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A more academic sub forum.
Citta
Veteran
in Philosophy
How about a somewhat more academic sub forum ?
Nothing too esoteric...but all posts need to be referenced ?
Obviously its not everyone's cup of tea.
And it might not get much useage..but it might be interesting.
0
Comments
I suggested something similar years ago for the Advanced Ideas section (then called Buddhism 202) via a poll, but everyone hated the idea and voted it down:
You could just post in Advanced Ideas and request in the OP that all sources are cited or whatever other terms you think appropriate to guide the discussion.
It may of course get the same reaction now @Jason...I thought it was worth a run up the ol' flagpole.
I think it might need to have a formal framework..
I would be for this 100% in whatever form it takes.
See @Jason the votes are pouring in...!
Heh. Well, that kind of stuff is totally up to @Linc.
I'm down, but might mot contribute much as im not much of an academic. Id certainly read it.
Or it creates a fiefdom
more to police but perhaps less duplication in policing
that said, the 4 premises put forward by Jason apply generally anyway?
You'd think, but...
Well, for my part, I do try to 'glean' the less pertinent threads/first posts in order to try to contain the general flavour of this sub-forum. I certainly have, in the past, moved threads to more pertinent sub-forums and pointed out - on more than one occasion - that this sub-forum is here in order to discuss more complex, difficult-to-understand or 'debatable' points and discussions in the Dhamma...
A quick glance at the forum index/contents will bear this out...
I like this but don't disband advanced ideas in case people want to discuss something non-beginner without the qualities Jason described. The one I don't like is addressing a specific person or a draconian amount of stay on topic. By making a rule rather than the moderator (and we have wonderful mod) then people can argue with the mods "you didn't ban his/her post that is off topic". I like just a moderator working with "gray area".
I think in this specific forum, I am a little bit tougher on the 'straying off-topic' brigade, simply because very often the thread title/first post will address a very specific question regarding the Dhamma or a specific Sutta, or a classical quotation, and the thread starter will wish to engineer a discussion based on their query or statement. Elsewhere I'm more lenient, because i am aware that chit-chat does meander....But I do try to keep things 'in line' here.
Sometimes, admittedly, the topic is way over my head, and I'm hard put to discern whether it's straying or not....
Introducing rules, is the first step in gaining political control, I learned that to my detriment in a very harsh way - long story - won't bore you with it.
@Linc is in my opinion a benevolent controller, leaving the really hard decisions to others with humour and morality and understanding, like @federica and @jason etc. to decide what is right and wrong and what should be seen by the general public, as well as you (don't want that job btw, glad it's not being advertised in the FT), and there is no peer review (which is the scientific equivalent of an inquisition - serves the founders only) no appeal process (didn't help Galileo) nor judicial review (a bit of a costly lawyer-rewarding process).
I love the idea of an academic sub forum (but academics by my definition of them, are always right in their view), providing the subjective sources being discussed were not controlled in a way that the current forum is, and that is not a criticism - hey if you don't hear from me again and my history is deleted, you know you are being targeted and drip-fed people (I know this won't be moderated, because, as Kant rightly asserted - when you are right - you are right... And I'm right.)
So to get to grips with what is being postulated here: for instance, if I were to say start a discussion on say buddhism and quarks, it would be my expectation that providing I could provide 'sound references' to back up my prepositions, that anything I posted be allowed to remain as posted (despite how absurd or ridiculous it may sound to the moderator, who may not be a theoretical physicist or exotic dharma-charmer) and NOT moderated (or for want of a better term PEER REVIEWED)!
So where is this academic sub-forOM to be found?
I am not being difficult - I am really just Teaching Associative Logical Kinesthetic Investigatiove Non-Gnosis which is a non-sensensical approach to liberation. But as there is no academic discussion to be had here, it perhaps fits in perfectly.
That's why I've long ceased to propose suggested guidelines, even for one specific subforum dedicated to 'advanced ideas' and prone to debate. The last time I dared to suggest people cite their sources in academic/doctrinal discussions (not peer-reviewed sources, mind you, but just where the quotes were quoted from), everyone acted as if I wanted to take over the site and censor everyone like some kind of NewBuddhist Stalin. I thought it was a good idea at the time, but people get very leery of new rules, and I've since come to the opinion it's not worth disrupting the community over.
So are you proposing things should just continue as they are on this site @Jason, with no interference or anything? This is a most interesting discussion, for me anyway.
Well I insist on it. And to be honest, on a rare occasion or two, I've actually either deleted a discussion or 'filed it away' if it didn't comply with the standard requirement to at least give credit to the passage quoted, or at least give the reliable source. I'm particularly stringent on posting material with no added explanation, narrative, comment or preliminary opinion...
It's actually not too much to ask, and certainly very much a pre-requisite or requirement on other forums, so I really don't see why we should be any different....
I don't know or care, really. It's totally up to Linc how this site is run, not me. I'm just saying I've long ceased to propose any changes. I'm rather liberal with my moderation and only intervene when things get way out of line. I'd like people to cite their sources, but I don't force them to.
Well, given that I've never received any instruction to the contrary, or been advised to not do it - I'm carrying on as normal!!
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motion carried
I feel like that niche is already filled pretty well by Dhamma Wheel and Dharma Wheel, although I'm not averse to more discussion in which things are referenced and I prefer the mix of people at this forum.
I hardly see how having to actually cite suttas and other sources makes this a nazi controlled forum.
personally I have always cited my posts when dealing with direct sources and on this and other forums I have asked for people to show me a the link to a source they are getting their info from. If someone says something interesting I would definitely like to learn the source and go direct to the suttas.
This is a random forum on the internet, I can't just trust anyone knows what they are talking about, and therefore I don't trust anyone to think I know either, I like backing up my posts with suttas because it shows what I am saying is not coming from or a paraphrase by me.
One problem is that I might have internalized a teaching which I now forget the source. So I am not allowed to contribute. For example I have learned about the five Buddha energies from a talk of my teacher, but I don't have a recording that everyone here can access. So I might say "i have seen a talk about the five Buddha energies. Here is what it is about".
I would never say a person isn't allowed to contribute on that basis. I think an explanation of the fact that the source was an oral teaching, is acceptable... there have been times when someone has said "I don't remember where I read this, but I remember that it went..." and someone else has chimed in with "Do you mean this so-and-so text?" and has been correct...
It's called being mutually supportive and respectful.
Occasional non-knowing of something is acceptable; we all do that.
Flagrant disregard and the ignoring of the requirements, is a different matter entirely!
Exactly. And you have people copypasting entire pages of suttas, and making like 300 comments per thread with entire thesis each, and making so much static that I am pretty convinced nobody cares what the other has to say anyway.
And they want to be right, and indulge in plenty "I know better than you do" action...
I am beginning to regret a wee suggestion made on a summer's day that I thought might lead to..
Lets just forget it.
I would say before leaving the topic that although Dhamma Wheel and Dharma Wheel can provide the kind of referenced discussion I was alluding to..the first is a hotbed of misogyny where women are made unwelcome. Count the number of regular female posters..its about 5 out of 2000 members.
The second is in a state of permanent civil war due to laissez-faire modding.
There's a difference between "I heard or read x somewhere" and "direct quote with no citation."
Dhammawheel/dharmawheel are totally different communities. I think there is a small community of active people here who mostly respect each other and something like what Citta proposed would be beneficial for some of us.
I agree with Dharmamom's assessment of the websites being very heavy on the intellectualization with large posts and dry debate lol, its one of the reasons while I feel drawn to it because of serious practitioners, I also am turned away by it.
I'm not so sure I've seen much of any misogyny on that website though, just yesterday we had a topic in the ordination section and a Bhikkhuni was very helpful to me. Personally I've mostly been on /buddhism and /theravada on reddit these days... that place can be pretty bad in terms of actual buddhist discussion, but I've found so many good videos and links that it keep me coming back.
I agree with @Jason that policing an area with more rules (or even just suggesting it) creates drama, and I'd add that it creates more work for the moderators. We're here to referee the community, not what constitutes reliable Buddhist sources.
I also agree with @federica that egregious copy/pasting of other copyrighted sources in long form generally gets removed, if for no other reason than it isn't legal to republish someone else's work. Excerpting & linking is the preferred approach for that sort of thing.