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Purim Torah Discussion
It's almost that time of year! Who's ready for some Purim Torah?
Before we begin the season, we need to set some ground rules. In this thread, I'd like to discuss how exactly this will run. Below I've plotted out some questions to discuss, but feel free to pose more of your own.
- When should the season take place, i.e. when should it begin and end? Should there be a longer session for answering questions than for asking them? For context, Adar begins on Shabbos, February 13; Purim will be two Fridays later, February 26; and Nissan begins on Sunday, March 14.
- What qualifies as Purim Torah? Talmudic-style discussions of not-Jewish topics? Completely on-topic questions that seek silly answers? Intentional misreadings of Biblical and Talmudic sources, concluding with a resulting problem? Self-deprecating "meta" jokes?
- How should Purim Torah posts be sorted? Should we set up a new category, only active certain times of year? Should we set up special tags within the existing Challenges category (it's a Challenges category, after all, not specifically QOTW)? Should we set up special tags within the normal Q&A category?
- How should Purim Torah posts be tagged? If they are filed within an existing category, there will obviously need to be a Purim Torah tag; should it simply be called [purim-torah], or something else? Whether they are in their own category or not, should we allow non-Purim Torah tags to be added as well?
- How should Purim Torah posts be formatted? What distinguishing features, if any, should be included in the post, whether its title or body?
- What type of posts should be permitted? Only Q&A, or also articles?
3 answers
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I wanted to suggest, if possible, locking the downvotes on PT posts. I mean, if a PT is inappropriate, then like any other post, it should be removed. But other than that, I see no point in downvoting PTs. If you don't like it, it probably means that you have a different sense of humor from the OP. That's not a sin... Perhaps I'm missing something here. If anyone sees any other reason to downvote a PT, let me know.
Edit: I figured this post will be downvoted and will probably continue to receive more downvotes, as this is exactly what has happened any time I've voiced my thoughts on such matters. I notice that usually - though not always - these downvotes are left without comment, so are generally quite useless - same for PT. If you disagree with it, at least explain why...
2: Given the size of our population and the maturity of our community, I recommend avoiding premature optimization of the rules. There needs to be some mechanism for segregating non-sincere content from sincere content. If there's that, it's not so important that we have a clear definition of what counts, for our purposes, as "Purim Torah." We could just leave it as "funny stuff about Torah" and see how it goes.
3: 4: 5: Probably the neatest way to segregate is to put Purim Torah in a category. We can avoid clutter and mission-creep by hiding that category entirely outside of the Purim Torah season. That way, we don't have to worry about mass-closing, the practice on Mi Yodeya, and we don't have to worry about tags, special formatting or disclaimers on every post.
1: I'd suggest, as a season, the month[s] of Adar, just to keep things simple. If we have full segregation with a category, a 1-2-month-long season won't disturb the rest of the content.
6: I like the idea of including Purim Torah essays, but I have the same concerns about quality control and originality that I posted regarding Divrei Torah in this case exacerbated by the fact that the implicit sincerity requirement in the real Divrei Torah category would be absent. Perhaps we should apply the same rule about deletion after three days if not upvoted as we do to Divrei Torah (at least officially), perhaps to all Purim Torah.
The Purim Torah category is live! (Thanks, Monica!)
Complete documentation for this category is at the top of the category:
Joke Q&A and essays about Judaism. Please don't take anything in this category [completely] seriously! Our Code of Conduct remains in effect. This category will disappear at the end of Adar.
1 comment thread