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Welcome to the Judaism community on Codidact!

Will you help us build our community of learners? Drop into our study hall, ask questions, help others with answers to their questions, share a d'var torah if you're so inclined, invite your friends, and join us in building this community together. Not an ask-the-rabbi service, just people at all levels learning together.

What should our policy be on "trivia" questions?

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Should we have a policy in place regarding trivia or riddle questions? Things like:

  1. There are exactly nine women in Tanach about whom the passuk relates their deaths. Who are they?
  2. What is the longest stretch in the Gemara without mentioning either Abaye or Rava?
  3. In what situations can Parshas Mikeitz never be read on Chanukah?
  4. What is the average number of words per daf of Gemara?
  5. What important events happened in Jewish history on this day?
  6. What interesting, non-Gematria facts exist about the particular number X?

Question 1 suffers from the problem of being a riddle. I ask the question explicitly hiding information, with the intent that answerers must seek out this information themselves. My issue with outright banning riddle questions as being "low quality" is that it's almost trivial (pun intended) to rewrite the question to no longer be a riddle: "I see quite a few places in Tanach which discuss the deaths of males. I know that Genesis 23 discusses the death of Sarah; are there any other women about whom the verse describes their deaths?" Fundamentally this is the same question, and it seems to betray even less information than the original riddle (which at least told you there's nine in total). Should even this latter variant be off-topic, or should even the original variant be on-topic, or somewhere in between?

Questions 2 and 4 are what I call "statistics questions." They can be meaningful (knowing how long the average daf is helps greatly with setting up a study schedule), or they can be trivial (I see no benefit to knowing what the longest stretch without mentioning Abaye or Rava is, except for satisfying curiosity). Where do we draw the line regarding these types of questions?

Question 3 could be asked as a trivia question, or it could be asked as seeking information on the calendar ("I see a haftarah for Miketz not Chanukah exists in the back of my Chumash; when is this ever read?"). Fundamentally it's the same question; should motivation be a deciding factor in determining on-topicness?

Questions 5 and 6 share some overlap with all three of these categories; is there something which sets them aside wherein these could be off-topic and the others all on-topic, or vice versa?

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