Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Thanks.

Though, I should have written, "Beginners' Questions."

sam regarf wrote:

Can there be a subsection on this forum for beginners? A place to ask very basic questions on general Thomism and basic metaphysical concepts?

That might be a good idea. It could let people new to Thomism know they don't have to hesitate about asking questions. In any case, Sam, feel free to post any question you want in the "Philosophy" forum.

I've seen this form of post before, so it does happen. Another option might be to sticky a post called "Beginner's Questions" at the top of the philosophy forum, so that people with questions can easily reference old answers.

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

We may be getting ahead ourselves, but I certainly see merit in stopping repititive scientistic attacks on religion, or related annoyances. It would certainly be a shame if internet naturalists kept weighing in with New Atheist style attacks on religion when serious discussions of philosophy of religion were going on.

Honestly, I think "scientism" is too poorly defined to warrant its own post-deletion category.* If such people are causing the types of problems you list, they will almost certainly fall into your other categories.

*We ought to either ban all naturalists (which I think would be a mistake, some are reasonable), or let the other categories do the work.

I've written elsewhere, I think it's important to keep a light hand to make it easy for people to post. So, I suppose I'm on the side that prefers that approach.

As for off-topic posts, I think we ought to draw a distinction between off-topic posts and threadjacking. As you write, off-topic posts can often lead to profitable discussions -- some of the most profitable (unless they're just trolling posts, but then they fall into your 3). The issue is always when off-topic posts take over threads. That is, when people threadjack.