How does a new user get started on Hinduism SE?

Question

What is the best way for a new user to get started on this site?

What are dos and don'ts for new users?

Answer 1

The site is based on Hinduism. If the user is a beginner in a sense that he is not at all informative about the Hinduism, I would suggest him to read this extensively long article on Wikipedia.

The reason I insist the users to read the article first is because this will prevent their questions to get closed for any good reason (if they ask) and also it will help contributing with new questions on the website if a question arises when a person is reading that article.

Once the user is well known with the basic information on Hinduism, the things he need to look for before posting a question :

Don'ts

• Look for the question on this site before you ask one, if the question is already asked by another user, your question may get closed as duplicate.

• Your question should not be over broad, questions like Information about Lord Shiv, Asking stories etc will be considered as too broad and will be closed.

• Avoid asking questions which may be answered as opinion based for example - Do god exists will be answered opinion based, similarly question like Do people go to swarg or nark etc

• Avoid asking cross religion questions, I am just highlighting this out in bold because we want to avoid religion wars here, don't compare any other religion with Hinduism, stick to the topic, I would not post any examples for this, I hope people understand. Don't compare religions on good/bad parts, don't post questions if you've heard some cross religion rumors ...

• Don't copy paste the information from any random website, Religion is a vast topic with multiple views of the people, so copy only from popular source and don't forget to link to the reference site, else your post will be deleted.

• Don't create unnecessary tags, look for the ones which are available first.

• Don't answer the question philosophically always, make sure they are theoretically correct.

• Don't envy downvote other users, suspicious activities may result in account suspension.

• Avoid group upvotes, they may be reversed, for the above point and this point, you may refer the help centre.

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Do's

• Make sure when you are asking a question, it makes sense and its on topic to Hinduism, refer the don'ts first so that you do the do's correctly

• Edit out the posts with correct keywords if you are well informative for a particular subject, for example, edit the question titles which you may feel would help with SEO, edit out tags which may help users to refer the question in a particular category, correct spelling errors, blockquote the information from other websites rather than highlighting them using syntax highlighter.

• Edit tag wikis (Make sure you don't copy, if you do, please include the source, also I would recommend the pros to edit the wikis)

• Upvote and appreciate questions and answers which you think are good, informative, this will encourage users to post more and also in a way you are rewarding them for their efforts.

• Include source if you copy any of the information from other website, not doing so may result in deletion of your question/answer

• Close vote questions with appropriate point if you feel the question should be closed on a particular basis

• Help out other users, comment if you downvote, don't hesitate to upvote once the user corrects his mistakes, we all do mistakes, or just leave a comment stating whats wrong with the post, this will help spreading positivity amoungst users

• Participate in meta discussions, atleast on the initial stage of the site

• Participate in chat rooms and suggest ideas, discuss issues with other users

• Flag questions with appropriate reasons if you do not have rights to close

• Review the posts wisely, don't close the questions if other user has closed, its your opinion, judge accordingly

• Add references to your question/answers which will support your views.

• Accept answers when you feel they are good, appreciate users efforts when they answer, its not always about reputation.

• Use pictures if you feel they are related to the post

• Raise questions on meta if you have a query, complain rather than fighting out with the user by commenting on random posts or envy votings..

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Apart from this, it is completely fine to post a question even if you know the answer for that, you can self answer the question, and its also fine if its easily googlable, we want the users to post the questions here and answer, and those posts should be edited by the best of the users with concise information which will help us as well as future visitors to refer.