Why was my thread about civilizations closed on this science forum?

[Lobos]

Someone closed my thread, for what reason? I was asking questions about civilizations and the fundamental ideas that thrive within them. I'm a student looking into the social science and history of civilizations.

 

[russ_watters]

I didn't lock it, but I can say that the thread seemed to me like idle speculation, which isn't something we allow here, even for (especially for?) social sciences. If this is for a class, you are better off doing actual research.

 

[Lobos]

People can correct me if my questions are not structured adequately. Well, one person was nice enough to reply, why can't everyone here be that nice?

 

[russ_watters]

People can correct me if my questions are not structured adequately. Well, one person was nice enough to reply, why can't everyone here be that nice?

I'm sorry, but it isn't an issue of being "nice" -- we don't allow idle speculation and even just correcting the idle speculation is allowing it to continue. Idle speculation really isn't a very effective way to learn and we don't want to encourage that.

 

[Evo]

As we discussed, your question is philosophy, not science, and is not allowed.

 

[Lobos]

I was just asking questions. We discussed ideas related to social theory in political science so I thought it would be okay to discuss that here. I'm trying to be as friendly as possible, but I feel like I'm not receiving friendly responses by you two.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Is there any variation on "no, we don't allow that here" that you would consider friendly?

 

[russ_watters]

I prefaced my second post with "I'm sorry" to try to be as soft as possible. Not sure what else I could say.

This is a science forum and some non-science discussions just aren't a good fit for what we are about. Philosophy and social sciences have long been problematic here because people tend to see the "softness" of rigor as an invitation for an "anything goes" speculative discussion. We want discussion based on facts and logic; scientific rigor.

 

[Lobos]

Well, "No, we don't allow those sort of questions here, sorry." followed by some suggestions on who to ask these questions. That may have been the answer, instead I was accused of "philosophical meandering", and my questions labeled "meaningless", when my questions were merely to find out info, or to be constructively corrected if my approach was wrong. Just like the other questions I posted in previous threads.

 

[Lobos]

I prefaced my second post with "I'm sorry" to try to be as soft as possible. Not sure what else I could say.

This is a science forum and some non-science discussions just aren't a good fit for what we are about. Philosophy and social sciences have long been problematic here because people tend to see the "softness" of rigor as an invitation for an "anything goes" speculative discussion. We want discussion based on facts and logic; scientific rigor.

That's good. Just felt a little hostility from certain words, and felt like certain accusations were not honest. Thanks for the response.