Suggestions for FAQ Rewrite

Question

The FAQ needs to be updated. It does not reflect the new policy well, and in my opinion its not simple enough.

Remember, we can edit anything above "What kind of questions should I not ask here?"

_{These previous FAQ changes were made after this discussion.}

Answer 1

In my opinion, the FAQ is very unapproachable. When I read it I feel like my mother is lecturing me about everything I can't do. I like how Judaism.SE doesn't do this.

I suggest we focus more on who we are and what types of questions are on-topic as opposed to focusing so much on who we aren't and what shouldn't be done on the site.

For example:

On topic questions include:

• Questions about a specific doctrinal tradition (Catholic, Orthodox, Methodist, etc)
• Historical questions related to Christianity
• Questions about Bible translations
• On topic examples (we would need a link to a meta post)

Off topic questions include:

• Questions that ask for opinion
• Questions that seek to make a point (no preaching)
• Pastoral advice questions (we are not a church)
• Off topic examples (we would need a link to a meta post)

I think that something almost as short as that can replace the the 550 words (3,266 characters) we have now. And we might even be able to do it without using bold text.

Answer 2

[First paragraph is original, I dropped the debate forum stuff, added everything below the first paragraph, and dropped the subjective stuff]

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.

You've come to the right place if you have questions about:

• specific doctrines or doctrinal tradition (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Young Earth Creationisim, Calvinism etc.)
• understanding the Bible from the perspective of a specific doctrine or doctrinal tradition (like those listed above)
• the history of Christianity

(More examples)

However, there are questions that are not constructive for the format of this site. These include questions asking for:

• a survey of all Christian views on a particular subject
• what the Bible says about a subject (unless you specify a doctrine/tradition)
• advice on how to handle certain situations (pastoral advice questions)
• whether some group or person is "Christian"

(More examples here)

These types of questions have too many possible answers (many of which will be pure opinion). Because of that, these types of questions are not constructive for this site and will be closed as such.

See also: What about my other questions?

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Drop the entire section about subjective questions, since (a) it's somewhat implied above and (b) long-standing community members are better judges of that than first time visitors.

Drop the "What about my other questions?" section and create a new meta post with the link. Add this to that meta post:

• Questions asking for all views on a particular subject.
  (with explanation here)
• What the Bible says about a certain subject
  (with explanation here)

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We need to keep: "Who are considered Christians?" and the "Can I use comments..?" sections.

Answer 3

What do you think of this potential FAQ rewrite?

I should have put this here, but I started down the wrong track. Perhaps someone could move this?