The Official Guide to eBible
eBible Q/A
Q: What is eBible Q/A?
Q: Is all content moderated?
Q: Does eBible support or endorse all Questions, Answers, Comments, or Articles on ebible.com?
Questions
Q: What makes a good question?
Q: My question did not violate the Statement of Faith. Why was it removed?
Duplicate content
Insufficient details
Multiple questions as one
Question must be relevant
Answers
Q: What is the criteria for a good answer?
Q: When should you "comment" instead of creating an "answer"?
Q: Does voting properly translate to the best answers?
Q: My answer did not violate the Statement of Faith. Why was it removed?
Duplicate content
Link click required
Unsubstantiated opinion
Conduct unbecoming
Dubious value
Grammatical sloppiness
Q: Are anonymous answers allowed?
Comments
Q: My comment did not violate the Statement of Faith. Why was it removed?
Conduct unbecoming
Comment should be answer
Q: What is the difference between Clarify, Respond, and Discuss?
Clarify - Question
Respond - Answer
Discuss - Topic
Code of Conduct
Q: What is the eBible Code of Conduct?
Spirit and Tone
Personal Attacks
The eBible Q/A is a place for you to ask questions about God, the Bible and Christianity on ebible.com. Any person in the eBible community can provide an answer to your question. Answers are
sorted based on votes. The higher the votes, the further up the page your answer will be. The lower the votes, the lower down the page your answer will be. All answers must adhere to the eBible
Statement of Faith.
We moderate all new content. However, some older content may appear un-moderated. When we first released eBible Q/A in May of 2013, it was an experiment to gauge interest in this feature. Many of the initial questions and answers that were created in the early days did not adhere to the
Statement of Faith (it was not created yet.) As you look through some of the older content, you may come across comments or answers that do not reflect a spirit of love and truth. When you do, just click the "report" link next to it and let us know. We will remove it as we find it.
While all user submitted content is moderated to ensure it adheres to the eBible Statement of Faith there will always remain a diversity of opinion amongst Christians on many issues. While those of us at eBible certainly have opinions of our own, we do not claim to support or endorse any particular Question, Answer, Comment, or Article found on ebible.com.
- Always check to see if the question has already been asked on eBible. If it has been, do not create another one. Avoid duplication.
- Adhere to the eBible Statement of Faith.
- Title should be accurate, concise and complete. Start with "who/what/why/when/how/if/does" and end with a "?"
- Provide details via the optional details box if possible.
- If a specific verse is being referenced, correctly fill the passage field, i.e. John 3:16.
- Avoid questions better suited for counseling. While the eBible community can help you, it is not a proper substitute for seeking help from your local church. You may use eBible to complement advice from your local church but we strongly recommend you do not depend solely on eBible. There is much interpersonal context necessary for good counseling that cannot be properly represented on a webpage.
- Avoid calls for "commentary". Generic questions such as "I don't understand, please explain this" are strongly discouraged. Be more specific about what you don't understand and need help with.
The key is value.
Does your question provide value to our readers? See possible reasons below:
We want to make sure future readers do not have to go through 50 duplicate questions to find all the answers to a question. We would prefer all unique answers under one single question. If your question matches any of the previous questions, please
vote for that matched question instead. This will encourage and reward the previous writer and ensure future readers do not get inundated with "noise". One exception would be if you believe your question has additional details that significantly differentiate your question from the rest.
A question is only valuable if others can understand it. The key is to write a question with enough details for readers to understand its context. Sometimes an asker may reference other writers or articles but does not provide a link or any information to access it. Or the details provided may be too vague/generic such that it is difficult for anyone to respond in an effective manner. If contributors start asking follow-up questions in their answers, this is a sure sign that your question lacks enough details to warrant any kind of thoughtful and comprehensive answer.
It is fine to have follow-up questions in the detail box but questions that are distinctly different should be broken out to their own article.
A question must be relevant to our readers. For example, a question such as 'is the color of God's eyes blue?' is by itself valid. It does not break our
Statement of Faith. However, it provides little relevance to our readers. All questions must have relevance to the Bible.
The following criteria must be met in order for a submission to be listed in the
answer section for a question.
An answer must adhere to eBible's
Statement of Faith.
An answer must offer a unique perspective that provides value to the reader. This means going beyond making generic statements. You should provide logical arguments to support your conclusion.
Seek to support your arguments with scripture taken in
proper context.
An answer should not depend on external links or other peer answers. Links may be included as reference but a reader must be able to understand your answer completely by itself.
An answer must reflect a tone of love and understanding. Take special care to avoid a perception of hostility and condemnation. Leave judgement to God and seek to provide understanding through love.
If your intention is to respond to an existing answer, we highly recommend you comment instead of creating another answer. Click on the "comment" link below the answer you're responding to. If you want to show your agreement, we recommend voting up the answer instead of commenting.
We realize that votes on an answer better reflect its "popularity" rather than its "correctness". In a way, one might also argue that the top answers represent the most popular answers, rather than the most truthful answer. However, given that ebible.com is a Bible-reading community, and its votes are typically cast by its most active readers, there is a close correlation between popularity and correctness. We understand it is not perfect. No system ever is, especially one that accepts diverse opinions and perspectives. Sometimes there is a divergence in popularity vs. truth. But as in any democratic system, we believe its strengths outweigh its weaknesses. And we tend to get more right than we do wrong. In the near future we will be expanding the eBible Q/A scoring system to include a weighting system that takes into account user reputation and recognition of expert opinions to further improve the system.
The key is value.
Does your answer provide value to our readers? See possible reasons below:
We want to make sure future readers do not have to go through 50 duplicate/similar answers to understand 3 different perspectives on a question. We would prefer 3 unique answers. If your answer matches any of the previous answers, please
vote instead. This will encourage and reward the previous writer. You may also
comment to show your appreciation as well. It will ensure future readers do not get inundated with "noise". One exception would be if you believe you can write a substantially better answer. Or that you have additional content that significantly supplements an existing answer.
Some contributors include a link in their answer and expect that you click through in order to read the rest. This unfortunately opens a door for link spamming. Users should be able to read your complete answer without clicking on any links. This means your answer must be complete and self-sufficient. Links can only be used as supporting evidence or reference. The website and webpage you are linking to must also adhere to the eBible
Statement of Faith.
Some contributors will give an opinion i.e. "No" or "This is wrong, go read the Bible". Unfortunately, it ends there. There are no supporting arguments, evidence, or scripture references. In other words, other than voicing a position, it does not provide the asker with any value about why that position was chosen. This again becomes just "noise" for future readers.
It is very important to maintain a tone that reflects a spirit of love and understanding. If your overall tone is judgmental, argumentative, or hostile, your answer will not be well received. Ask yourself: If a non-Christian were to read your answer, would Christ be glorified? We understand that emotions can sometimes run high in the midst of a heated discussion. Perhaps another commenter is being completely unreasonable or illogical. The proper response is to not act in kind, but to show kindness. How you say something is often times louder than what you say. Be very mindful with your tone.
Sometimes a contributor will write an answer that is unrelated to God, the Bible or Christianity. Or the answer is "spammy" and makes no sense at all. These answers provide zero value and will be promptly removed.
All answers on eBible are for the spiritual edification of our community. Readability is extremely important to us. Simple things like capitalizing where appropriate, spell checking, separating thoughts with paragraphs, and not abbreviating make a big difference in helping our readers to understand an answer.
When we first started the eBible Q/A feature, we allowed anonymous postings of both questions and answers. Unfortunately we found anonymous answers reduce accountability. While we still allow anonymous questions,
anonymous answers are now no longer allowed. We are in the process of removing all legacy anonymous postings. We may make an exception to a legacy posting if it carries significant votes. The exception will be granted on the premise that keeping it there provides great value to future readers.
The key is value.
Does your comment provide value to our readers? See possible reasons below:
It is very important to maintain a tone that reflects a spirit of love and understanding. If your overall tone is judgmental, argumentative, or hostile, your comment will not be well received. Ask yourself: If a non-Christian were to read your comment, would Christ be glorified? We understand that emotions can sometimes run high in the midst of a heated discussion. Perhaps another commenter is being completely unreasonable or illogical. The proper response is to not act in kind, but to show kindness. How you say something is often times louder than what you say. Be very mindful with your tone.
eBible accepts different perspectives and viewpoints so long as they meet our Statement of Faith. If you have a significantly different perspective, we recommend you create a new answer to the question instead. The comment area is meant for simple follow-up dialog with the author for clarification or support. It is not ideal as a platform for long, theological debates. If you cannot agree with the author, just vote up the answer the best matches your perspective or create a new answer (assuming your answer is unique and different from the rest).
There are three main areas that you can comment on for a question on eBible.
This is found when you click the 'clarify' link below the question. This comment area is meant for you to seek additional clarification from the author of the question.
This is found when you click on the 'response' link below an answer. This comment area is meant for you to respond directly to the author of the answer for additional clarification.
This is found on the "Discuss" tab of a question (right side of the "Answer" tab). This comment area is ideal for general comments surrounding the topic of the question. You may place follow-up discussions and related topics here.
The eBible Code of Conduct defines the acceptable behavior of all contributors on ebible.com. In general, all content submission i.e. questions, answers, comments must reflect a tone and spirit of love and understanding.
We understand discussions can sometimes run heated. Treat this as an opportunity to exercise the
Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) -
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Personal attacks are strictly forbidden and will not be tolerated. Discussions should be directed towards the merits of the arguments. This means you do not comment on the intelligence of other contributors, or their eligibility to heaven (judgement).
Sometimes general statements can infer a personal attack as well. For example making a statement "only idiots believe in X" within a discussion where several contributors do believe in "X". While you're not explicitly naming anyone, readers will implicitly understand who you're directing this statement to.