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Question about site and answers using true Christian faiths like Catholic, Pentecostal, Baptist and such
I feel like I must be a Harvard student to be able to ask a question on this site. Why is it not allowed to ask a question about my faith in God in GENERAL and get an answer? All I want is any answer whether opinionated, theological or doctinal from a true standpoint of understanding God in any true Christian denomination. Im just trying to understand.

Check out the second half of this answer: I'm new here and I'm having some difficulty understanding guidelines for questions

I do understand your wish and your frustration. It is shared by many who come to this site for the first time seeking answers.
In its early days this site used to allow more general questions about Christian belief. Unfortunately, what happened is that people from different Christian denominations with different beliefs tried to push their own viewpoint as "the truth," and answers got upvoted or downvoted based on whether people agreed with the beliefs represented in the answer, rather than on whether it was a good answer to the question. So answers representing popular beliefs of large denominations got voted to the top, while answers from the perspective of smaller, less popular denominations got voted down.
This led to the type of religious flame wars that rage all over the Internet between people of different beliefs--and of course, between believers and atheists.
This site therefore moved toward questions that can be answered objectively, meaning mostly questions about the beliefs of particular groups and denominations of Christians, and the biblical basis of those beliefs. See:

What topics can I ask about here?
Types of questions that are within community guidelines
How we are different than other sites

There are many very good questions that this particular site simply isn't the right place to ask. If you're trying to get pastoral advice on a difficult personal and spiritual issue, or you're trying to find out what the truth is on a particular religious or spiritual subject, that's just not what this site is for.
However, if you want to know what particular groups or denominations of Christians, such as Catholics, Lutherans, Pentecostals, or Orthodox, believe about a particular thing, this is a good place to ask.
And along the way, you might learn some things that help you to decide for yourself what the truth is.

This site does not try to be all things to all people.
As with any SE site, the premise is to answer challenging questions by calling upon community expertise.  Expert, and well supported answers are the general principle of any SE site.  It takes a good, well organized, well thought out, and referenced question to evoke that response.
This site had some growing pains and decided that having opinion wars based on denomination or interpretation is not helpful, as that would simply replicate the general noise on the internet that attends arguing about Christianity and "the truth."  Because there are so many ways to approach Christianity, and in an effort to keep the signal to noise ratio favorable, we require a question be scoped, preferably to a single topic, with a point of reference from either scripture or a teaching that is included in the question.  Usually, a denomination's perspective is needed, since many denominations have slightly different takes on the same topic, and in some cases deeply different takes on the same topic.
For example: the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (when receiving communion) while many of the Protestant denominations I have worshipped with approach communion as a memorial (done in memory of Jesus) and thus accept the wine and bread as symbolic, not the presence of Christ.  Each of the denominations takes Scripture as written, and interprets it in a rational way to arrive at that position.
Thousands of other examples abound, given about 2000 years of people perceiving or being inspired by Christ and the scriptures differently, and arguing about it with great passion.
We, the community at Christianity.SE, aren't trying to re-invent the wheel, nor re-invent the controversies of the past 2000 years.  They are a matter of record.
With the above in mind, we try to address well scoped questions that don't trigger denominational bickering.  If we don't do that, this site will fail to fit into the SE model.


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Your Web Site is not very helpful
I asked you, what I thought was a valid question. "Why did the many miracles stop being administered by the Apostle after Jesus's ascendance"? Why did you have to come back with a statement about me having to have more faith? This infers that I don't have enough. I am learning to have my Christian walk encompass more knowledge about the times before and after Jesus’s presence with us on Earth.
I believe that you do little to portray a friendly, helpful, web site. I will endeavour to pass on your judgemental views about helping new Christians, and hopefully you will not have to exercise your ignorance or, your arrogance to me or my friends in the future.
Mike

What question? Please add a link to it

Be aware that this website is run largely by the people who show up. And the comments are also made by the people who show up. Sometimes the comments are off-base. If you see one that you think is off-base, you can flag it and a moderator will look at it and delete it if it's inappropriate.

How odd.  I find this site immensely helpful.
At this site, I get to learn how diverse Christian experience is, how rich and yet different much Christian theology is, and I get to learn it from those who are experts in that immense subject that is Christianity.  I don't come here for "the truth" (because only Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life) but for understanding, and for discovering what we have in common as Christians, and for where we differ.  (The disputes are as old as Paul and Peter's disagreements, see Galatians).
This site is rich with the treasure of understanding.
Christianity.SE has a particular focus, and a purpose, being part of the family of SE sites.  It has grown to learn, as a community, what its strengths and what its limitations are.
It does not try to be all things to all people.  If you will not spend the time and effort to understand what we are about, and how we are different, then it may not be the best site for you just now.  Perhaps later in your journey of faith this Q&A site will be of more assistance/use to you, and your particular journey in faith.

Good answer.  I especially appreciate that you didn't just "send them off with a kiss goodbye" but informed them politely that now may not be the time, but some time the site may be useful to them, again.  Quick suggestion since I notice you are editing to be more grammatically correct: "those who are expert" should be pluralized as the word THOSE is plural--experts also should be.  I know it might be debatable since expert can be used as a level of proficiency, as in "I have become adept at my craft", but better to say experts. Also," grown to learn, as a community," is better as a clause. ;)

@user31124 Expert can go either way.  I intended to use it in the "level of proficiency" sense.  Will edit, good point.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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This site is too frustrating for a Bible enthusiast- I quit before I bother
I didn't realize that I had signed up for your site until I recently got an email.  I had apparently answered a question that 'no longer fit your site parameters'.  When I checked into your site, all I saw were rather boring questions on church structure and denomination structure.  May I say that those are the dullest and inconsequential questions any Christian can ask?  Who cares other than pastors wanting to set up a new church or a phd student trying to eak out his/her dissertation.  The REAL Christian is interested in the deeper mysteries and truths of the Bible.  All of which you say are not 'relevant' to this site!  Worse, to even leave comments or questions, you want 'reputation' points?  Wow.  No thanks.  I don't need to be treated like an elementary school child.  I highly suggest you rethink this site.  The content is irrelevant and you took all the relevant discussions out.  You will never attract a person like me, who studies the Bible seriously and has a deep, passionate love of God and his Word.  You moderate every question and answer anyway.  Do all your striking out of 'irrelevant' questions/comments then- but let people speak.  Susan

Nobody said anything about the deeper truths of the Bible being off topic, you just have to ask them in the context of the theological tradition you care about. Like any tool, it will serve your purpose to the extent you learn how and when to use it. If you don't want to bother...

@Caleb, Not "off topic" perhaps...but you essentially have to word it so that there can be only one right answer...most people asking questions about the Bible do not know how to narrow down their question that much...and many people--like me--only care about Biblical Basis, which means that you can get a very broad range of answers.
I would spend a lot more time here if the first time I came I didn't see all of the Biblical Basis questions that I thought were interesting getting flagged as too broad, etc.

Case in point.  The person wants to understand more about the flood.  So what if there's a million answers?  Let everyone under the earth write their own opinion.  Unless you have an actual problem of 500 answers per question...you shouldn't shoot down every question.  http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/55857/how-to-interpret-the-genesis-flood

The arrogance is strong with this one.

@fredsbend, is your ad hominem aimed at me???  What part of that was talking about how great I was???

@KevinNelson I'm pretty sure he was referring to the OP not you

@KevinNelson No, not you. The OP stated "I don't need to be treated like an elementary school child. I highly suggest you rethink this site. The content is irrelevant and you took all the relevant discussions out. You will never attract a person like me, who studies the Bible seriously", which stood out as particularly arrogant to me.

@fredsbend, ah...I see...I should have re-read and probably would have noticed.  In my initial take I chalked this up to venting-frustration and pretty much ignored that aspect.

This answer is relevant to the original poster but is more of a counter-point to Kevin Nelson's answer.
Please note that all example questions in this are purely examples pulled out of my head and all instances of "you" are generalized to the general problem raised here. I don't know Kevin in particular that well but I've seen this general sentiment enough times to make some generalizations about you (plural) folks that chime in on these posts.

I find this site frustrating too...it's why I have 5k reputation on stackoverflow but only 150 here.

I would like to suggest that this is a misdiagnosis. There might be good reasons why you are more active on one site than the other and I fully recognize this site isn't for everyone. It certainly isn't a one-stop-shop for anybody's questions about eternal truths.
That being said I would suggest the reason you've found this site frustrating isn't because it is different from the way Stack Overflow works but because you haven't recognized that its actually the same. What's different is not the site's approach to the subject matter so much as your approach to the subject matter.

If you are like me, and don't give one iota to church traditions, etc., or who thought of what first.

I for one am not  like you. I do care a lot about church traditions and who thought of what first. And I suspect you do too. It probably matters a lot to you whether some idea was invented by some free thinker that wanted to make a name for themselves or if the belief dates back to the 12 apostles and is inherited from their understanding of the Scriptures. It also probably matters a lot to you whether your theological tradition has embraced or rejected a given practice.
This isn't so different that SO. Questions about programming on SO are scoped to specific languages in much the same way we scope questions about theology. You would never ask "How do I make a new object inherit properties from a parent class?" without also specifying whether you were working  in Javascript or Lua or C++. And yet you're frustrated by the fact that questions such as "Do I need to be Baptized to be saved?" on this site cannot be a free-for-all race without needing to be scoped to Catholic, Protestant or Jehovah's Witness, or some other theological tradition.
In other words you are not surprised when "Should I use a function or class for operation X?" is closed as too broad when it doesn't have any information about the language or operating environment, but you are surprised when "Should the Lord's Supper be administered by a non-ordained layman?" is closed when it doesn't specific whether you're asking about Later Day Saints or Eastern Orthodoxy. You wouldn't expect to be able to ask "Is Haskell better than Go for data processing?" on Stack Overflow but you expect to be able to ask "Are Baptists or Presbyterians right about authority structures in the church?"
This site isn't so different from Stack Overflow. It uses the Q&A format and tools developed for that site and applies to best advantage on a different subject matter.

..this site does create problems...or rather just a lot to weed through to get to what you are really interested in.

It doesn't create problem so much as it doesn't solve some problems you expect it to solve. It isn't here to resolve the truth of any particular matter. Now obviously the absolute truth of any given issue is a lot more important to people in the area of religion than it is in programming. But this site is just a tool and it is good for learning about the nuts and bolts of various beliefs but it isn't meant to define which bits are absolutely true or false.

E.g. if someone asks a question "according to XYZ church, what is the ABC of soteriology" ... and unless you want to go research that church history, you simply can't answer even if the question--otherwise--is something you do have a great answer for.

No, actually the issue here is not that you have a great answer that you can't post so much as you don't have an answer at all. Let's recast this as if it was another site on the network though. This example question is like asking "Where should I save by default preferences for NeoVim?". Given the scope of the question there is one right answer, and that is to explain the order in which NeoVim reads RC files on startup, starting with $XDG_CONFIG/nvim/init.rc and moving to on to comparability layers where it looks for vim files.
You may think you have "a great answer" for this, but if you use Atom and want to talk about stuff in the .atom/config.cson file, it really isn't an answer at all — not to the question that was asked. Now if somebody asked about Atom, then you would have a great answer. Or if you want to do the research and learn about the editor asked about, then you would have a great answer.
Don't expect this site to solve your spiritual problems or decide for you which way is right. But just like Stack Overflow if you want to learn about something you don't know about it's a great place to get answers — you just have to know what you are asking. And when answering you have to be self aware enough about your own knowledge to know where it fits in the bigger puzzle and which question you actually have answers for vs. which ones you just have similar knowledge but that applies to a question different scope.

Based on your mention of "Bible Enthusiast" I assume you have the same frustration with the site that I have.  E.g.
Take Caleb's answer, for example, where someone has the question: "Do I need to be Baptized to be saved?"  If the person asks the question and specifies a denomination...all good.  However, if the person is non-denominational like me and doesn't care one iota about church traditions, etc., and only wants a "biblical basis," The question often gets flagged as "too opinion based," "too broad," or some other such flag. This creates a real problem for people who want Biblical answers that have nothing to do with church traditions...and when these questions are rejected as too broad, it is frustrating for, apparently, many users (since Caleb said he's heard this a lot)...I would assume, especially users who wouldn't be able to define a church tradition by which to ask their question.
In his post, Caleb said:

It probably matters a lot to you whether some idea was invented by some free thinker that wanted to make a name for themselves or if the belief dates back to the 12 apostles and is inherited from their understanding of the Scriptures.

And my answer is...yes, but not exactly. I don't care what anyone says (freethinker or otherwise) unless it's supported by scripture. I don't care what Luther, Calvin, or anyone else believes about scripture or what they said about it...except where that coheres with scripture. The only tests of truth I have are:

Does scripture support the argument (preferably in more than one place)
Do any scriptures refute (falsify) the interpretation of the scriptures used in #1

All I care about in regard to this is whether rules #1 and #2 are fulfilled with a yes-no (respectively). Beyond that, I don't care who said it other than to give credit for the quote to the correct person. What denomination they were in, or what they believe about anything else is inconsequential.
I like CS Lewis, and I agree with almost everything I've read of his. However, I'm not a "follower of" CS Lewis, I'm a follower of Jesus...so, I still apply the same two rules above. ALL I care about is "Biblical Basis." Thus, the fact that many Biblical Basis questions get flagged as too broad frustrates me, and my guess is--based on Caleb's answer--many others.
Why the System Works this Way
I understand how and why the system works the way it does.  I spend a lot of time on StackOverflow (SO), which is the same application run with mostly the same rules. On SO, many things are flagged as too opinion based.  However, even so, there's a question I answered, "Private Message Database Design" which probably has 100 possible answers on how to do the same thing. However, it was not rejected as too broad, and the answer was accepted. A similarly broad question on this site would have gotten rejected outright and the questioner is left with their question unable to be answered unless they figure out some church tradition they want to apply to their question, which is asinine for non-denominational people.
What matters is whether or not the question is defined enough that it can be answered "with scripture" and that the questioner will be able to accept an answer. I don't care if the popular and accepted answers might be wrong...what I care about is the freedom to ask questions on "Biblical Basis" without it getting rejected as too broad.
On StackOverflow, there are often dozens of answers to the same problem. Often there are a dozen that are correct that all get voted up even though they are different.  In the same way, this site SHOULD ALLOW biblical basis questions to get answered even if there is more than one answer...as long as there is scripture to back up the answer.
So, what to do?
To try to answer the OP's question as someone who understands their frustration...because I don't think Caleb's answer actually understands the frustration...is to stick to "Biblical Basis" questions and just hope that they don't get flagged as too broad.  Beyond that, there's not much we can do. The way the site works has already been determined by its practice.

You might prefer the [hermeneutics.se] site then, which isn't organised by denominations.

Kevin my answer is as much addressed at your post as it is at the original poster here. Please give it a gander.

@Caleb, I guess you didn't understand what I said because you're saying that I don't understand that this works the same as SO.  However, the fact that it works the same as SO is exactly why I recommended to the questioner that they stick to "biblical basis" questions and answers.

To whoever...It helps me to stick to "bible" questions, so I thought it might help other "bible enthusiasts" who don't care about traditions to do the same...the downvote is appreciated (sarcasm).

@curiousdannii, Biblical Hermeneutics is too scary sounding for a person who doesn't know what hermeneutics says...and the name implies that the questions need to be about "how you intperet" rather than "what is the interpretation?"  Like it or not, people who have questions about "Biblical Basis" come here...and they ask "Biblical Basis" questions...and those questions get flagged as too broad.  -- I've updated my answer to explain better since it seemed that Caleb didn't really understand what I was saying.

If you want the Biblical basis of "Do I need to be Baptized to be saved?" then you need to ask two questions: 1: "What is the biblical basis that I need to be baptized to be saved?" and 2: "What is the biblical basis that I do not need to be baptized to be saved?" Both questions would not be closed unless there were other issues evident in the body. And with good answers on both questions, you can then form your own opinion on the "Truth" of the matter.

This approach keeps questions factually answerable and limits debates on what is "Truth". By framing questions to beliefs, instead of what is true, this site has remained useful for all learners, instead of just the bigger group that would have eventually drummed out the lesser groups.

You see, all topics can be approached on this site, you just have to consider "Is this question framed in a way that it can be answered "They believe this ..." instead of "You should believe this ..."

@fredsbend, for someone to know that, and know how to do that with their question so that it pinpoints only one half of the argument is a lot to ask for someone coming to this site off the street that just has a question.  If the moderators were better at commenting and saying, "You could phrase your question like this: ... or like this ... to remove this flag." it would likely help alleviate a lot of people's frustration.
Generally, on SO, I--and many others--try to give questioners with low reputation a little help in figuring out why they are getting their question voted down, etc.

@KevinNelson I find that this community does help in that way. I can't say I see it always happen, but it seems to happen frequently enough.

@fredsbend, I'm normally someone who is particular with semantics...but this site makes my head spin.  In a recent one, the questioner asked "Is there Biblical support for praying for the dead" and it was shot down because it didn't have the word "What" at the beginning of the question.  Really?  I mean, seriously, I'm a fairly smart guy, and I know the Bible pretty well, but this site makes my head hurt.

@KevinNelson I understand. I'm in favor of just editing those ones, but that's backfired in the past in the form of the OP getting upset that we edit the question without asking them. You can make those edit suggestions if you think that will quickly clear things up. Can't promise they'll be approved.

People take one of two approaches with editing content on SE sites: 1) it belongs to the OP, so ask them to make the edits themselves, 2) it belongs to the community so make edits when appropriate without regard to the OP's wishes. I tend toward number 2, but as I said, some people, especially newcomers, have gotten really upset about.

Always remember that "on-hold" is not a permanent status. Neither is "closed" for that matter. They can be quickly undone. I've seen many unsuitable questions put on hold on this site, edited and made suitable, then reopened. The process is designed to sift out bad material (noise) and leave good material (signal) alone, and if possible, turn noise into signal. It's not perfect, as some signal will be shut out as noise, but that's to be expected.

That question on SO, probably should have been on Programmers.SE (or software engineering).  I'm finding a lot of crap on Stackoverflow nowadays that would have been closed in days of yore.

@PeterTurner, I don't disagree on the SO part.  But that's not the point...let's say it was on SoftwareEngineering.SE.com ... that question is still less black and white than what is required to ask a question on Christianity.SE.  If this site changed its name to ChurchHistory.SE.com, I would totally agree with all the decisions made.  However, being Christianity.SE.com, not every Christianity question lends itself to one and only one answer...like with designing a database, some disagreements can lead us to better knowledge.

@KevinNelson You described my exact frustration with this site. And the name should be changed! Christianity should be flagged as too broad... especially the way it has been moderated.

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


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Moderator trump card
My answer to this question was deleted by @caleb, a moderator without a single down vote cast. The alleged problem with my answer is that it fails to meet his bar for dealing with all objections:

Re your flag: the quote you added does not resolve the issue. It's a
  citation for something other than the main point of the question. The
  point Jamieson makes here doesn't say anything about a parallel track
  of there not being the concept of election outside of the some
  specifically referred to here. You need a source where the same source
  denies election among gentiles while affirming it for some Jews. –
  Caleb♦ 2 days ago If this requirement doesn't make sense or you
  disagree with my assessment, please ask about it on meta. – Caleb♦ 2
  days ago
Is there a recognised soteriology that combines selective election for some and general election for everyone else?

My problem isn't that he didn't like my answer (I'm not sure he ever does) but rather that he killed my post rather than letting the original poster and others decide if it is useful or not. I think it very likely that it would be helpful.
I thought that people were supposed to vote on whether or not a question is "helpful" or not? I've seen (and can point out) many less useful posts (IE: many posts are never deemed useful by voters) that were and remain extant. Further, I have reason to believe that caleb is acting from personal animosity at me for not "being a good boy and only posting The Truth of Trinity and Calvinism", etc. (caleb will not be getting my vote).
Why was my post singled out for deletion and not subjected to the usual process of at least being voted on? Is this not a rigged election (pun intended)?
PS: If you need me to point to some extant crappy posts that were not deleted by caleb, please let me know.

Please list a half dozen of the extant crappy posts.  If they need attention, any of us can flag them for moderator action.  Just a personal note: I am not Reformed, nor Calvinist; I am Catholic.   I have found @caleb to be a most excellent mod here, and helpful to me in a variety of ways.

FWIW, if you were trying to soften me up, the “election” pun in regard to current events vs. my theological position was actually pretty funny and using one of my favorite words (extant) was also a good move. On the other hand spelling my name with a lower case letter (4 times) didn't score so well.

@KorvinStarmast   Weren't you the moderator who said that if I added a source (other than the scriptures, which I did add) it would be a good answer?

@caleb   Obviously, I'm not here to soften you up.

Obviously. But if you were ever to try here's another pro tip: chocolate.  Always chocolate.

@WoundedEgo I am not a mod, just gotten a bit of rep here and there, and I'll go back and check to see what I said if the comment is still there.  I  may have said "doing X would improve the answer" but since all of that's deleted, I don't have access to what I actually said in the comment.  A lot of times one of us will suggest a way to improve an answer, but that does not quite mean "Easy Button pushed" if there are still some issues extant.

@KorvinStarmast, in this case it was actually another user (not moderator yet, although they are running in the election!) who had helpful  left a comment to the effect of needing a source for a theologian that espoused the position. WoundedEgo yes that user did suggest with that issue taken care of it would be a good answer, but that isn't what you supplied. See my answer below for why.

I thought that people were supposed to vote on whether or not a question is "helpful" or not?

That is correct. But before we allow voting to take over —and specifically in order to make the voting meaningful by avoiding voting wars  between competing ideas— we require posts to meet some minimum requirements.

They have to match the scope of the question. A question about LDS beliefs may not be answered by some Reformed Protestant that says those beliefs are baloney. It doesn't matter that I think such an answer would be useful to the OP and all readers. It doesn't matter that given the Protestant majority that participates here my answer would likely be voted up above any LDS answer. What matters is that that answer would not be in scope for the question.
We must be dealing with extant groups and established doctrines. We decided long ago that experimental theology would be off topic. In other words nobody gets to soap box their own ideas, posts are required to document the established beliefs of third parties. The poster may or may not agree with those beliefs, it doesn't really matter, but the beliefs have to be presented from the viewpoint of whatever established group holds them.

Why was my post singled out for deletion and not subjected to the usual process of at least being voted on?

The question you answered asked specifically about groups or denominations that have established teachings along specific lines. Your answer post did not answer this question, instead it launched into your personal reasoning why you think that teaching might be true. Upon my initial note about that problem you edited it to show how one theologian agreed with your assessment about one premise of your reasoning. It does not even show that that one commentator even arrives at the same conclusion you do and the whole post still says nothing about groups or denominations that hold such a view. It's still basically just your argument why that view is true.
Voting on such a post is less likely to reflect how useful the answer is and more likely to reflect other people agreeing or disagreeing with your reasoning. We specifically discourage this and deleting posts that are outside the scope of the question or argue a truth position rather than just document extant beliefs is part of how we discourage that so the voting that does happen is more meaningful.

If you need me to point to some extant crappy posts that were not deleted...

Flag away, that's what the tool is for. Neither I nor other moderators read every post on the site. We rely on flags from the wider community to bring our attention to posts that don't meet the basic qualifications for an answer and require a moderator's intervention. Such was the case with how I came to the post in question here. When you run across other posts that don't meet these basic standards, flag them for the next available moderator to deal with. If you're feeling really helpful, also comment to the user about what the problem is as this saves moderators a lot of workload explaining the same things over and over.

Obviously I wasn't asking you.

@WoundedEgo Fair enough, you don't have to take my word for it and anybody else is welcome to answer. But since you do call me out by name it's only fair that I get to explain the thought process behind the actions I took. If others disagree with my assessment of the situation I'd be happy to re-evaluate, but it should be easier for them  to assess whether I acted in concert  with community guidelines or not having my reasoning out in the open instead of hidden behind declined flag responses where it was before (so thanks for asking on meta).

@wounded This post has 7 up votes.

Additive to Caleb's response, that post simply didn't answer the question.  The question asked if there is an existing soteriology  that teaches X.  You answered with notes about whether or not X was valid Biblically.
That's no different than if I were to ask you if there's a store nearby that sells 100 watt light-bulbs, and you respond by telling me that 100 watt light-bulds are bad for the environment, and cite sources showing how 60 watt bulbs are sufficient.  That all may be well and valid, but my question wasn't whether I should use them, it was "Is there a store nearby that sells them".
Again, the question was "Is there a recognised soteriology that combines selective election for some and general election for everyone else?"  Your "answer" didn't answer the question.
See this post if you're unclear about the guideline for answering the actual question asked.
The fact that there were no down-votes also does not tell the whole story.  I'm prevented by the moderator agreement from sharing specifics, but users often flag posts without down-voting them.  You don't know if there were any (and if there were, how many) flags from users on the post, but I can tell you that Caleb does not have a history of deleting items unilaterally.  We all pretty much do so in response to flags from the community.
Final note, you're right, there are a bunch of crappy posts not deleted by Caleb, or any of the other mods.   Please, feel free to learn the guidelines of this particular Stack Exchange site, and start flagging them.  the moderator team can't catch all of the bad posts.  We rely on community members to alert us of bad posts.


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Can moderators see who upvoted or downvoted a question?
For Stack Exchange in general—I’d assume that the answer to this question applies for every Stack Exchange—can a “diamond” (moderator) identify who upvoted or downvoted a question? For example, sometimes people will downvote a question or answer without leaving a comment. Does such a person remain anonymous to the moderators, or is there a way for moderators to determine who left the downvote (for example)?

No, this information is not available to diamond moderators – they cannot see any user's individual votes other than their own.  They do have tools that show cumulative voting patterns, but these don't show individual votes or their connection with comments.
See the following posts on MSE:

Can anybody see my voting history?
Could moderators see votes in the past?

Thanks! Will delete this as it’s evidently a dup. Actually, since you put in the work, I’ll leave it open and allow a mod to delete if they wish.

Fair enough.  I don't think it's been asked on this meta site at least, and we do have precedent for keeping material here that is also on MSE.  But generally speaking, MSE has the answer for these types of questions.

No, moderators cannot see who up or down voted any posts or comments. This information is considered private and the voting system is intentionally anonymous.
As Nathaniel mentioned we do have access to some aggregate voting patterns in the form "X% of user A's votes were for user B". These are considered private and we don't tell users who is voting for who, but we do use it to make sure there are not abusive patterns going on. Two patterns we look for are sock puppet accounts that exist only to upvote the content of some user or revenge voting where some user is using an inordinate amount of their votes to downvote another user.
These patterns will usually result in corrective action of some kind including revoking the votes and/or suspending the guilty parties for a while. The specifics of this are not shared with the community, it's only noted that they have been handled. In rare cases moderators may use this data to rebut accusations about other users that are unfounded. "User A is downvoting all of my posts, they've done it 10 times this week" can be rebutted if user A doesn't show up at all in the voting patterns between the users. More often than not, the user doing the complaining is actually the problem and needs to buck up, stop obsessing over votes, and actually fix their posts.
There is actually one exception to this. In one very specific set of conditions a moderator handling a flag will see a list of actions that the user who lodged the flag took with the post (whether they commented, whether they edited it, whether they voted, and how they flagged). Think of it like this: if you page a moderator in as if they need to intervene with a post, the moderator handling the flag will see what interventions you took as a community moderator before passing it off with a flag. This helps a little bit in understanding how well you evaluated the post and whether you could have taken more actions but didn't. If you are leaving VLQ flags but not downvoting then I might question what you expect to have happen next (if it merits a VLQ flag it probably merits a downvote). On the other hand if you NAA flag and downvote then I might review whether the post has more problems than just NAA (NAA could be decent posts not meriting a vote and just be missguided about where they were posted or they could be both NAA and some other offense like personal insults). If you flag something you down voted, but then edit, then then up voted I might check the edit history and consider whether the flag is now obsolete or if there was something there a moderator should still contact the user about.
Note that this only applies to post flags. Flagging comments will not reveal anything about your voting to moderators. In fact comment flags are not even attributed to a flagger, they are shown to moderators anonymously. This is useful to avoid possible bias on "not constructive" flags on comments. We can't fall into the trap of thinking "oh this user just doesn't have thick enough skin to take criticism" because we can't see whether the flagger is somebody involved in the comment thread or a third party reading it and seeing something inappropriate.


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Does "faq" sometimes mean "recommended reading"?
Out of curiosity, I sorted the meta questions by votes just now, and saw that many of our great meta posts (ones that I would consider recommended reading for new users) are not tagged faq. Yet, some of the questions that are tagged faq are not exactly "frequently asked questions", but more like foundational material. These are the posts that "define" the site.
So, how are we using the faq tag on this meta? Should we change that? Should there be another tag like "recommended reading for the newbie"? I know for myself, I have recommended new users read meta questions tagged faq, but right now, I can see that they would have missed some of the most important posts I had in mind.

Related: Meta tag cleanup.  It does seem like it'd be worthwhile to do a bit more cleanup, to make sure that the most useful posts have that tag.

Caleb has often been the one to edit the faq tag, but he's been unavailable, right? I won't complain if you use your best judgement and just add/remove where necessary, @Nathaniel

He's around, just limited on time.  I've posted an answer to make sure we are more or less on the same page, and then in a few days I can make the adjustments.

@Nathaniel Thanks for getting this done.

For the most part, I think our FAQ questions are pretty good.  That said, I'm inclined to remove a couple and add a few.
I'd remove:

Pastoral Advice Questions

More of a policy discussion than a true FAQ. This and this provide clearer instructions and explanations.

What is “mainstream Christianity”?

This could be edited into shape, but I think this other FAQ question more directly addresses the topic.

I'd add:

Brothers, we are not Christians‼

This is one we often point to once a new user challenges the site's format

We can't handle the truth

The point of this one is covered elsewhere, but this drives it home particularly well.

But can't I just say one thing?

Often referenced in the context of pastoral advice questions

If you disagree, leave a comment below and we can adjust accordingly.
Also, a side note – a quick review of the various FAQ questions reveals that some cleanup wouldn't hurt.  This one needs new screenshots, for one thing!  And a few have quite a bit of overlap, so perhaps they could be condensed or even combined.  But that's a subject for a different post...

I agree with this. Perhaps a few others warrant the tag as well. I'll add an answer for them.

Perhaps you overlooked this one due to undue modesty, but I'd suggest this one be added as well.

In addition to Nathaniel's suggestions, I also suggest adding the faq tag to the following:

Christianity.SE vs. Survivor
One or both of the following:

Christianity.SE 's experts are Christians, not scientists
Are questions on a Creationist explanation for scientific observation on topic here?

One or both of the following:

The role of the non-believer on the site
Are questions from atheists welcome here?

With the questions in point 3, it might be better to make a new post: ask in good faith. Gotcha questions are obnoxious and can and should be politely approached instead. This would apply to rude atheists, proselytizing Muslims, and Christians trying to put down other Christians.

Good suggestion. One observation: 'Christianity.SE 's experts are Christians, not scientists' conflicts (at least in title) with 'Brothers, we are not Christians‼'

@bradimus Lol. Good catch. Is this irony? Anyway, cuz I can't tell through text if your aware, the Brothers post title is hyperbole, much like "We can't handle the truth".

Just the humor I found I the juxtaposition of the titles.

I do like your idea of coming up with a more general post for #3.


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Why can't I ask questions?
I have been banned from asking questions? Can one bad question equal a question ban?

Out of ten questions you've asked, seven of them are deleted and all of them had negative scores except one. Stack Exchange's algorithm for deciding to question-ban someone includes those deleted questions. Not even the mods have any control over question and answer bans so we can't do anything about that.
Tl;dr: you didn't only have one bad question; you had seven with negative score.
Please read this post to see how the ban might be able to be lifted.

Can I have them undeleted so I can improve them?

@Muze No. You can either wait out the timer before you get more chances or earn some reputation by providing some quality answers. Do some research, answer something well, and that will help the system decide to let you ask more questions. Next time pay attention to the warnings (which you were shown BEFORE asking that many questions) rather than plowing ahead ignoring them until you get blacklisted. This goes for any site in the SE network (and is a good life rule of thumb).


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What is the meaning of this?
Please, I will like to know what kind of Christianity is going on in this place. Simple questions I keep asking here... And the focus is like this is not the kind of questions to ask. What is Christianity in this form all about? Am I in the wrong place for God sake?!!!

Please visit the help center (https://christianity.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) to see what type of questions you can ask here: Christianity Stack Exchange is for committed Christians, experts in Christianity and those interested in learning more. You may ask questions about any area of Christianity. Your own beliefs do not not preclude you from asking questions, but all questions must be directly related to Christianity.

@depperm, please, are my questions not related to Christianity? And what do you mean by committed Christians, experts in Christianity and those interested in learning more?

This site is not teaching/preaching any type of Christianity exactly, rather it is a place where you can ask questions about a particular denomination, biblical basis of a belief, or a combination of the two. If you are interested in learning more about a particular denomination you can ask a question and if it isn't a duplicate question you will get an answer written by an expert in that particular denomination.

or as the help center puts it: This site is not a church! It is neither sanctioned by any church nor sponsored as a ministry site. It is a secular site for asking and answering questions about Christianity. If you are more inclined to resent rather than celebrate the differences between different Christian traditions, then this may not be the site for you.

@depperm, thank you very much. That notwithstanding, did I say the contrary of whatever history you have copied and pasted above there? Nope! So let me make it clearer to you again that my questions have nothing to do with any church and also, that I don't really care what Christian traditions any given Jack is from.
Thanks.

People shouldn't take pleasure in just downvoting others questions with no tangible reason. Questions that just need us to talk in a community... as followers of Christ, very simple. I read the whatever health center and my question does not violate it in any form.

Welcome, Yufenyuy, to the site. We deal in questions that can be objectively answered here, often of the form "What do X group of Christians believe about doctrine Y". It takes some getting used to, but if we answered questions about what is the truth, it would generate disputes. We do have a chat feature, where you can discuss personal viewpoints, but that would not be the place to seek specific advice, either.

People shouldn't take pleasure in just downvoting others questions with no tangible reason People should refrain from attempts at mind reading, and assuming malice where none is present.  You only get to make one first impression. If you mouse over the down vote button, you will read the text which tells you what a down vote means.  Please read this to understand some of the boundaries of this SE site.

@KorvinStarmast Thank you. I know about hovering the down vote. I only get to make one first impression, thanks. But the question is "Am I seeking your first impression approval?" I don't think so, my brother. Thank you too for the link.

One other point, regarding complaining about how others vote, both opposes the general policy on voting, and bumps up against the Be Nice policy.   What this community has found out over the last five to seven years is that it takes a particular kind of structure and set of community norms to prevent arguments and inter-denominational bickering.  The limitations are in place to keep positive engagement foremost.  It takes a little getting used to (at least it did for me). pax vobiscum

Good! @KorvinStarmast. Very good, thank you. I also believe I already have 'pax'. Consequently, I need not any pax vobiscum wishes.

When I Muslim friend of mine offered that he wished for Allah's peace to be upon me, I took it in the spirit offered. ;)  Just a thought.  Best wishes in all things.

@KorvinStarmast thank you for the peaceful wishes. I wish you same.

I need more downvotes to my question above, please.

I see your question was moved out of Christianity Stack Exchange into Christianity Meta and that this question has been given a "discussion" tag:

"The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus."

I am new to Christianity Stack Exchange and it takes a while to navigate around the site to understand how it works.  Frankly, asking questions is harder than answering them!  However, what I have observed is that this site is for seriously minded folks who are not interested in pushing their own particular beliefs but who genuinely want non-judgmental and objective answers that can be supported by external sources and/or the Bible itself.
If you go back to the Christianity Stack Exchange site and click on "tags" you will discover a wide range of Christian-based subjects that attract questions and answers.  It also helps to open up the "Questions" link to see what sort of questions attract answers - and what sort of questions don't make the grade!
Once you've framed your question (to comply with the guidelines) you can then find the appropriate tag/s to attach to your question.  I'm still learning how to do this properly.  For example, perhaps I should just have added a comment rather than give an answer.  Making mistakes is often the best way to learn, though.  I do so hope you will persevere because this site contains a lot of really good, well researched information about Christianity in general and various denominations in particular.

Thanks, @Lesley. This sounds friendly and less harsh to me. I could just upvote but I like to post my opinion clearly.

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


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Code of conduct
Recently, while posting messages to the "Super User" and "Server Fault" Stack Exchange sites, the moderators summarily edited out the phrases "Thank you ( see Colossians 3:15, for example )" and "Sincerely in Christ," which were included in my posts.  Will that happen here?

It's common practice on Stack Exchange to remove salutations, thank yous, and greetings from posts since they distract from the main content and make the site less usable for people who browse the site looking for quick answers. This site specifically seems to be more lenient, but your taglines are pretty excessive.

@Russell. Looking at your other questions, it seems that what was removed was not just "thank you" and "sincerely" but also admonitions to go and read specific parts of the Bible. Those count as advertizing and , speaking personally as a Christian, I find them counterproductive and support their removal.

I would just like to kindly mention that the word "Christian" is a religious reference.  Since you mentioned it, though, I will kindly mention that there is no such thing as a denominational Christian.  This network's claim of avoiding religious references seems to be falling apart at the seams.

All manner of "thank you" and "sincerely"s are edited away all throughout the Stack Exchange network as they are not seen as necessary or useful here.
But if you'd like to encourage people to read a particular Bible verse or two, you could put it in your profile description (the "about me" box.)

In addition to what curiousdannii answered which is spot on as far as tag lines of all sorts being generally rejected in SE sites across the board, it also bears noting specifically that this is not a forum. I see you've used that word in some removed tag-lines (including from the above question in reference to this site). SE sites are not forums, they are not for discussion or social back and forth. As such the feature set and site "norms" specifically avoid anything that encourages or feels like that sort of interaction. The sites are question and answer sites, and each post is question with direct answers, not a forum with discussion threads.
Thoroughly groking this difference will make it a lot easier to use the site appropriately. Anything that doesn't make questions clearer or answers more direct probably doesn't belong. You can use your profile to say a bit about yourself or even forward an agenda, but if your purpose in writing posts is to get people to visit your personal sites or read a verse or change their minds about some issue then this is probably not the site for you.

If you will kindly click on the "StackExchange" icon at the upper left-hand corner of this web page, you will see that part of the purpose of this network of communities is to "learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers."  It would be impossible to accomplish those stated goals without "social back and forth" as you stated above.  I would also like to kindly add that even if you were on a remote island by yourself, you could still engage in social back and forth by speaking with yourself.

@Russell Oh please, lets not be pedantic. Do you want to learn about how this site works and the local culture norms or do you want to try to argue to change them? We're willing to help with the former, but before you do that nobody is going to be very open to the latter. Of course some back and forth happens, but the point of these sites is that the emphasis is on the content, not the personalities. That's what makes the sites popular in the first place: the high signal to noise ratio. Your argument (and examples of your tag lines) are noise that detract from the main point of the post.

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


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Is Rastafari on topic?
A quick look at the Rastafari religion on Wikipedia may lead you to believe they consider themselves a kind of Christian.

Rastafari, also known as Rastafarianism, is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. Scholars of religion and related fields have classified it as both a new religious movement and a social movement. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari, Rastafarians, or Rastas.
Rastas refer to their beliefs, which are based on a specific interpretation of the Bible, as "Rastalogy". Central is a monotheistic belief in a single God—referred to as Jah—who partially resides within each individual. Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia between 1930 and 1974, is given central importance. Many Rastas regard him as an incarnation of Jah on Earth and as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, another figure whom practitioners revere. Other Rastas regard Haile Selassie not as Jah incarnate but as a human prophet who fully recognized the inner divinity in every individual.

They certainly seem Christian inspired, however, are they "Christian" for purposes of this site? My understanding is that the bar is pretty low: "Christians" on this site are any of those groups that self-identify as Christian. So do they self-identify as Christian, and therefore their beliefs are on-topic?

Rastafari is certainly very interesting if you are a student of Christian theology. It doesn't take much study to quickly discover that Rastafari is entirely inspired by Christianity and merged with an Afro-centric social movement. If you're into theology and sociology, then it's quite interesting.
But do Rastas generally self-identify as Christian? I'm going to say rarely, if ever. From that same Wikipedia article:

Christianity is treated with suspicion out of the view that the oppressors and the oppressed cannot share the same God, with many Rastas taking the view that the God worshipped by most white Christians is actually the Devil.

But if you know other obscure Christian groups, this sentiment is not really that rare, and indeed, we see what I call the "real truth phenomenon" in most Christian groups. In other words, if pressed, Rastas may call Rastafari the "real Christianity". That's no different from so many other groups. They all claim to have the real truth and some of them are quite spiteful about the other "wrong" ones. With this in mind, I'm tending toward yes. Rastafari is on-topic.
What already exists on the site?: a handful of posts and a dedicated tag. They're good questions and answers and I think fit nicely with the others.

Given that StackOverflow Corporate is never going to greenlight another religion site with the Area51 rules being what they are, I'd welcome this

Unless they explicitly self-identify as "Christian" they're off-topic.

@curious Mormons and Catholics don't really call themselves Christian, though they will if asked. I think Rastafari is like that.

@fredsbend They both absolutely do! Do you have quotes that Rastas do as well? Just because Jesus features prominently doesn't matter, or else Muslims would be Christians too.

@curious Christianity Today notes syncretism. Converts that remain rastas.

Well in any case, to be safe I think questions about Rastas should be limited to those individuals and groups who do themselves self-identify as Christians. If a question doesn't convince me I'll be voting to close.

@curious Naturally. Part of the trouble here is that it's a very loose following with no central authority mixed with a social identity. A lot of things to unpack. An interesting thing: two quora answers of five, presumably from rastas, say what I've said here.

I don't think getting good questions would be hard. Getting good answers would be the hard part.

@fredsbend Yes we do.  We Catholics do indeed refer to ourselves as Christians.

@KorvinStarmast When asked your religion, you answer "Christian", not "catholic"? My experience has been the latter.

@fredsbend Both, it depends on the context.  You might want to recall that the apostles creed is shared by almost all trinitrian traditions, and that creed refers to the one holy catholic church (small)... In casual conversation, Catholic is a Denomination and that makes a lot of sense, since we have so many denominations here in the US and people tend to identify by sub group.    Christian is the religion.  When I say that I am Texan that that does not mean I am not American, which is what your assertion turns into.  The one confirms the other by association.

@fredsbend I can speak to this from having attended a Catholic school in Alabama, then travelled to and lived in several areas where Catholicism was the dominant belief. I feel linguistically that Catholicism would be a denomination of Christianity. However, colloquially, in Alabama, Catholics I met referred to themselves as a denomination, but in Italy, Quebec, and Louisiana, Catholics I met have referred to “the Catholic religion”. I don’t know if this comes from any real teaching, it’s just an observed difference.

@Morgan I think the strictest Catholics recognize all other Christians as apostates, since they reject the papacy and holy tradition. Then they're left with all these apostates calling themselves Christian. I'd think it's become a name they'd rather not use, though it's technically correct. The official name is The Catholic Church, hence "Catholics".

The only reason Christians began to be called Catholics and the religion Catholic was because, katholikos being the Greek for 'universal,' (think of the 'Catholic' Epistles, written to no particular church, but to the whole church) it came to be necessary to distinguish the Church universal with its faith universal, from local sects and new churches started by men, with no actual link to the apostles or Jesus. Which was for many centuries considered the true mark of orthodoxy. It's not a replacement of the identity of Christian, but a claim to be the only truly Christian one.


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BLOCK QUESTIONS/ANSWERS/COMMENTS THAT ARE WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS
RECENTLY ON THIS QUESTION I FOUND A RUDE COMMENT THAT WAS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS.  I WAS VERY OFFENDED AND I FLAGGED IT AS UNFRIENDLY OR UNKIND.  THE COMMENT FLAG WAS MARKED AS HELPFUL (GOOD COMMENT FLAGS ARE MARKED HELPFUL; NEUTRAL FLAGS AS WELL AS BAD ONES ARE MARKED DECLINED), AND THE COMMENT WAS IMMEDIATELY DELETED.  NOW I SEE THAT THE WHOLE QUESTION IS DELETED, TOO.
THIS SITE IS FOR VERY RELIGIOUS CHRISTIANS.  ANY "NOISE" WILL RUIN THIS WHOLE SITE AND IS VERY IRRITATING ME.  I AM ALSO A CHRISTIAN.
CAN WE PLEASE BLOCK ANY QUESTIONS/ANSWERS/COMMENTS HERE THAT ARE WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS?

WARNING: This question is written as exactly how it is supposed to look, as an example of a post that is written in all-capitals.  Please do not change the capitalization.

There might be some algorithm that bubbles these kinds of posts into the review queue.  But this was a request on meta.stackexchange.com a few years ago if you want to check out the discussion there

ANY "NOISE" WILL RUIN THIS WHOLE SITE - Your explanation of flags isn't relevant to what you're requesting, nor are your comments about how noise irritates you and the fact that you're a Christian.  Please edit that noise out of your post.

You know what, I'm not an active user here, but I know the answer since it's the same as at Islam.SE where I'm more familiar.

I WAS VERY OFFENDED AND I FLAGGED IT AS UNFRIENDLY OR UNKIND.

This is the correct action, and it looks like it's already led to deletion.  If someone posts something super-offensive, enough flags will trigger automatic deletion, even without a diamond moderator lifting a finger (i.e., self-moderation): The system will automatically delete any post flagged six times as offensive or spam (meta.SE reference).
But the all-caps is not the cause of the offensiveness.  (cf. CHRISTIANITY IS GREAT.)  However, it's likely there's a correlation between ALL-CAPS posts and low quality; and there's a correlation between low-quality posts and offensiveness.

THIS SITE IS FOR VERY RELIGIOUS CHRISTIANS.

As I understand, this is untrue (here and at all the religious Stack Exchange sites).  The relevant meta post is: Brothers, we are not Christians‼  This has long been a pillar of how to define religious Stack Exchange sites, which was pioneered here.
I think it's more accurate to say that it's for people who want to learn about Christianity.  Unsurprisingly, most people who are interested in learning about Christianity happen to be Christian.  But nevertheless, there are not "Christianity tests" to participate; instead there's the Code of Conduct.
Anyone can join in and immediately participate, even though this allows idiots to post horrible things.  Every single Stack Exchange site has this problem.

ANY "NOISE" WILL RUIN THIS WHOLE SITE AND IS VERY IRRITATING ME.

I disagree with the first claim: the site is far more stable than that, and it's not going to fall apart at the first sign of rowdiness.  The second claim, that it's very irritating, is probably widely accepted.

CAN WE PLEASE BLOCK ANY QUESTIONS/ANSWERS/COMMENTS HERE THAT ARE WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS?

This makes the post a feature request, and up/down-voting will reflect the community's opinion.  I note that diamond moderators here are incapable of implementing this feature request.  I also note that Stack Exchange are very careful with feature requests: they often take years to implement, with development and testing.
I think it's not necessary.  Why:

Off the top of my head, I would guess that 90%+ of all ALL-CAPS posts are worthy of deletion.  The users are helping you identify their rubbish by writing in ALL CAPS.  *Ah, all caps.  Don't need to waste my time reading that.*
Now, if they're blocked from using ALL-CAPS, they'll simple make the minimum number of edits required to be able to post the same rubbish.

For the ALL-CAPS posts worth salvaging, there's an "edit" button, which I believe anyone can use.  Those with lower reputation have their edits reviewed before they're officially made.


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Is it politically correct to ban a user from Jesus.SE?
I'm having issue with this more than other SE sites I visit because I feel there should be no limit on Questions about Jesus as long as they are new.
Should users who ask to many low quality questions, showing a true interest in Jesus be suspended or banned from asking? Could a more lenient policy or the system parameters be changed to be more forgiving to a sincere user?
Did Jesus ever get Married?
Update: Well I tried to ask a good question and failed to get off the indefinite  question ban. I'll try to reflect and ask a better question in 6 months. Boooooo

The best way to clear an automatic question ban is to edit your existing content to make it more readable, more useful, and more on-topic, so that it gets undeleted, reopened, and/or voted up.

@Nathaniel I will try but my questions can be really hard to fix for they are just bad. It is really hard to lift a question bad when you have the same old users always down voting your retribution question regardless of quality.

Make sure that you have read Types of questions that are within community guidelines, and if you think you are at risk of getting an automatic question ban, make sure you only ask questions that are firmly within the community standards.

Why are you calling it Jesus SE? My first feeling when I see that is skepticism in your earnestness.

People are not being banned by moderators unless they're violate the Big Laws.  We don't control the triggers for automatic   Latae sententiae banning.  So we'd have to take it up with corporate to institute a "Be Nicer" policy.  If you want to write an essay here in favor of that, please go ahead - but I think you'd have to make a very good case.
What exactly do people lose by having to wait a bit before asking another question?  IMO they gain time to reflect on what they're asking. So it's a should be better for the site and the person for there to be perfunctory banning.

I don't need 6 months to reflect. Unless egregious a month tops for a bad question. Do you want me to write a proposal on this for the SE Team for this site?

Should this SE be more forgiving?  No.  Regardless of the topic (Christianity, Physics, whatever), if a person has a history of asking low quality questions, then a ban is appropriate.
In order to get to the point that they're question banned, someone has to have asked a number of badly-received questions and been unable or unwilling to fix them.  Even then, there's the "faint hope" option of asking one question every 6 months to try to do better.
In your case, you're active on multiple SE sites but have been banned on several of them.
Despite receiving lots of feedback, you are not showing "improvement and a will to learn" - you still tend to ask unclear or badly defined questions.  I'm sorry to say it, but you are an example of why SE shouldn't be more lenient: despite receiving lots of help over a long period of time, your questions and answers have not improved much so you deserve to be banned.

That is not for you to say. I am learning and want to do better. I am sorry I am not the best at writing or being on topic. I am not trying to cause trouble. I enjoy this site and the system is not fair to people with lots of questions to ask.

Just as an example of how you aren't learning: I didn't notice the tags you put on your post until just now.  After being active on SE for as long as you've been, you really should know what tags are for, and after being as active on various metas as much as you have, you should know what tags are for here.  Instead, you've slapped "bug" and "political correctness" tags on your post, which make no sense.

Updated question. Thanks

I'm not sure about this site, but I've seen people on other SE sites tell you that you aren't supposed to radically change your question in a way that invalidates existing answers, but that's exactly what you've done here, and you've pretty much done it to your "was Jesus a virgin?" question as well.  If you keep doing things after people explain why you shouldn't do them, that's not learning.


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Be encouraged to give. Participate in SE's charity drive
SE is running a sort of charity drive. In the spirit of Christian giving, I want to encourage this community to participate.
Announcing Our Amazing 2018 Stuff-A-Way!

I already posted an answer, but that was from a prompt at RPG.SE from a christian friend.  Thanks for the alert, Fred.


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What should be the title of questions so it would not be closed?
I have these questions which pretty much have been closed (although I find the question legit and valid), so what must be the title of these questions that it will not be closed:
Is it okay to become a member or stay in the false Christian denomination?
Why some believe that Jesus Christ is God and others don't?
The meaning of John 14:6 in relation to pre-existence of Jesus before the incarnation
Which Christian Church today stems back to the original Christian Church founded by Jesus Christ?

Many of your recent questions have been what we call Truth Questions. In order for your questions to not be closed, you should pick one of these five acceptable question types.

Which Christian Church today stems back to the original Christian Church founded by Jesus Christ?

Almost all Christian churches today make this claim.
They also claim that all the other denominations have drifted away from the truth.
You could Google "true church history" to find articles from various churches that claim that the Roman Church (and its Protestant off-shoots) are not the original Christian Church, but that they are.
But you didn't ask "which Christian Churches claim that …?"; you asked which churches actually do, and that question does not have objective agreement.

The meaning of John 14:6 in relation to pre-existence of Jesus before the incarnation

"The meaning" implies that it is possible for everyone to objectively agree on what that meaning is.
That simply isn't possible.
I could tell you that some denominations believe that the pre-incarnate Jesus was the JHVH of the Old Testament, and that the patriarchs et al. dealt with him, and not with whom they now know as the Father.
But that wouldn't be answering the question as you asked it.

Why some believe that Jesus Christ is God and others don't?

"Why …?" is a very subjective question.
I cannot explain why you believe some of the things you do, any more than you can explain the reasons for my beliefs.
An objective atheist would answer such questions by saying that the reason is because we are delusional.

Is it okay to become a member or stay in the false Christian denomination?

"Is it okay …?" is a very subjective question.
Instead, say something like "How does the SDA church explain their belief that non-SDA Christians can be saved?"

Generally, you should ask questions as if the person you are asking is a religious scholar at the world's largest reference library on religion, but who is personally an atheist.
"Is the Pope Catholic?" is a suitable question, as it asks only for secular facts; "Is the Pope infallible?" isn't, as it asks for religious belief; but "Do Catholics believe in Papal Infalibility?" would be okay, as it asks about an objective fact.
Some other SE sites that deal with fiction (films, books, etc.) have the concept of "in universe" questions, which ask such things as why a character did something or how a seeming contradiction can be explained, all to be answered as if the fiction were taking place in a real universe.  If answered "out of universe", the answers would be something like "to further the plot" or "because the author made a mistake".
Most questions for this site implicitly make that same distinction, but the example questions above are all asking for out-of-universe answers to in-universe questions.  That's why they were rejected; not because they were intrinsically bad, but because of the way they were asked.


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Are Scholarly Answers About Christianity On-Topic?
I am trying to ascertain whether, or to what extent, scholarly (1) answers about Christianity and its various denominations (as opposed to faith-based answers written from a believer's perspective) are on-topic on this particular site.
(1) By the term scholarly I am simply referring to factual, objective, and (hopefully) informative approaches, written from a detached (rather than partizan) perspective.

To better illustrate my point by way of a simple example:

Question: Why are Orthodox bishops celibate?
Scholarly approach: Episcopal celibacy was adopted as a disciplinary measure against the increasing financial corruption of the Christian clergy, following the cessation of religious persecution in the early fourth century, in keeping with apostolic injunctions (1 Timothy 3:2-3).
Mystical approach: The Levitic and Aaronic priesthoods of the Jerusalem temple found their ultimate spiritual fulfillment in that of Christ, described in the seventh chapter of Saint Paul's epistle to the Hebrews as possessing an eternal (high-)priesthood, after the order of Melchizedek, characterized elsewhere within the same letter as not having any parents (and, by extension, a family). Since the Hebrew high-priesthood represents the equivalent of the Christian episcopacy, the pious conclusion follows.

Though I would personally welcome both, the community might not feel the same way; also, while already aware of the existence of a somewhat related meta-question, I am, on one hand, not entirely sure what to make of it, and, on the other, I couldn't help but notice that (at least) some (arguably, many) of my scholarly posts have been consistently down-voted and/or deleted, which is what prompted me to ask this question in the first place, being uncertain of whether the method itself, or only my (deficient?) use of it, are what seem to have triggered the (negative) reaction.

Are Scholarly Answers About Christianity On-Topic?
The short answer is absolutely.
Scholarly answers are in fact the best way to answer questions here.

Scholarly method
The scholarly method or scholarship is the body of principles and practices used by scholars and academics to make their claims about the subject as valid and trustworthy as possible, and to make them known to the scholarly public. It is the methods that systemically advance the teaching, research, and practice of a given scholarly or academic field of study through rigorous inquiry. Scholarship is noted by its significance to its particular profession, and is creative, can be documented, can be replicated or elaborated, and can be and is peer-reviewed through various methods. The Scholarly Method includes the subcategories of the Scientific Method, in which scientists prove their claims and the Historical Method, in which historians verify their claims.

The mystical method of answering questions is somewhat more ambiguous.

The Mystical Approach
There is an experience which we read of in prose and religious texts of every culture and time. This is the experience of oneness, the mystical experience in its vast variety. It is a special state of consciousness, where thought has totally ended and there remains only the silence of absolute peace in the mind. People fall into this state of mind, sometimes without noticing how or why. There is suddenly an overwhelming silence and the person stands thunderstruck against this totally new experience, for it is always new and fresh, even if he or she has experienced it more than once.
Common descriptions might be something like these: I was one with everything there is. I was the world and the world became I. My separation from the world disintegrated and instead there was love and oneness, impersonal, all encompassing. Hate was unthinkable and all my problems vanished into thin air. Everything was good. Or, The world was as it had always been, nothing had changed except that the "I" had ceased to be, had blended into everything else. Such descriptions are taken from ordinary people telling how they experienced their world when this special state of mind prevailed. This has been called 1-less-ness.
It is a state that is without problems and therefore rather comforting and desirable. You feel that you are nothing but the whole of existence, regardless of whether you look to the stars or think of your neighbor. Everyone is a brother, whether he be rich or poor, good or bad, friend or enemy in ordinary terms.
Often people feel that they are standing before God; sometimes even a picture of the Godhead appears before them. But we should bear in mind that God is an idea acquired from someone else.
The God that the Christians see is different from that of the Hindus. You may have touched the Universal Divinity, but its form is from your own religion or civilization. The aim of the mystical approach is to reach for this state of consciousness, and the methods take form after that.

As for your downvoted post, there have been a number of community wiki answers on your part in which you have commented that ”there's no point in posting comments on soon-to-be-deleted posts, since the inbox-messages announcing their posting will inevitably disappear soon after.”
Community wiki posts are ”to indicate the answer is incomplete and to invite community contribution to finish it.”
Do not get me wrong, I enjoy your answers, but they must be scholarly based and not based on the assumption that the post will be deleted some time soon.
Thus, what scholarly support have you offered in this question, which contains not one scholarly quoteation from a Catholic source: Why do Catholic persons not partake of mass every single day?
What about this question of yours, which contains no historical or scholarly sources or quotations: What is the support or arguments to indicate the age of the Virgin Mary? One commentator said that ”this answer does (probably correctly) deny the objections, but it does not give any support. Historical examples of marriage age? Opinions of Jewish writers about appropriate marriage age? One book from 150 AD is listed, but not quoted.”
Another one of your Catholic questions (According to Catholicism must we all suffer in life?) does not give any scholarly support of any of your statements. In fact it’s only external link you included was to  Aesop's fable: The Young Mouse, The Cock, and The Cat!
Thus your possible downvotes were due to a genuine lack of scholarly support in your answers and not that they were community wiki posts!
As a typical example (only), Catholic questions should require a Catholic answer and just not merely an answer uniquely based on biblical quotes. In fact scholarly answer are generally really the best. This method can to some degree be applied to any denomination within Christendom.

Biblical quotes from appropriately approved translations of Sacred Scripture can be used.
Catholic sources which include Canon Law, traditions, teachings and other sources may be used, but should be accompanied with appropriate sources and links.
If no magisterial teaching can be found on a particular subject, the teachings of canonized saints or prominent Catholic theologians must be invoked.
As a general rule, do not just quote Scriptures since interpretation can vary.

As already stated (repeatedly) in a previous discussion, the reason for the answer being on its way to deletion was due to its acquiring down-votes, not because of its community wiki status.

@Lucian Do your posts meet the scholarly criteria that I just posted, apart from being a community wiki answer?

As far as I can tell, yes; hence my puzzlement. (My approach is always the same, regardless of the sites I post on).

Of course scholarly answers are on-topic here. And the example you gave is what we'd expect answers to be for historical questions.
If your answers have been downvoted, perhaps it's because you're giving historical answers to questions that are more focused on theological explanations? But I haven't looked through your answers, and it's impossible to say in general.

I think only scholarly answers are on topic.  But mods mostly act on flags so its' always a judgement call to make, I hope nothing has been deleted specifically for being objective.
But there are multiple ways of being objective, the way to be objective and answer questions here usually requires you to not refute the theological axioms that underpin the questions.


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Is there any way to make a denomination-agnostic question on-topic without the old trick of turning it into an overview question?
I recently asked this question. If you check the edit history, my question was originally intended to be denomination-agnostic, i.e., open to answers from any Christian denomination. However, that's seen as off-topic, so it got closed. In order to salvage it, I did what I've already done with several questions in the past: I quickly edited it to turn it into an overview question, and, voila, the question got re-opened as expected. That's great, but as an undesirable side effect, people are now perceiving the question as way too tedious because no one is willing to put in the effort of investigating the viewpoints of all major branches of Christianity. Instead, folks usually prefer to post answers based on their own personal perspectives, which they naturally feel more comfortable with.
Is there any way to make a denomination-agnostic question on-topic without turning it into an overview question (or more generally, without making it overwhelming and tedious for people to answer)?

I really like the concept of overview question, but in practice they do turn out to be really hard to answer, and for a lot of them we end up being pretty soft of the rules and allow answers that only present part of the Christian world. So I'm all ears if anyone has new ideas for how to improve this site's overview questions.

There are two other tricks.

Crestomathy requests which are a targeted type of overview question where you're specifically asking for texts from various sources supporting an idea (these are basically overview questions)

biblical-basis Biblical basis questions assume a Biblical Truth which may only be held by a subset of denominations, you don't have to spell out which denominations in particular hold that doctrine, but it should be relatively obvious.

But no there's no getting around it specifically because we don't let the answers devolve into a competition where the most appealing answer rises to the top.  We only want the correct answers to rise to the top and this is impossible if you don't have a frame of reference by which to judge the rightness underlying the answer other than subjectivity.

Isn't biblical-basis without mentioning a denomination just an overview question in disguise, maybe slightly more focused but still overview because interpretation of the Bible differs considerably between denominations?

@kutschkem practically speaking, I think it is more [tag:denomination-oblivious] than [tag:denomination-agnostic]


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Are questions seeking the perspective of a certain subset of Christians on the experiences of another group (Christian or otherwise) on-topic?
My recently asked question What is an overview of how Christians make sense of the testimonial evidence for alien abductions, alien close encounters & UFO sightings? seeking an overview of Christian viewpoints on the alien abduction & UFO phenomenon just got closed as off-topic. However, I have previously asked three on-topic questions following a more or less similar pattern:

Why do non-LDS Christians accept the testimonies of the apostles but reject the testimonies of the 3 & 8 witnesses to the golden plates?, which seeks non-LDS views on the LDS witnesses to the golden plates.
Why do Cessationists consider recent testimonial evidence for the gifts of the Spirit less reliable than 2000-year-old evidence for the resurrection?, which seeks Cessationist views on the testimonial evidence for Continuanionism.
How do Christians make sense of exorcisms in other religions?, which seeks the Christian perspective on the (anecdotal) evidence of exorcisms in other religions.

The recently closed question and the three on-topic questions above have in common that they all seek the perspective of some subset of Christians on the reported experiences of another group. So why is it that the closed question is off-topic but the other three are on-topic? More generally, what conditions should be met by questions seeking the perspective of a certain subset of Christians on the experiences of another group (Christian or otherwise) in order to be regarded as on-topic?

Edit: following @curiosdannii's advice, I asked a (hopefully on-topic) improved version of the question: What is an overview of Christian views on alien appearances and abductions?

If you had asked "What is an overview of Christian views on alien appearances and abductions?" I don't think anyone would have had an issue with your question.
The flaw in your question is that instead of asking that, you're asking for Christian responses to specific testimonies or anecdotes. Here's your answer: Some Christians would wholeheartedly believe such testimonies. Some would be sceptical. Some would snigger or even laugh. Some wouldn't even listen. Some would say that aliens are real and so are these experiences. Some would say they're made up. Some would say they come from psychological illnesses, or sleep deprivation. Some would say they're demonic.
Please, try to move away from asking about anecdotes, either asking for anecdotes, or asking about responses to them. There are billions of Christians giving anecdotes and billions responding to them. Occasional questions on anecdotes are fine, I've asked at least one myself. But it shouldn't be your primary method of investigation, and it's not the focus of this site. Whenever you ask "Have any Christians claimed to experience X?" the answer is almost always yes. Whenever you ask how Christians respond to such claims, the answer will be like I gave you in the previous paragraph. In neither do we actually learn anything very useful. So instead, we focus here on doctrine and practice. So ask for an overview of Christian positions on the existence of aliens (if it hasn't been asked already). Ask about the doctrine of inspiration, or how various denominations weigh claims of prophetic revelation against the inspired scriptural revelation.

Rule of thumb:
If you can't conceive of a person being able to come up one one stellar and concise answer to your question (as opposed to a bunch of fluff), don't ask the question.

How do you know questions about the alien abduction & UFO phenomenon can only be answered with a bunch of fluff?

@SpiritRealmInvestigator An 'Investigator' will not have the same instincts as a Participator. Thus many questions can be instinctively answered (by a Participator) but an Investigator will have to (laboriously) plod through much 'fluff' (fluff in/fluff out as the saying goes) in order to eliminate every possible contingency imaginable. But one can only stand back in amazement as they do so, for it is a monumental task, indeed.