19

The way I understand it, per Should ‘Hi’, ‘thanks’ and taglines and salutations be removed from posts?, we do prefer salutations to be edited out of questions.

But what about religious salutations?

This is obviously a sensitive subject, and I don't want to act in a discriminatory way by making certain religious groups (well, only one probably) feel unwelcomed. Even worse, I may be sending them to their hell by removing what is perhaps mandatory God-ordered salutations out of their communications.

So what's the best action to do if we see religious salutations? Do our worldly rules trump their heavenly ones?


Example

This was sought, so here it is.

The first line of the question was "salam 3lekom". I'm familiar enough with Islam to know that this is likely to be a shorthand of As-Salamu Alaykum.

2

2 Answers 2

44

I think the policy of salutation removal should remain exactly the same. That is by far the least discriminatory, just treat everyone the same; all salutations are removed regardless of religious or non religious content.

(If anything it would be discriminatory to non-religious members if they had their salutations removed while religious people were allowed to use theirs)

All that aside. Stack Overflow is a programming website - religious content has no place in a question or answer. The profile page is the one place where non-programming content is acceptable.

With regards to your concern of breaking their religious rules, the FAQ states:

Like Wikipedia, this site is collaboratively edited, and all edits are tracked. If you are not comfortable with the idea of your posts being edited by other trusted users, this may not be the site for you.

If their religion were to deem this unacceptable, then unfortunately they will have to refrain from posting.

2
  • 28
    "Religious content has no place in a question or answer" unless it is vi vs Emacs, of course.
    – JohnFx
    Commented Apr 23, 2010 at 14:42
  • 1
    "All that aside. Stack Overflow is a programming website - religious content has no place in a question or answer." – This Q&A seems to have been from a time when this was posted on Meta Stack Overflow, and there was no Meta Stack Exchange... But now, we have sites about all sorts of other topics as well –including sites about religions. (Questions/answers on those sites are still not the place to proselytize; those sites are for information about aspects of the religion, not for platforming one's own beliefs or for attacking others for disagreeing with those beliefs.)
    – V2Blast Staff
    Commented Feb 4, 2022 at 17:45
19

I'd say the rules apply to all salutations, religious or not, and they are to be respectfully removed. There is nothing discriminatory about it.

If somebody is new and obviously really serious about religious salutations in their questions (i.e. likely to make a fuss about its removal and/or feel discriminated against), leave a comment explaining that any and all salutations are removed on SO, possibly with a link pointing to the related meta question.

1
  • I fully agree with non-religious stack exchanges but with religious ones the case could be slightly different and I would rather leave this decision to the respective meta. Probably they have an opinion on these already. Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 12:00

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .