Welcome to the bot friendly site

Question

I’m welcoming myself to the bot friendly site.

I lately discovered that any stack exchange site’s sole purpose is just to maintain a Q & A wholly and solely for academic⁽¹⁾ purposes. Here Islam is taught not preached ⁽²⁾. The thing is the new user won’t come to know about this by just visiting the tour provided by the site, as I’m pretty sure, he/she will simply scroll and jump to the bottom grasping nothing pretty much. It entirely depends on how well the user learns to adapt to the rules of this site slowly & gaily.

Best Questions

I think any beginner can learn a hell a lot of things from this Site, from this section “Questions” -> “Votes or "Best Questions of this site". These are the FAQs of Islam. I would suggest any new user to get started from there if he/she is looking to gain some knowledge with contemporary issues.

Here in this site, not only Salafis and Wahabis but also Sunnis and Shias and also Christians and Jews and Astronauts and Muslims co-exist in one community in tranquility learning about Islam from each other.

And this site is way too lenient towards bad grammar, because Muslims come from all over the world, & don’t think learning English perfectly is necessary to communicate their knowledge of Islam.

---

Moderation

But, IslamSE is incomplete without the mods. Remind yourself that you’re being moderated by a bot like mod.

My definition of mod: A mod is a human who works like a bot and makes sure the site (community) runs smoothly by immediately suspending the bad guys, warning the not good guys, constantly closing the questions which are not constructive and deleting the answers which do not comply by the rules of this site. In short they just follow the rules.

Rules, rules, rules.

And mods sometimes forget that they’re human in fact, and they’re dealing with real humans on the other side of the username. They sustain by drinking a lot of coffee. They are so busy that they fail to use the words like “Hello”, ”Please”, ”Sorry”, “I request you to..” etc. ⁽³⁾. Sometimes the new users get moderated by a mod like a bot who don’t seem to be human friendly, thereby disappointing some users. And by that, those users end up losing access to one of the best resources of Islam available on the internet. I don’t want that to happen at any cost.

To prove that moderators are humans here you can see the moderator speaking like a human.

So, my advice to any new user would be to learn the rules of this site especially from existing posts of this Meta the same way i.e. “Questions” -> “Votes”.

To summarize

• asking advices is not allowed
• simple debating on allowed topics is to be done only in chat
• search well before questioning
• cite sources
• explain well enough
• don’t misuse comments
• don’t misuse votes
• please think of commenting while down voting although not necessary
• don’t make fun of others
• finally forgive the mods

Well in case if something goes wrong, then feel free to remind each other.

So, you need not get disappointed in case if a mod behaves like a bot with you. Because their job is to just work like bots. Don’t wait for the mod to teach you the rules; it is better and highly recommended if you learn them beforehand if you’re pretty sure that you’re going to stay on this site for a bit long. Else, ask your question, get your answer and Bye Bye.

But, do you really want to be so selfish, that right after getting your answer, you simply go? No. Qur'an says share the same knowledge by teaching it to others.

Help the bots sleep like you humans

As I said, that those bots were really humans, they try their level best to ensure this site remains human friendly. And that is nothing but moderation. This is a list of what they do. Being a typical user, you're expected to do the same. Help ensure the community remains friendly to you when you visit it back, and also remains friendly to your friends and family members when they visit this site on following your suggestion.

With great power rep, Comes great responsibility - Stackman

This site expects you to actively & appropriately utilize all the privileges as soon as you get them. By doing so, you are giving a chance to the mod to turn back to human, back from being a bot.

Still not convinced? Here is another bot speaking like a human.

Too long; Didn't read

I know this is too long, but you're highly requested to read at least this post fully, because I know you can't read all the questions in Help Center, Meta and come to know what actually goes on behind the scenes. So, I tried to reduce your work a lot as this post is a TL;DR of all that.

May the creator guide us all.

_{Foot Notes:}

_{(1) Inspired from Christianity.StachExchange.}

_{(2) If you want to preach Islam, teach it correctly, by doing so, you’re automatically preaching it.}

_{(3) The schedule of the mods is so tight that they don’t even have time to explain themselves as “I just do what I’m supposed to do. I’m very sorry... :)”.}

_{(Reason) This post was put up to inform the beginners specifically “How IslamSE is different”, with its own different rules. And also to ensure that tranquility prevails in the community despite misunderstandings.}

Answer 1

^{(Here I'll try to discuss things which I didn't find to be accurate, disagree with and/or want to comment on)}

It is certainly "not a bot friendly" site.

Here in this site, not only ... but also ... co-exist in one community in tranquility learning about Islam from each other.

You could consider it a free bonus of sticking to our Be Nice statement, remaining on-topic and other SE guidelines, or "rules" (:p). It's healthier for the site if we do not make assumptions on users' faith.

this site is way too lenient towards bad grammar, because Muslims come from all over the world, & don’t think learning English perfectly is necessary to communicate their knowledge of Islam.

It should behove the community to appropriatly edit posts, if it is willing to be lenient towards grammar. We do not want to create a library of gibbrish text and hard to understand posts.

Some edit (reviewing) guidelines:

• What to do with completely bold answers?
• Why the words Wahhabi are edited to Sunni in this site?
• What are the answer improvement guidelines and was the level of improvement that was being made on answer 12656 appropriate?
• Don't append "SAWW", "PBUH", "RA", "AS" etc in front of names and titles if the original author hasn't and don't change it either
• What should be done with posts that are not in English?
• Please read carefully before approving or rejecting edit suggestions?
• Please don't remove greetings like “ASSALAAMU ALAIKUM” from questions [or the answers]
• Keep an eye out for plagiarism (flag if you find one) and text that needs to be quoted.

Remind yourself that you’re being moderated by a bot like mod

Islam Stack Exchange is moderated by you and Moderators are human exception handlers.

makes sure the site (community) runs smoothly by immediately suspending

No, no! "immediately"? Certainly no. Suspension tends to be one of our last resorts when all means have been exhausted to guide and inform users.

constantly closing the questions which are not constructive and deleting the answers which do not comply by the rules of this site

Anybody can choose to do that, not that it's limited to a certain group of users.

mods sometimes forget that they’re human in fact, and they’re dealing with real humans on the other side of the username

I really doubt that.

fail to use the words like “Hello”, ”Please”, ”Sorry”, “I request you to..” etc

That certainly is not the case. Plus

note also that the most egregiously disruptive examples are often cleaned up by community and/or moderators, so one cannot always judge how constructive a user is based entirely on what remains visible on-site

and deleted post are not visible to user who do not have the rep bound priveleges.

Sometimes the new users get moderated by a mod ... And by that, those users end up losing access

Disagreed!

please think of commenting while down voting although not necessary

A point I would like to emphasize here is point 4 of Should i resign from this site?

leaving comments like this:

-1: [actual problem goes here]

or this:

Downvoting because... [reasoned critique goes here].

or even this:

+1: [reason why you think a post is valuable goes here].

...is all counter-productive. Instead of leading with the information you most want to communicate, you're starting right off with a distraction - and an implicit invitation for the reader to engage in some tit-for-tat rather than calmly addressing or refuting your criticisms. Even if everything else you write is constructive and well-reasoned, you're subverting this tone right from the start - stop doing that.

This site expects you to actively & appropriately utilize all the privileges as soon as you get them

Umm, doubt that. It expects you to use them wisely and sagaciously.

that they don’t even have time to explain themselves

I wish you had provided an evidence to that. The most egregious (spam/offensive) do not really need one though.

---

"I just do what I’m supposed to do. I’m very sorry... :)"

I am assuming you just made that up :P

They sustain by drinking a lot of coffee

Maaaybe ....