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Now a days we find many people, websites, blogs, articles, movies etc., are injecting into society, several statements that are contradicting to the actual texts.

All those are spread over internet as well as offline. Beginners tend to believe misleading sources and is a major threat.

How can we deal with such negative propaganda over Hindu texts?

Sample strategies:

1) maintain a list of websites or blogs that contradict to the actual statements;

2) Allowing a tag or feature, to show the text from such sites and answering based on original content;

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    I don't think this is a good idea because rating a site bad is not within the site's scope. That would give partiality and bias on the site. We can only judge good content. Tags should not be used to indicate accuracy of content. Votes do that. BTW, we already have a list of sites and pages we allow citing in answers hinduism.meta.stackexchange.com/q/596/5212 and hinduism.meta.stackexchange.com/q/806/5212 . Question also talks about Hindu texts and not our site.. I don't that it is our scope. We are a website which discuss HInduism, not HIndu website.
    – Sarvabhouma
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 15:52
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    Is this about HInduism Stack Exchange site or Hinduism in general ?
    – Sarvabhouma
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 15:56
  • I feel of extending q&a site to some more extent, so that low quality questions may come less in future. I joined in this site long ago. In my Initial days, i red many articles like : speakingtree.in/allslides/…, daily.bhaskar.com/news/… etc., and believed because of their presentations. Lot of people may fall into the trap and it may lead to low quality questions in future by believing those sites.
    – hanugm
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 16:47
  • So, my thought is to extend the capability of site by introducing some kind of tag, if question is from such sites with in the scope of our site.
    – hanugm
    Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 16:49
  • Are you talking about contents of Questions or Answers?
    – Pandya Mod
    Commented Oct 29, 2018 at 2:33
  • Btw, we have one Granthalaya that may be useful :)
    – Pandya Mod
    Commented Oct 29, 2018 at 2:57

1 Answer 1

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It is not possible to implement this. Why? Here are the reasons.

Making a list:

  1. It is not good to say a specific site is a bad. It means that we are judging it as a site. Users may have opinions about this but as a site, we are neutral towards everyone. Saying something is bad is not our job and not within our scope too. We are not an authority in a religion to judge something as inaccurate by creating a list like that (that is why we don't encourage questions on contemporary topics which create debates and discussions).

  2. The merit of an article depends on the writer of the article and not the site. So, we have to check what type of article we are dealing with every time we are checking quality. We generally do that for each and every website and not blindly trust a website.

  3. Stack Exchange has a policy. "Focus on the content, not the person" (from Code of Conduct). It is not sure that a user will always post good/bad content. It changes every time for every post. If we apply that principle here, We will check the content only and not the site from where it is posted. It is already discussed in previous Meta discussions on which sites to allow.(Which scriptures / sources are considered valid? and What are some online sources to get unabridged Hindu Scriptures or to learn Hinduism?) There have been accurate/inaccurate articles from every site. The accuracy depends on who the author is.

  4. If an article is cited in a question or answer, users (should) check its accuracy. We don't blindly believe it as an authentic article just because it is from a certain website. The check will go on naturally if it is posted about some website which is posting wrong info.

  5. Many blogs are personal interpretations. Some are accurate and at the same time, some are very clear citing texts and giving reasoning. Even from the sites you have mentioned in the comments, many articles give accurate account of stories. So, labeling them as inaccurate sites is a bad idea.

You can downvote a question or answer if such inaccurate details are provided which contradict texts.

Tags:

  1. Tags on a question indicate what the question of the topic is about. They should not indicate the source of the question or answer or accuracy of the question/answers. There are such tags on Meta like but these are Meta-tags, different from main tags. From privileges section from the help center, (emphasis added):

    A tag is a keyword or label that categorizes your question with other, similar questions. When you choose to create a new tag, you're asking a question in a topic that nobody before you (on this site, at least) ever has.

  2. If a user reads an inaccurate article on the internet and posts a question clarifying to know the real meaning, they are welcome. We actually have hundreds of questions like that linking Wikipedia and other websites. Questions may not require references but answers need them. If a question posts some article and asks if that is true, it is fine*. We will try to answer it correctly citing proper sources. If some user is posting such content again and again to troll and not to know to clarify, then that is a problem. Moderators will have to look at it.

Hence, marking some websites as bad is a personal opinion of users. The site being neutral doesn't interfere in making a list which is out of its scope. We are just a Q&A website which deals with Hinduism.

* If that is within our scope and bypasses off-topic criteria.

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