How is scope defined?

Question

Recently I have had a few questions either down voted or deleted based on being "out of scope" After a brief discussion with an administrator, he suggested to make suggestions to the author of the question on how to broaden the scope.

I come from an LDS background, and often questions that ask for "biblical backing" I interpret as "scriptural backing" and use other scripture to answer the question according to my beliefs. For that reason, I believe that I have had my answers down voted or deleted.

1. What is scope? In the question what does it mean my god my god why have you forsaken me There was no specific "biblical-basis" tag or anything, just an open question with a broad scope. I answered the question in scope, I answered it from an LDS perspective, noted that way and everything, and yet my answer was deleted.

   So what is a legitimate answer within scope? I am not sure why that particular answer was "out of scope"

2. What is the best way to do encourage the author to change the scope?

Answer 1

Let's start with a dictionary definition. The one we use when we talk about scope is the following:

extent or range of view, outlook, application, operation, effectiveness,

So what does that mean here? When we talk about question scope, we are talking about two main things. The first is what is the topic of the post. IE what is the question, and what are the limits around that question. The second is the default doctrinal position assumed in the question. There are two categories here, there is Biblical basis (demarked by biblical-basis), and there is doctrinal or denominational (demarked by a different appropriate tag). We prefer the second strongly as a mod team (and I'd go so far as we should prefer the doctrinal one over the denominational one as it's more specific), but wishes aren't horses.

When we talk about scope in answers, we're asking "does the answer you've given match the stated scope of the question." This means a moderator (or community member) reads your answer and makes sure it lines up (or at least purports to line up with, note that wrong answers are not flag worthy) the stated scope of the question. If it does not, then your answer is not an answer.

That said, the scope of a question is sometimes implicit, or sometimes confined to only the tags. Neither of these things is a particularly good trait for a question, but it's hard to get people to explicitly state their scope. Sometimes all we can go on is a best guess on the scope, and that leads to chaos, we'd much prefer our community collaborated with us to flag and close questions without a clear scope.

Answer 2

The general rule is to make sure you answer the question actually asked. To give one example, I once asked a question about whether the Roman Catholic Church considers angels to be saints, and, if so, in what sense. One of the answers began with the sentence “I don't agree at all with canonization”.

I can see why the person said that. They saw this as an opportunity to express their theological opinions. And, on a normal forum, their response would have been appropriate. Not here, though, because it was not in any way an answer to the question I asked.

The answerer thinks that the theology of the Catholic Church is a load of hooey, and provides his own viewpoint instead. Well, I agree that the theology of the Catholic Church is a load of hooey*, but that is nonetheless what I asked about, and that’s what answerers should answer.

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* I’m an atheist.

Answer 3

This site is a bit tricky to figure out how to navigate and participate with. The problem you seem to be running in to is that you want to broaden questions beyond the scope of what the original person asked. If the scope is Biblical basis, it means they are looking for Biblical basis as a common book between denominations. They are not generally looking for basis from other texts that people feel are scripture.

I know you may disagree that Morman texts are not scripture, but if we automatically opened every Biblical basis question to any text that any group considered scripture, someone could come in and start quoting the Koran for answers as well or anything else that some group out there may consider to be "scripture". It would get unruly very fast.

If they were looking for the LDS reasoning, they could ask for it, but providing LDS texts as references when they are asking for Biblical basis really isn't an answer to the question. If you aren't sure if they are looking for LDS texts as support, you could always put a comment on the question asking for clarification. Comments is also the correct place to encourage a user to expand the scope of their question. Editing to increase scope is likely to be reverted as it changes the author's intent, but you can request that they expand or clarify scope. The easiest way is just to ask if they'd be interested in the view that takes LDS texts in to account.

Answer 4

This answer is in response to the question "What is scope?"

The Help Page determines what is on-topic, or within scope, of the main site

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Check it out right HERE

Example of Questions in the scope of the main site

On-Topic and Constructive Examples

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HERE is information about what you shouldn't ask.

Example of Questions that are not in the scope of the main site

Off-Topic/Not Constructive examples

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Questions that are on-topic are also with in the scope of this site, I tend to think of the two as almost synonymous, if the question follows all the rules that will make it on-topic then it is almost always within the scope of "Christianity"