user5715: In looking at answers to some questions I am frequently seeing a overt but unacknowledged sectarian affiliation. For example in the question Desire without attachment, some of the answers are purely Theravādin and given in a definitive tone, as though there could be no other answer. But this is seldom true. On very many points, not least the question of desire and attachment, a Mahāyānist would certainly answer differently. A Tantrika would have a different view again. 
I wonder if we need to get people to state their sectarian affiliations in answers? On Reddit people have little tags beside their names which are typically used to indicate sectarian affiliation. 
The overwhelming majority of answers here show a strong bias towards a Theravāda affiliation. Theravāda orthodoxy and Theravāda texts are cited as definitively authoritative, but without any explicit acknowledgement that this is the case. An answer about "Buddhism" from a purely sectarian point of view is actually misleading.
Is there any plan to address the question of bias in the answers? 

user7141: Hey if someone does not believe that they are indeed believing in the correct path wouldn't it be crazy to say anything that involves that certain belief?
The thing you need to understand is in Buddhism people believe what they believe at the best they can. And different traditions may not get along when it comes to teachings, For example Theravada believes in the existence of "Arahants" and Mahayana does not. But people here get along pretty well and they respect others and their beliefs and still express their own version so that anyone out there can read and learn. 
Here's a good example - A chat between a Theravada Buddhist and a Mahayana Buddhist
http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/32475/discussion-between-tenzin-dorje-and-sankha-kulathantille
If you are not Theravada and you feel bad about strong Theravada presence on this site you should get your friends here and spread more of your point of view, there's no point for complaining. I mean we do it.
And please stop putting Labels on things,it only creates boundaries. If you do not have enough presence in this site to say your side of it, Do something about it.
And this should not go without saying that it is not up to you to define how people express their loyalty to their school of Buddhism. Just like the one who writes the one who reads has a brain too, That's why there are comments and votes in this site.

user289: We have to work within the limitations of the stack exchange engine, which was built for software development questions and then later applied to a bewildering variety of topics from cooking to, well, Buddhism.
The tools we have:

Tagging. But we can only tag questions.
Comments on answers. 'This appears to be an answer from the orthodox SGI viewpoint.' This is actually one of the appropriate uses of comments, to improve an answer.
Editing answers. This is most defensible for cleaning up spelling, grammar and so on. If an answer was edited to clarify what orthodox tradition it expanding on, I can't see how that would be controversial, assuming it was written in a respectful tone, e.g. "In orthodox Chinese Buddhism as taught by master so and so, ..."
Editing wiki answers. When the author marked their answer as a wiki, it is explicitly inviting people to edit and improve as a collaborative document.

And finally, we can flap our tongues on meta and try to get people to update their profile pages with sectarian affiliations and to mark their answers and questions with what sectarian viewpoint they are speaking from in cases where it adds to the question or reduces the chance of another of these futile discussions that go something like-- "Well, your question is entirely invalid because it concerns themes and topics that are unimportant in my sect"  
And another point-- in Buddhism, if you have five sects, you have potentially five different correct answers (relative to the orthodox authorities in each sect!). But the engine is only capable of letting a user mark one answer as "correct". For the better written questions, where the user is asking for an answer from a particular orthodoxy, this is not a problem. But a good percent of our questions come from people not even aware that there is sectarianism in Buddhism (and a certain percent that pretend it doesn't exist or contemptuously dismiss the other sects and Buddhist heterodoxy and charlatanism). SE doesn't have a way to deal with an answer having a surfuit of correct answers (but each only correct in their own orthodox context)

user295: I added this to my Bio:
Also a practitioner of Samatha and Vipassana a form of Buddhist meditation mainly from the Pāli Canon (Theravāda). Also a non sectarian practitioner of Dhamma largely influenced by meditation as taught by S.N.Goenka and writings of Piya Tan, moderately influenced by Ven. Bhante Vimalaramsi and Thanissaro Bhikkhu, mildly influenced by Ven. Mun Bhuridatta, Ajahn Maha Bua, Ajahn Chah, (Thai Forest Traditions) Venerable Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw, Mogok Sayadaw, Ven. Sujiva, Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera, etc.
Also like to point out that many organised meditation movements or meditation centres have recognised or appointed Kammatthanacariyas (meditation masters) and if you are not one of them if might be wrong to say you represent a particular tradition or viewpoint or imply to make a assertion about a tradition.

user-1: My answers would most definitely appear to be from a Theravada perspective, but I only consider the Sutta pitaka to be authoritative (most closely resembles, in my opinion, what the historical Buddha would've taught) which is AFAIK almost identical to the Chinese Āgamas.
I do not give the same level of credence to the Theravada Abhidhamma or the commentarial sources. I also do not necessarily agree with all of the rites and rituals of the Theravada tradition, nor do I identify with any of the nationalistic elements that are increasingly being associated with Theravada Buddhism in countries like Sri Lanka.
I think this issue is much more nuanced than it appears.

user-1: After reading the discussions here, I got a second kind of impression about what is being discussed.
"Traditionally", it seems stackexchange communities put a lot of emphasis on references and materials in answers, low playing answers that are hard to verify (verify if they are correct, verify their mechanism, and/or verify their origin).
To a large extent, I think we carry that through as we also value "backing up answers". We quote sutras, we provide references to literature (buddhist, and even non-buddist to enrich the topic), we link research. And personally, I think this is one of the most empowering characteristics of such communities.
It's not just something valuable in itself, but I think it also comes as a strong point to the problem of this thread. We can point out answers we know while informing where these can be found in more detail (which expand to author names, traditions, credentials etc). In this way, it's up for the reader to make his own mind.
If we provide answer from an important book of sect Y (properly referencing it), a questions here is: how does this manifest the problem being discussed in this thread?
One thought here is that as long as an answer is well referenced, to a large extent, these problems could be mitigated and explicit disclaimers of sectarian affiliation becomes secondary (and safely optional; when not misleading, as it has been discussed here).
With that in mind (and if that makes sense), a suggestion here would be to try a more strict policy for answers, requiring them to be properly referenced. Though this is not without it's problems, as it could present a challenge to some kinds of questions (again, if it makes sense, maybe this is a trade off).
Naturally -- and to conclude -- even if our answers improve in the quality of references, there are cases where personal preferences still creep in and twist the meanings [just as logic steps fail] when answering, but I think these could be dealt on a case by case basis in the comments.

user295: I am not sure how to address this but mentioning the traditions becomes very difficult to do when you are sourcing the knowledge from many traditions and sub traditions. Say in the same sentence you are using arguments from tradition X and Y and the sentence that follows is from tradition Z intermingled with ideas from sub tradition S. This might even become more problematic when you are suing argument from tradition X and augmenting it to another context to support an argument from tradition Y when in many major points both tradition X and Y contradict. I feel in this case it is best left to the reader to see if the reasoning is logical to them than mentioning the traditions where both tradition may not accept this argument if you say this half is from X and that half is from Y. Also if you say I am practicing as from tradition X then even some times you use certain facts to justify X but from Y, or using arguments from Y and Z may not be possible if these are not what strictly what X says about them.
Say if you are strictly limited to our arguments from tradition X then it might be OK to say this is from tradition X but if not it might be misrepresenting X if this is not the case. If you sourcing from many places this becomes even more problematic for someone to say I pratice the method of tradition X but most of the logic I use in answering question is from tradition Y, Z, ... (perhaps tradition X is silent about certain topics and maybe focused in certain areas.) Or simply when you say I am from tradition X there is a lot you might have to exclude to be inline and becomes a burden if you are getting your knowledge from multiple sources to mention. Also if you draw much on balance more knowledge from one tradition and you hold out to be from this tradition but you use knowledge from multiple other traditions then everyone will start saying this is not from their tradition. Holding out to be from one tradition unless you are limited to it may create more problems than it solves in this cases. Providing references can sometimes avert this partially when providing references is possible. Also some times you may not be in 100% agreement with the references as it generally reflects or has an element of view of the writer which does not mean you cannot deviate in your logical thinking and understanding.
Also comes the case where you know fact X but not sure which tradition the fact X fits in with.
Also many organised meditation movements or meditation centres have recognised or appointed Kammatthanacariyas (meditation masters) and if you are not one of them if might be wrong to say you represent a particular tradition or viewpoint or imply to make a assertion about a tradition. 
Also 90% of the Dhamma you learn cannot be referenced. Say in an urban setting in a country like Sri Lanka (perhaps true for other Buddhist countries also) ...
During the Katina period there is at least 1 Dhamma talk at a temple. There are some temples which have about 3 or in some cases more. Now there are about 3 temples around you. (In my case there are about 7 at walking distance but many more if you were to drive out of which I regularly visit only about 3) You end up listening to 2 or 3 Dhamma talks a week. Many not recorded or transcribed.
Also say there in some the temples there is at least 1 meditation sitting per week. There will be some discussion (before or afterwards) before you get exposed to on average 6 talks from 2 or perhaps more traditions per month which are not in record. 
The comes the alms giving (which also has a dhamma talk) and organising of Dhamma talks (night before the alms giving) at friends and families places.
Also the Poya day programs. This will have multiple talks.
Also in many cases you might not know from what tradition the speaker is from. Also some facts you know you do not know definitively which tradition they fit in with.
Time you spend reading about Dhamma and content you get is definitely much less than these sources which are not referenceable. But if you do have readily accessible sources it makes sense to add them.

user254: I am frequently seeing a overt but unacknowledged sectarian affiliation.
I think people will willingly acknowledge it, but don't make a habit of explicitly saying so all the time.
Is there any plan to address the question of bias in the answers?
There's currently no such plan (not because a plan would be bad, but there isn't one).
The normal way to create a plan might be to use this meta-site:

To highlight a perceived problem, and ask for suggested solutions
To propose a solution, and ask people to discuss it and/or vote on it

I wonder if we need to get people to state their sectarian affiliations in answers?
That might be wordy (if everyone has a 'standard disclaimer' in their every answer) and more to police.
If you are able to answer from the POV of more than one sect, then that's welcome; so to say that sects differ on some subject, your answer could say e.g.,

"From a Theravādin perspective, X, but from a Mahāyānist perspective, Y."

We could vote on having a site policy which says whether people are allowed/expected to edit other people's answer to add a sect: e.g. vote on whether you can edit other people's answers to add, "From a Theravādin perspective," to the beginning of any answer which you think deserves it.
When you say, "we need to", why is that? Is it to help a (perhaps vanishingly small) subset of readers: i.e. readers who know that there are sects, and who know the names of sects, and who care about which answer can be associated with which sect, but who aren't able to recognize for themselves which sect each answer could be categorized as?
On Reddit people have little tags beside their names which are typically used to indicate sectarian affiliation.
IMO we cannot change the web site's functionality. We can only change how we use the web site.
The normal place to put a sectarian affiliation would be in your user profile. You have more-or-less done so already. So have many other users. Other users who haven't are always welcome to (but not required to).
If you're knowledgeable, as you are, then you may recognize a sect/source of an answer. If you're a long-term user of the site you'll also recognize other users and remember some of their previous answers (so when they post a new answer you can try to pigeon-hole it by author, if you want to).
An answer about "Buddhism" from a purely sectarian point of view is actually misleading.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I find it reminiscent of the blind men and the elephant. If I can't see the whole of the Buddhist elephant all at once, I'm grateful to be introduced to different aspects of it.
Perhaps I'm wrong but rather than "actually misleading" I hope that it's "actually better than nothing".

I'd like to point this sequence of comments as an example:


Could you mention that your answer is based in Theravada Buddhism? Thank you. –  Lanka
@Lanka all my answers are :) –  Sankha Kulathantille
@Sankha. I know:) Just the OP might not know and Andrei wrote in beginning of his post that it was from the Mahayana perspective. So to make it easier for new users we could write what perspective we are based in. Just my opinion. –  Lanka
@Lanka Theravada Buddhists don't really recognize other schools. Mostly historians do that. So it's just Buddhism for us. –  Sankha Kulathantille
And we do recognize other schools, it's all Buddhism for us :) –  Andrei Volkov



FWIW one of the usual suggestions is to write another answer yourself. For example if you see a question with a 'sectarian' answer you could add a new answer which begins,

The answer from @X is an orthodox Theravādin perspective; but I would add that, from a Mahāyānist perspective, etc.

... some of the answers are purely Theravādin and given in a definitive tone, as though there could be no other answer. But this is seldom true.
I imagine that for some people, English is a second language. In any case I'm grateful that so many people write so well and I'm averse to criticizing their tone.
I actually see all answers as personal, fallible (which is one reason why the site supports voting), and a (incomplete) summary.

user715: Speaking for myself, I have no sectarian affiliation. 
Sometimes I am likely to give a Theravadin answer, some other times a Zen answer, sometimes a humanist, or Hindu or Christian or scientific answer, or a mixture of several of them, whatever seems apt. I may not even give the same answer always to the same question. Truth doesn't break into neat chunks, if it did, it would be dead, a living truth evolves. This is why there are so many schools of buddhist thought over the ages.
I can only avoid stating that an answer is incontrovertible and leave the door of doubt open. Which I've always done. It's a good practice of non-attachment to views if one takes a Zen view on it. Maybe this can be the explicitly stated terms of this website. All views are fallible, including this one.
A shadow is as true a representation of a thing as a photograph or xray of it. They are each very different in what they depict though they point to the same, yet none are false. So, truth to me has many versions, yet they can all be true. 
I don't think there are any perfectly objective truths in this world, they are all subjective. Even science which favours definitive & objective proof only operates objectively within constraints of knowledge, tools and assumptions. Without constraints, including but not limited to quantum sciences, the "scientific truth" loses its objectivity.
As the Zen saying goes, it is neither the bamboo, nor the wind, it is our mind that moves.

user157: Can I put a suggestion in which might be a bit controversial.
If there is an answer that is from a particularly sectarian viewpoint that is unacknowledged then someone that spots it could edit the answer and put a line at the bottom e.g.

Please note this answer is from a XXXXXXX viewpoint which may not
  neccessarily apply to other Buddhist schools or traditions.

and then leave a comment on the answer saying

I have taken the liberty of identifying the tradition or school of
  Buddhism that this answer is from. Please feel free to edit or perhaps
  post on meta if this is inappropriate. This is in line with site
  policy [link to a policy question on meta - maybe this one]

If this is a standard way of doing things then it would be less inflammatory then people just editing and commenting as they see fit. 
Just a thought.

user-1: I think we should revisit ways to attract people from other traditions. I'm afraid:

the strong presence of "Theravada users" could have alienated some users from other traditions in the past (because of overall content, because of some users attitude, or both). 
if the majority of published material is perceived as having "Theravada inclination", it could alienate new users from other traditions (to the point this sites finally becomes associated with Theravada?)

Maybe we expected more traditions to follow soon, but it has been one year, and it's possible the content of the site is already becoming unattractive to many buddhists? And in S.E., we already have many other reasons to be careful to not scare people away.
I like @ChrisW tips, in that you use the space of your answer to identify other answer's tradition and distinguish it from your own. But more than, say, tagging questions, I think we will risk adding boilerplate:

It will be more moderating work, to add default disclaimers
The standard disclaimers might be the source of discussions (deviating from the question of matter).
It might be unnatural for people to learn to do it themselves.


user18: It might be better to suggest putting the onus on the asker; if you want an answer from a specific school, then you should really state it. In fact, we should probably discourage broad questions like "what does Buddhism say about X", since it should be pretty obvious that "Buddhism" as a theoretical "whole", like any other major religion, says lots of conflicting things about pretty much every X.
On the other hand, in cases where the OP doesn't specify a tradition, there should probably be a certain expectation of reluctance to giving in depth answers specific to one tradition or another, since doing so will inevitably lead to opposing answers from other traditions, confusion, and potential argumentation. 
Does the site really benefit from having multiple conflicting answers from each tradition, with "best" answers based on percentage of members following a specific tradition, or the OP's personal bent? I would argue that it doesn't.
So in cases where no tradition is given, I would suggest either comments requesting specification/pointing out the naivete of asking for a "Buddhist" stance or answers that are general enough to cover all forms of Buddhism.
What we probably shouldn't expect are lengthy posts trying to give multiple answers from each of the major Buddhist traditions. That would seem to set an unreasonably high bar for answers.
Nor should we expect sectarian answers to non-sectarian questions, even with "from the point of view of tradition X". I know I am guilty of offering such answers as well, but it doesn't seem like the best solution, especially in cases where it is clear that not all Buddhists will agree.
I wonder how the other religious sites have dealt with this question?

5715: <p>In looking at answers to some questions I am frequently seeing a overt but unacknowledged sectarian affiliation. For example in the question <a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/10983/desire-without-attachment">Desire without attachment</a>, some of the answers are purely Theravādin and given in a definitive tone, as though there <em>could be</em> no other answer. But this is seldom true. On very many points, not least the question of desire and attachment, a Mahāyānist would certainly answer differently. A Tantrika would have a different view again. </p>

<p>I wonder if we need to get people to state their sectarian affiliations in answers? On Reddit people have little tags beside their names which are typically used to indicate sectarian affiliation. </p>

<p>The overwhelming majority of answers here show a strong bias towards a Theravāda affiliation. Theravāda orthodoxy and Theravāda texts are cited as definitively authoritative, but without any explicit acknowledgement that this is the case. An answer about "Buddhism" from a purely sectarian point of view is actually <em>misleading</em>.</p>

<p>Is there any plan to address the question of bias in the answers? </p>
 7141: <p>Hey if someone does not believe that they are indeed believing in the correct path wouldn't it be crazy to say anything that involves that certain belief?</p>

<p>The thing you need to understand is in Buddhism people believe what they believe at the best they can. And different traditions may not get along when it comes to teachings, For example Theravada believes in the existence of "Arahants" and Mahayana does not. But people here get along pretty well and they respect others and their beliefs and still express their own version so that anyone out there can read and learn. </p>

<p><strong>Here's a good example - A chat between a Theravada Buddhist and a Mahayana Buddhist</strong></p>

<p><a href="http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/32475/discussion-between-tenzin-dorje-and-sankha-kulathantille">http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/32475/discussion-between-tenzin-dorje-and-sankha-kulathantille</a></p>

<p>If you are not Theravada and you feel bad about strong Theravada presence on this site you should get your friends here and spread more of your point of view, there's no point for complaining. I mean we do it.</p>

<p>And please stop putting Labels on things,it only creates boundaries. If you do not have enough presence in this site to say your side of it, Do something about it.</p>

<p>And this should not go without saying that it is not up to you to define how people express their loyalty to their school of Buddhism. Just like the one who writes the one who reads has a brain too, That's why there are comments and votes in this site.</p>
 289: <p>We have to work within the limitations of the stack exchange engine, which was built for software development questions and then later applied to a bewildering variety of topics from cooking to, well, Buddhism.</p>

<p>The tools we have:</p>

<ul>
<li>Tagging. But we can only tag questions.</li>
<li>Comments on answers. 'This appears to be an answer from the orthodox SGI viewpoint.' This is actually one of the appropriate uses of comments, to improve an answer.</li>
<li>Editing answers. This is most defensible for cleaning up spelling, grammar and so on. If an answer was edited to clarify what orthodox tradition it expanding on, I can't see how that would be controversial, assuming it was written in a respectful tone, e.g. "In orthodox Chinese Buddhism as taught by master so and so, ..."</li>
<li>Editing wiki answers. When the author marked their answer as a wiki, it is explicitly inviting people to edit and improve as a collaborative document.</li>
</ul>

<p>And finally, we can flap our tongues on meta and try to get people to update their profile pages with sectarian affiliations and to mark their answers and questions with what sectarian viewpoint they are speaking from in cases where it adds to the question or reduces the chance of another of these futile discussions that go something like-- "Well, your question is entirely invalid because it concerns themes and topics that are unimportant in my sect"  </p>

<p>And another point-- in Buddhism, if you have five sects, you have potentially five different correct answers (relative to the orthodox authorities in each sect!). But the engine is only capable of letting a user mark one answer as "correct". For the better written questions, where the user is asking for an answer from a particular orthodoxy, this is not a problem. But a good percent of our questions come from people not even aware that there is sectarianism in Buddhism (and a certain percent that pretend it doesn't exist or contemptuously dismiss the other sects and Buddhist heterodoxy and charlatanism). SE doesn't have a way to deal with an answer having a surfuit of correct answers (but each only correct in their own orthodox context)</p>
 295: <p>I added this to my Bio:</p>

<p>Also a practitioner of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samatha" rel="nofollow">Samatha</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassan%C4%81" rel="nofollow">Vipassana</a> a form of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism" rel="nofollow">Buddhist</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation" rel="nofollow">meditation</a> mainly from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81li_Canon" rel="nofollow">Pāli Canon</a> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theravada" rel="nofollow">Theravāda</a>). Also a non sectarian practitioner of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma" rel="nofollow">Dhamma</a> largely influenced by <a href="https://www.dhamma.org/en/index" rel="nofollow">meditation as taught</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._N._Goenka" rel="nofollow">S.N.Goenka</a> and writings of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piya_Tan" rel="nofollow">Piya Tan</a>, moderately influenced by <a href="http://www.dhammasukha.org/ven-bhante-vimalaramsi.html" rel="nofollow">Ven. Bhante Vimalaramsi</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanissaro_Bhikkhu" rel="nofollow">Thanissaro Bhikkhu</a>, mildly influenced by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mun_Bhuridatta" rel="nofollow">Ven. Mun Bhuridatta</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajahn_Maha_Bua" rel="nofollow">Ajahn Maha Bua</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajahn_Chah" rel="nofollow">Ajahn Chah</a>, (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Forest_Tradition" rel="nofollow">Thai Forest Traditions</a>) <a href="http://www.paaukforestmonastery.org/abbot.htm" rel="nofollow">Venerable Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_Vimala" rel="nofollow">Mogok Sayadaw</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sujiva" rel="nofollow">Ven. Sujiva</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanavira_Thera" rel="nofollow">Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera</a>, etc.</p>

<p>Also like to point out that many organised meditation movements or meditation centres have recognised or appointed Kammatthanacariyas (meditation masters) and if you are not one of them if might be wrong to say you represent a particular tradition or viewpoint or imply to make a assertion about a tradition.</p>
 -1: <p>My answers would most definitely appear to be from a Theravada perspective, but I only consider the Sutta pitaka to be authoritative (most closely resembles, in my opinion, what the historical Buddha would've taught) which is AFAIK almost identical to the Chinese Āgamas.</p>

<p>I do not give the same level of credence to the Theravada Abhidhamma or the commentarial sources. I also do not necessarily agree with all of the rites and rituals of the Theravada tradition, nor do I identify with any of the nationalistic elements that are increasingly being associated with Theravada Buddhism in countries like Sri Lanka.</p>

<p>I think this issue is much more nuanced than it appears.</p>
 -1: <p>After reading the discussions here, I got a second kind of impression about what is being discussed.</p>

<p>"Traditionally", it seems stackexchange communities put a lot of emphasis on references and materials in answers, low playing answers that are hard to verify (verify if they are correct, verify their mechanism, and/or verify their origin).</p>

<p>To a large extent, I think we carry that through as we also value "backing up answers". We quote sutras, we provide references to literature (buddhist, and even non-buddist to enrich the topic), we link research. And personally, I think this is one of the most empowering characteristics of such communities.</p>

<p>It's not just something valuable in itself, but I think it also comes as a strong point to the problem of this thread. We can point out answers we know while informing where these can be found in more detail (which expand to author names, traditions, credentials etc). In this way, it's up for the reader to make his own mind.</p>

<p>If we provide answer from an important book of sect <code>Y</code> (properly referencing it), a questions here is: how does this manifest the problem being discussed in this thread?</p>

<p>One thought here is that as long as an answer is well referenced, to a large extent, these problems could be mitigated and explicit disclaimers of sectarian affiliation becomes secondary (and safely optional; when not misleading, as it has been discussed here).</p>

<p>With that in mind (and if that makes sense), a suggestion here would be to try a more strict policy for answers, requiring them to be properly referenced. Though this is not without it's problems, as it could present a challenge to some kinds of questions (again, if it makes sense, maybe this is a trade off).</p>

<p>Naturally -- and to conclude -- even if our answers improve in the quality of references, there are cases where personal preferences still creep in and twist the meanings [just as logic steps fail] when answering, but I think these could be dealt on a case by case basis in the comments.</p>
 295: <p>I am not sure how to address this but mentioning the traditions becomes very difficult to do when you are sourcing the knowledge from many traditions and sub traditions. Say in the same sentence you are using arguments from tradition X and Y and the sentence that follows is from tradition Z intermingled with ideas from sub tradition S. This might even become more problematic when you are suing argument from tradition X and augmenting it to another context to support an argument from tradition Y when in many major points both tradition X and Y contradict. I feel in this case it is best left to the reader to see if the reasoning is logical to them than mentioning the traditions where both tradition may not accept this argument if you say this half is from X and that half is from Y. Also if you say I am practicing as from tradition X then even some times you use certain facts to justify X but from Y, or using arguments from Y and Z may not be possible if these are not what strictly what X says about them.</p>

<p>Say if you are strictly limited to our arguments from tradition X then it might be OK to say this is from tradition X but if not it might be misrepresenting X if this is not the case. If you sourcing from many places this becomes even more problematic for someone to say I pratice the method of tradition X but most of the logic I use in answering question is from tradition Y, Z, ... (perhaps tradition X is silent about certain topics and maybe focused in certain areas.) Or simply when you say I am from tradition X there is a lot you might have to exclude to be inline and becomes a burden if you are getting your knowledge from multiple sources to mention. Also if you draw much on balance more knowledge from one tradition and you hold out to be from this tradition but you use knowledge from multiple other traditions then everyone will start saying this is not from their tradition. Holding out to be from one tradition unless you are limited to it may create more problems than it solves in this cases. Providing references can sometimes avert this partially when providing references is possible. Also some times you may not be in 100% agreement with the references as it generally reflects or has an element of view of the writer which does not mean you cannot deviate in your logical thinking and understanding.</p>

<p>Also comes the case where you know fact X but not sure which tradition the fact X fits in with.</p>

<p>Also many organised meditation movements or meditation centres have recognised or appointed Kammatthanacariyas (meditation masters) and if you are not one of them if might be wrong to say you represent a particular tradition or viewpoint or imply to make a assertion about a tradition. </p>

<p>Also 90% of the Dhamma you learn cannot be referenced. Say in an urban setting in a country like Sri Lanka (perhaps true for other Buddhist countries also) ...</p>

<p>During the Katina period there is at least 1 Dhamma talk at a temple. There are some temples which have about 3 or in some cases more. Now there are about 3 temples around you. (In my case there are about 7 at walking distance but many more if you were to drive out of which I regularly visit only about 3) You end up listening to 2 or 3 Dhamma talks a week. Many not recorded or transcribed.</p>

<p>Also say there in some the temples there is at least 1 meditation sitting per week. There will be some discussion (before or afterwards) before you get exposed to on average 6 talks from 2 or perhaps more traditions per month which are not in record. </p>

<p>The comes the alms giving (which also has a dhamma talk) and organising of Dhamma talks (night before the alms giving) at friends and families places.</p>

<p>Also the Poya day programs. This will have multiple talks.</p>

<p>Also in many cases you might not know from what tradition the speaker is from. Also some facts you know you do not know definitively which tradition they fit in with.</p>

<p>Time you spend reading about Dhamma and content you get is definitely much less than these sources which are not referenceable. <strong>But if you do have readily accessible sources it makes sense to add them.</strong></p>
 254: <h2>I am frequently seeing a overt but unacknowledged sectarian affiliation.</h2>

<p>I think people will willingly acknowledge it, but don't make a habit of explicitly saying so all the time.</p>

<h2>Is there any plan to address the question of bias in the answers?</h2>

<p>There's currently no such plan (not because a plan would be bad, but there isn't one).</p>

<p>The normal way to <em>create</em> a plan might be to use this meta-site:</p>

<ul>
<li>To highlight a perceived problem, and ask for suggested solutions</li>
<li>To propose a solution, and ask people to discuss it and/or vote on it</li>
</ul>

<h2>I wonder if we need to get people to state their sectarian affiliations in answers?</h2>

<p>That might be wordy (if everyone has a 'standard disclaimer' in their every answer) and more to police.</p>

<p>If <em>you</em> are able to answer from the POV of more than one sect, then that's welcome; so to say that sects differ on some subject, your answer could say e.g.,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>"From a Theravādin perspective, X, but from a Mahāyānist perspective, Y."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>We could vote on having a site policy which says whether people are allowed/expected to edit other people's answer to add a sect: e.g. vote on whether you can edit other people's answers to add, "From a Theravādin perspective," to the beginning of any answer which you think deserves it.</p>

<p>When you say, "we need to", why is that? Is it to help a (perhaps vanishingly small) subset of readers: i.e. readers who know that there <em>are</em> sects, <em>and</em> who know the <em>names</em> of sects, and who <em>care</em> about which answer can be associated with which sect, but who <em>aren't</em> able to recognize for themselves which sect each answer could be categorized as?</p>

<h2>On Reddit people have little tags beside their names which are typically used to indicate sectarian affiliation.</h2>

<p>IMO we cannot change <a href="https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1648/254">the web site's functionality</a>. We can only change how we use the web site.</p>

<p>The normal place to put a sectarian affiliation would be in your user profile. <a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/users/5715/jayarava-attwood?tab=profile">You have more-or-less done so already</a>. So have many other users. Other users who haven't are always welcome to (but not required to).</p>

<p>If you're knowledgeable, as you are, then you may recognize a sect/source of an answer. If you're a long-term user of the site you'll also recognize other users and remember some of their previous answers (so when they post a new answer you can try to pigeon-hole it by author, if you want to).</p>

<h2>An answer about "Buddhism" from a purely sectarian point of view is actually misleading.</h2>

<p>I'm sorry you feel that way. I find it reminiscent of <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.6.04.than.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the blind men and the elephant</a>. If I can't see the whole of the Buddhist elephant all at once, I'm grateful to be introduced to different aspects of it.</p>

<p>Perhaps I'm wrong but rather than "actually misleading" I hope that it's "actually better than nothing".</p>

<hr>

<p>I'd like to point this sequence of comments as an example:</p>

<blockquote>
  <ul>
  <li><a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/10763/if-a-buddhist-should-not-kill-a-mouse-living-in-their-home-what-justification-d/10766#comment16576_10766">Could you mention that your answer is based in Theravada Buddhism? Thank you.</a> –  Lanka</li>
  <li><a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/10763/if-a-buddhist-should-not-kill-a-mouse-living-in-their-home-what-justification-d/10766#comment16591_10766">@Lanka all my answers are :)</a> –  Sankha Kulathantille</li>
  <li>@Sankha. I know:) Just the OP might not know and Andrei wrote in beginning of his post that it was from the Mahayana perspective. So to make it easier for new users we could write what perspective we are based in. Just my opinion. –  Lanka</li>
  <li>@Lanka Theravada Buddhists don't really recognize other schools. Mostly historians do that. So it's just Buddhism for us. –  Sankha Kulathantille</li>
  <li>And we do recognize other schools, it's all Buddhism for us :) –  Andrei Volkov</li>
  </ul>
</blockquote>

<hr>

<p>FWIW one of the usual suggestions is to write another answer yourself. For example if you see a question with a 'sectarian' answer you could add a new answer which begins,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The answer from @X is an orthodox Theravādin perspective; but I would add that, from a Mahāyānist perspective, etc.</p>
</blockquote>

<h2>... some of the answers are purely Theravādin and given in a definitive tone, as though there could be no other answer. But this is seldom true.</h2>

<p>I imagine that for some people, English is a second language. In any case I'm grateful that so many people write so well and I'm averse to criticizing their tone.</p>

<p>I actually see all answers as personal, fallible (which is one reason why the site supports voting), and a (incomplete) summary.</p>
 715: <p>Speaking for myself, I have no sectarian affiliation. </p>

<p>Sometimes I am likely to give a Theravadin answer, some other times a Zen answer, sometimes a humanist, or Hindu or Christian or scientific answer, or a mixture of several of them, whatever seems apt. I may not even give the same answer always to the same question. Truth doesn't break into neat chunks, if it did, it would be dead, a living truth evolves. This is why there are so many schools of buddhist thought over the ages.</p>

<p>I can only avoid stating that an answer is incontrovertible and leave the door of doubt open. Which I've always done. It's a good practice of non-attachment to views if one takes a Zen view on it. Maybe this can be the explicitly stated terms of this website. All views are fallible, including this one.</p>

<p>A shadow is as true a representation of a thing as a photograph or xray of it. They are each very different in what they depict though they point to the same, yet none are false. So, truth to me has many versions, yet they can all be true. </p>

<p>I don't think there are any perfectly objective truths in this world, they are all subjective. Even science which favours definitive &amp; objective proof only operates objectively within constraints of knowledge, tools and assumptions. Without constraints, including but not limited to quantum sciences, the "scientific truth" loses its objectivity.</p>

<p>As the Zen saying goes, it is neither the bamboo, nor the wind, it is our mind that moves.</p>
 157: <p>Can I put a suggestion in which might be a bit controversial.</p>

<p>If there is an answer that is from a particularly sectarian viewpoint that is unacknowledged then someone that spots it could edit the answer and put a line at the bottom e.g.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Please note this answer is from a XXXXXXX viewpoint which may not
  neccessarily apply to other Buddhist schools or traditions.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>and then leave a comment on the answer saying</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I have taken the liberty of identifying the tradition or school of
  Buddhism that this answer is from. Please feel free to edit or perhaps
  post on meta if this is inappropriate. This is in line with site
  policy [link to a policy question on meta - maybe this one]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If this is a standard way of doing things then it would be less inflammatory then people just editing and commenting as they see fit. </p>

<p>Just a thought.</p>
 -1: <p>I think we should revisit ways to attract people from other traditions. I'm afraid:</p>

<ul>
<li>the strong presence of "Theravada users" could have alienated some users from other traditions in the past (because of overall content, because of some users attitude, or both). </li>
<li>if the majority of published material is perceived as having "Theravada inclination", it could alienate new users from other traditions (to the point this sites finally becomes associated with Theravada?)</li>
</ul>

<p>Maybe we expected more traditions to follow soon, but it has been one year, and it's possible the content of the site is already becoming unattractive to many buddhists? And in S.E., we already have many other reasons to be careful to not scare people away.</p>

<p>I like @ChrisW tips, in that you use the space of your answer to identify other answer's tradition and distinguish it from your own. But more than, say, tagging questions, I think we will risk adding boilerplate:</p>

<ul>
<li>It will be more moderating work, to add default disclaimers</li>
<li>The standard disclaimers might be the source of discussions (deviating from the question of matter).</li>
<li>It might be unnatural for people to learn to do it themselves.</li>
</ul>
 18: <p>It might be better to suggest putting the onus on the asker; if you want an answer from a specific school, then you should really state it. In fact, we should probably discourage broad questions like "what does Buddhism say about X", since it should be pretty obvious that "Buddhism" as a theoretical "whole", like any other major religion, says lots of conflicting things about pretty much every X.</p>

<p>On the other hand, in cases where the OP doesn't specify a tradition, there should probably be a certain expectation of reluctance to giving in depth answers specific to one tradition or another, since doing so will inevitably lead to opposing answers from other traditions, confusion, and potential argumentation. </p>

<p>Does the site really benefit from having multiple conflicting answers from each tradition, with "best" answers based on percentage of members following a specific tradition, or the OP's personal bent? I would argue that it doesn't.</p>

<p>So in cases where no tradition is given, I would suggest either comments requesting specification/pointing out the naivete of asking for a "Buddhist" stance or answers that are general enough to cover all forms of Buddhism.</p>

<p>What we probably shouldn't expect are lengthy posts trying to give multiple answers from each of the major Buddhist traditions. That would seem to set an unreasonably high bar for answers.</p>

<p>Nor should we expect sectarian answers to non-sectarian questions, even with "from the point of view of tradition X". I know I am guilty of offering such answers as well, but it doesn't seem like the best solution, especially in cases where it is clear that not all Buddhists will agree.</p>

<p>I wonder how the other religious sites have dealt with this question?</p>
