What was wrong with my answer?

Question

I believe my answer has been wrongfully deleted. I answered this question. What was wrong with my answer?

My answer.

I understand that the arguments expressed by the asker of this quesiton are rooted in Hebrew tradition. I thought this wasn't a (strictly) Jewish site. I am not a Jew, and I do not base my life on the teachings of Jewish sages. I'm interested in their teachings, but they have no impact whatsoever on how I bear myself. I don't understand why I should be forced to follow their advice or commandments.

Comments.

Isaac Moses: ymar, You make an interesting point about the role of Jewish law and tradition here on Meta.Judaism. On this issue, in particular, my position is generally driven by secular concerns. In general, I agree that gentile users of Mi Yodeya are not bound by Jewish Law, but I'd also point out that Mi Yodeya, like any SE site, is correct in asking users to adhere to reasonable community standards, as defined here on Meta and in our FAQ. Given Mi Yodeya's defintion, Jewish sources sometimes inform these discussions.

Double AA: Who is forcing you to do anything? If you have a different policy suggestion for any post here on meta please post it and if many community members agree with your policy it might be adopted.

Me: @DoubleAA I am not being forced to do anything at the moment. I have just expressed my concern about the possibility of being forced. The question gives arguments for forbidding anonymity that are based on Jewish teachings only. I only care about Jewish teachings intellectually. I would be very unhappy if I were forbidden to do something on this site because Jewish sages say so.

Me: @IsaacMoses I do not at all oppose reasonable community standards. As far as I know, there is no SE site that demands telling one's name in order to post. I know MathOverflow recommends it, but I haven't heard of any requirements yet. I find requiring that users identify themselves unreasonable. But what I find the most unreasonable is basing these requirements on Jewish law or tradition.

Double AA: What if we forbid you from insulting people on the site?

Double AA: There is a point you are trying to make, but you have yet to formulate it very precisely. When you do please ask it as a new discussion question. For now, I'm deleting this as not an answer.

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I was not able to answer Double AA's comments because the whole answer was deleted. I wished to answer thus:

I do not believe I have insulted anyone. If I have, please tell me where, and if I agree, I will apologize.

I would be grateful if someone would tell me whether I was offensive or not and why. I don't think I was, but I know I can be wrong. I would also like to know why my answer has been deleted. I find the explanation condescending and not very illuminating. I think it is unfair to delete an answer with the explanation

There is a point you are trying to make, but you have yet to formulate it very precisely.

I don't know what was imprecise in my answer because I haven't been told.

Answer 1

Your answer was deleted by me because it doesn't discuss anonymity on Mi Yodeya. It was a comment on most of the other answers and possibly some site functions in general. So it was Not An Answer. I had a flag from a user saying as much as well. (I'm of course not infallible so if others disagree I can undelete it.) I encourage you, if the issue of traditional Jewish influence on site policy still bugs you, to ask a new discussion post about it, possibly using examples from the anonymity issue as support for your claims.

As to your last point : no I was in no way offended by your question and I think it is an important one for the community to discuss. You said to me in a comment that you would not like to be forbidden to do something based on Jewish sages' advice. I challenged you That many things such as insulting people are forbidden to do by Jewish sages but you might agree to it. Since I don't think that is what you wanted to complain about, I suggest you clarify your issue very precisely in your upcoming post. I do not plan on continuing that discussion in comments here; we should start afresh in the new post where anyone can be involved.

I hope this has clarified everything for you and I apologize for any misunderstandings.

Answer 2

I can't answer for DoubleAA, but the question was, roughly, "Should anonymity be allowed?" and your answer did not address the question, but rather, criticized premises suggested in the question. As such, it should probably have been posted as a comment to the question rather than as an answer. Had I mod powers, I would have migrated it along with its comments to become comments on the question.

I don't think your comment was offensive or insulting. I suspect that DoubleAA brought up the concept of insult as an example of something that we might forbid on the site, based at least partly on Jewish values.

Answer 3

Regardless of whether or not the original question, before editing, was written assuming everyone was Jewish, your answer was still not an answer. It addressed your personal feelings about having to follow some religious dictates of another faith, which has absolutely no bearing the question whatsoever.

Your answer would be best left as a comment on the question, if you felt it served as food for thought for anyone else reading the original question.

Furthermore, your presumption that this isn't a (strictly) Jewish site is wholly incorrect. See this answer for more on this.

We do not prevent anyone from participating (if they participate in good faith - obviously we weed out trolls and spammers, etc.) in our community, but the assumption made when participating is that questions will be about Jewish life and learning, and that answers will draw from Jewish tradition. Period.