagged with 'bible'! I think it would be better for the tag to exist, even if every question with it is closed.

@curiousdannii New questions will not have the tag though. Further, most of the question that did have the tag are closed or I submitted a close vote. They'll be deleted eventually. I suppose I could have made a new tag "off-topic". No other tags seemed relevant.

most have positive votes so they won't be deleted. I was able to think of other tags for all but one.

@curiousdannii The community can still make delete votes on them. Takes 10K rep though. I'm not sure how often that really happens. You're a better tagger than I am ;)

Go to https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/verse-identification and systematically edit the tags out of the posts.
The tag exists as long as there is at least one question that has the tag.  Tags not associated with any question are automatically destroyed at 03:00 UTC every day.

Oh, there's only eight. Okay. On my way to some fancy editing. Sorry active page, you're about to be bumped.

@fredsbendtheGrinch - don't be afraid to vote to close any that are off-topic while you're editing, and point back to http://meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/4199/wheres-the-line-with-the-verse-identification-tag/4200#4200 in the comments

Right, govner. .

And no more tag come about 3AM. I think that's like 7 hours from now.

I think it's gone. Doesn't show up in search.

This meta post will self destruct in three seconds ...


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Should these question have a truth tag?
The truth tag was recently removed by me and another user. For the most part, it was used on Truth questions and the tag's existence seems to imply that Truth questions are allowed.
However, in doing so, I came across a few questions that seems like they could have a legitimate use for the tag:

What does it mean to "worship in truth"?
What is the Biblical basis that prayer is sufficient as a way to recognize truth?
https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/36020/why-does-jesus-say-very-truly-i-tell-you

The first one admittedly seems like it's primarily opinion based, but I'm not sure, so I've not made a close vote.
The other two are certainly on topic. The second without a doubt. Some might object to the third, but it looks like they just would like an explanation on why a particular phrase is continually stressed in the work, so it might be better on Hermeneutics.
The question in this meta post is that they all seem like they could have a legitimate use of a truth tag. Should we have such a tag despite the pretty much guaranteed misuse of it? If so, what should it be used for and what should the excerpt say?

Update:
I have since created the truth tag with an excerpt almost exactly like the example in bruised reed's answer below. I have added it to questions that appropriately needed it. Most are listed here.

Maybe the tag could be along the lines of "Truth as a phenomenon"

@curiousdannii I'm not sure what that means.

If they are off-topic (as I agree that 1. is) then the question is pretty irrelevant, but in the case where the question is on-topic and it does have a legitimate focus on 'truth' then I believe tagging it as such should be quite legitimate.  It should be fairly clear that 'a truth question' is not determined by a tag or even a reference to 'truth' in it, but whether the primary purpose of the question is to determine what is actually true, rather than what a defineable perspective believes about truth.
Suggested text for tag description:

For questions about beliefs regarding truth (note: questions about what is actually true have been judged to be off-topic - see Meta post: "We can't handle the truth").

So what should the excerpt say? How will that help prevent the misuse of the tag?

@fredsbendtheGrinch Perhaps: 'For questions about beliefs regarding the nature of truth (note: questions about what is actually true have been judged to be off-topic - see Meta post: "We can't handle the truth")' The last could be linked if the tag excerpt can handle doing that.

I think if you click through to the tag wiki, it is clickable, but the popup is not. At least, I've never seen it. I think that's a good excerpt. It's not too philosophical? The "nature of truth" seems to be an inherent philosophical question, not necessarily a religious or Christian one. I think I'm just having trouble seeing a 'type' of question that would use this tag.

@fredsbendtheGrinch good point - "the nature of" is unnecessary and can be removed. Perhaps "beliefs" should be italicized for emphasis if that's possible.

Yes, I think that is much better. Perhaps add it to your answer.