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I know that "Truth Questions" technically fall under the scope of "Primarily Opinion Based" or "Too Broad" and not "Off Topic," but to aide in the training of new visitors, and to reduce the need to manually repeat the common rant about why Truth Questions, and "Is X a sin?" are not a good fit here, wouldn't it be simpler to add a blurb about Truth Questions to the list of Off-Topic close reasons?

Possible wording for such a close reason:

Questions asking for the truth or validity of a particular doctrine or belief (aka Truth Questions), and questions asking Is X a Sin? are not a good fit for our site, due to their subjective nature, and the vast number of possible Christian opinions on such topics. See: Relevant meta post

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  • This is why I use "Too Broad" rather than Primarily Opinion Based
    – wax eagle
    Mar 4, 2014 at 18:47
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    @waxeagle: That may be somehow better than POB, but it still doesn't address the issue of specifically helping a new user understand why their question is a bad fit, and how they can clean it up.
    – Flimzy
    Mar 4, 2014 at 18:49
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    It's true, we can tie a comprehensive meta post to the off topic close reason which would be excellent.
    – wax eagle
    Mar 4, 2014 at 18:50
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    This would cover a huge proportion, perhaps the majority, of closed questions. It would be really helpful.
    – lonesomeday
    Mar 4, 2014 at 19:16
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    "This question is closed as of topic because we can't handle the Truth."
    – wax eagle
    Mar 4, 2014 at 19:24
  • This was proposed here: meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/1859/…
    – David Stratton
    Mar 5, 2014 at 0:17
  • @DavidStratton at the time we discussed redefining our on-topic guidelines. I'd be happy to do that, we just need to work out text for two areas. The first is what custom close reason is. The second is the verbiage for help center
    – wax eagle
    Mar 5, 2014 at 12:56

2 Answers 2

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I'm generally in favor of adding this. We need to do 3 things (and they should probably each get their own seperate meta question.

  1. The first is that we need to decide whether or not the on topic page of the help center needs to be changed. Currently it does specify that

    understanding the Bible from the perspective of a specific viewpoint (like those listed above)

    However, it may not be altogether clear that specific questions related to the truth without a frame are off topic. We should probably clarify that.

  2. The second thing we need to do is establish the verbiage for our new close reason. This needs to meet the following criteria:

    • Concise and to the point.
    • Nice. (Like overly so).
    • Include a link to meta with comprehensive information on why these questions are off topic and how to fix them

    I have no problem adding this new close reason (and I'm certain we can get a mod to second it). We just need to go through the proper channels and develop this as a community.

    The more Flimzy and I work on this, the more it's become apparently that we do not currently have a meta question that fulfills the third bullet of this second question. So that's a third step we need to accomplish:

  3. We need a comprehensive meta Q&A that goes into detail (but is easy to understand), detailing both why these questions are off topic (namely that what constitutes truth varies, and we are looking for testability) and how to introduce these requirements into the truth questions we are closing (Add some kind of criteria being a denomination, a doctrinal position or some other testable standard of truth). (alternatively someone can point out an appropriate question or two that would be useful on their own or in combination and we can clean them up for this purpose).

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    I second this, and I agree that we need to go through that process.
    – El'endia Starman
    Mar 5, 2014 at 14:16
  • What can the community to do help this along? Or do we need (a) mod(s) to do most of this?
    – Flimzy
    Mar 5, 2014 at 17:05
  • @Flimzy Asking one (or both) of the questions I outline to get the process started would be great. Ultimately, it's up to you guys to decide what the text for the close reason and help center will be. We just implement what you decide.
    – wax eagle
    Mar 5, 2014 at 17:20
  • meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/q/3522/20
    – Flimzy
    Mar 5, 2014 at 17:24
  • meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/q/3525/20
    – Flimzy
    Mar 5, 2014 at 18:11
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    @waxeagle: I think those 3 requirements have now been met... or at least as close as they will without further mod direction. What's our next step?
    – Flimzy
    Mar 23, 2014 at 21:37
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This should certainly be done.

I also support the use of an info graphic:

You can't handle the truth

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  • I hope you're not serious. The image holds more information than simple text and thus would take longer to load. In case the person is still using dial-up, the image may slow down the process of loading the page. Therefore, plain text politely describing the inappropriateness of Truth questions on the SE should be used.
    – Double U
    Mar 5, 2014 at 5:42
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    @Anonymous of course he's not serious. If we were going to deliver this kind of message with a GIF, we'd use kittens, not Jack.
    – wax eagle
    Mar 5, 2014 at 12:58
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    @waxeagle: Here's a starting point. ;)
    – Jon Ericson
    Jun 23, 2014 at 20:09

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