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Not everyone specifies what denomination or tradition they want an answer from, some even state in their questions that they are open to answers from all denominations. Would it be constructive to have the option to accept answers based on denomination, and have a drop down option for people to specify from what denomination their answer comes from?

Example:

One Question with four accepted answers:

  • Accepted answer for Catholicism
  • Accepted answer for Protestantism
  • Accepted answer for Mormonism
  • Non-denominational accepted answer

Then people could do side-by-side comparisons between the answers. This would be one solution to people asking multiple versions of the same question because their questions keep getting closed for not specifying a denomination (see "Are multiple versions of the same question constructive?").

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  • The response to this meta post seemed pretty clear so I'm surprised I need to say this: in light of the fact that we don't consider this a constructive pattern please stop trying to go ahead and do something similar anyway. If a question calls for view X, don't add an answer that says "Oh and by he way here is view Y". If a question is broadly scoped to be inclusive of multiple traditions, answer in a way that is broadly representative of multiple traditions. Answers to broad questions that say just "view Y is..." are not constructive. – Caleb Oct 29 '14 at 6:52
  • It was pretty clear, "This isn't Survivor, meaning we don't get to vote out views we don't like. The only way to avoid that is to properly scope the questions in the first place." Also recognize that some traditions do not believe their doctrine to be limited to the members of their church, but that it is God-sent revelation meant for all the world, literal scripture. – ShemSeger Oct 29 '14 at 18:52
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It might be constructive on another network, but it'll never fly on StackExchange. Changes like that are network-wide, not specific to a single SE site.

StackExchange simply doesn't allow multiple accepted answers. You may as well ask a car to fly to the moon. It's just not what's intended. The entire premise of the entire network is to get definitively answerable questions, with the best, most helpful, most definitive single answer.

With that in mind, allowing people to post answers from multiple perspectives is thsurest way to turn this site into a popularity contest for doctrine, which is something we've fought very hard against. This isn't Survivor, meaning we don't get to vote out views we don't like. The only way to avoid that is to properly scope the questions in the first place.

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  • Understood, but my intention was not to "vote out views" My understanding is that this is a secular site, I find the comparison of different views fascinating, but I understand where you're coming from, and agree that it would turn the site into a popularity contest. – ShemSeger Oct 28 '14 at 4:31

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