Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice/Archive 3

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

Does this page reflect community consensus

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The consensus of the community is that this page should be categorized as a guideline. One editor argued that we should not discourage medical advice in a guideline, but the consensus of editors is that a prohibition on medical/professional advice at the reference desk is appropriate and necessary. Some editors argued that confirming this page's status as a guideline would allow removing other editors' comments in contravention of WP:TPG; however, the consensus at this RfC is that medical/professional advice is inappropriate content that should be removed (see also point 4 of WP:TPOC, "Removing prohibited material"). Disputes about what constitutes inappropriate content can be resolved through our ordinary processes, as with any other redaction of comments elsewhere. Some editors argued that this page should be classified as a policy, rather than a guideline, but there was insufficient community support here to designate this page as a policy. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 19:17, 9 September 2020 (UTC)


Should this page be labeled as a guideline? --Moxy 🍁 05:54, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Should this be categorized as a guideline or a type of essay

Support has been a guideline for a decade. If there is a small problem fix it.--Moxy 🍁 21:50, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
In particular, categorizing this page as a guideline would allow any editor to delete comments from other editors in direct violation of our existing policy at WP:TPOC. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Moxy just silently changed the above question from "Should this be categorized as a guideline or an essay" to "Should this be categorized as a guideline or a type of essay" The question should never be changed after editors have commented on it.
The claim that supplemental pages are a kind of essay is factually incorrect. Category:Wikipedia supplemental pages and Category:Wikipedia essays are different categories and generate different headers at the top. Look the the headers at the top of WP:YWAB and WP:BRD to see the difference. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:56, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Best read over Template:Supplement#Current usage and I take it you're are aware this is not a talk page were talking about .--Moxy 🍁 06:02, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  • It should be policy. On what planet is "[Wikipedia] is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice, including any kind of medical diagnosis or prognosis." not already a non-negotiable rule? Jenga Fet (talk) 18:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    Jenga Fet, just to be clear, are you only !voting for the restriction on requesting medical advice or are you also !voting to allow editors to delete each others comments? This page contains both. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:24, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline While I loathe the reference desk, I understand why it continues to exist. As long as it does, we need to ensure that its scope is narrow and does not get our helpers into trouble. As far as I understand, it is both unethical and against the WMF's wishes to offer medical advice. It is also bad practice on our part. We should not pretend to be experts in things we aren't. The RD exists simply to point folks towards more info, not act as a Yahoo Answers to solve their every problem. This page has existed and been working practice for more than a decade; it is a de facto guideline anyway. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:36, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    And yes, I think it okay to redact or collapse questions regarding medical advice. This page does not say it is mandatory, it even says that it is discouraged, but if you're going to....provides some instructions. The wording is perfectly fine, and gives us leeway to use our discretion. Folks can then use their best judgement about when egregious things should be redacted. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:42, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    Having just seen wugapodes reply, I very much like the Legal policy option. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 21:46, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline Pretty much as per CaptainEek (including the disdain for the desks themselves). I'd also point out that the removal of harmful posts is already part of the the talk page guidelines and I would see providing unqualified medical advice anywhere on Wikipedia as being in this category so I don't see any conflict. This would include the questions prior to any response, because the longer they stay up, the greater the risk of someone not so familiar with these guidelines answering. When this is done is another question, and can be clarified if needed by further developing this guideline, with edge case redactions addressed in the same way as others (BLP, legal threats etc) by consensus or admin assessment. Scribolt (talk) 20:18, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    We already have a policy that says that harmful advice is not allowed. You appear to be assuming that all medical advice is harmful. Some medical advice ("don't risk eating rotten food. Throw it out and thoroughly clean anything it touched") is not in any way harmful and is vastly preferable to "ask your doctor if eating rotten food is OK". Other medical advice ("go ahead and eat rotten food") is harmful and thus is not allowed. The difference is that telling someone not to eat rotten food is not a harmful post, but telling someone that it is OK to eat rotten food is a harmful post. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:07, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    Informed medical advice is not necessarily harmful. I am of the opinion that any medical advice given by Wikipedia editors to each other is uninformed, has a risk of causing harm, and the more it is encouraged, the greater the chance of harm occuring. This is not outweighed by any benefit gained by the person being able to ask their question within the Wikipedia environment, as opposed to another forum. Scribolt (talk) 08:16, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't think your metaphor is super accurate here Guy. Folks aren't asking us those questions. They're asking things like "my hand hurts, should I take some ibuprofen". And while we could probably say "yeah that's fine" and be right most of the time, that's irresponsible of us, because we don't know what harm we could cause. What other medications could they be on that would interact poorly? What if their medical history contraindicates NSAIDS? We're editors, not medical professionals. Without that formal training, even seemingly innocuous replies can have real world danger. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 08:30, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
The typical questions are actually of the sort Guy pointed at, take e.g. this questions asked elsewhere. You typically do not get question on taking potentially harmful medicines. This is because the sale of medicines that may be harmful is regulated such that only relatively harmless medicines are available as OTC medicines, and all medicines include information for the patient. If you think about this, there really is no good reason to have a "no medical advice policy", as there isn't actually a problem to be solved. Medicines and potentially dangerous treatments are kept under lock and key. We cannot prescribe medicines as the WMF doesn't operate a pharmacy. We cannot prescribe open heart surgery to someone with chest pains as the WMF does not operate hospitals. Count Iblis (talk) 11:03, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
WTF? Count, my vague recollection of you is that you don't usually say idiotic things. But what you just said is idiotic. EEng 13:37, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
To expand a bit on the above (which I fully agree with) even if someone gives an answer that is actually harmful (for example, someone who believes in Ayurveda might advise taking traditional Indian medicine medicine (sadly, not regulated by US prescription laws!) that contains heavy metals such as mercury or lead), that answer is already prohibited by our existing ban on harmful advice.
That existing ban also covers harmful non-medical advice such as
"if you connect 120VAC directly to the 12VDC power input of your laptop it will go ten times faster".
What this proposed new policy does is to allow deleting questions and answers without even trying to show that they cause harm.
Making this a policy would prohibit my
"don't become addicted to crystal meth, it it bad for your health. See Methamphetamine#Adverse effects"
advice and would allow any editor to delete it on sight or any administrator to block me for giving it despite there being zero chance that anyone will ever be harmed by following it. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:53, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline It operated as a guideline, and was labeled as such, for over a decade. If we need to have a formal !vote to confirm it, then lets do that. This has been used as, and should be formally adopted, as a guideline and should be enforceable as such. --Jayron32 13:12, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    The above claim appears to be factually incorrect. Can you show me a single example of anyone ever being blocked for violating this "guideline"? How about looking at the many times that removals under this "guideline" were reverted. Did any administrator ever take action against those doing the reverting? Have I ever been sanctioned for saying "don't do crystal meth"?
You do realize that if this becomes a guideline, an editor could write (with citations) "There is no good evidence that indicates Ayurveda is effective for treating any disease, and it is pseudoscientific." in the Ayurveda article but would be prohibited from cutting and pasting the exact text from that article into an answer of the reference desks, right? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:14, 11 August 2020 (UTC) \
Nothing you've written there has ever happened yet. It's a total strawman. Generally, we have in the past hatted, archived, or removed inappropriate questions and responses, and other than you, I can't recall anyone reverting such a move or fighting it so vehemently, especially on posts that you were not initially involved in. And no one has ever claimed that an answer like the one you gave is inappropriate. Except you, right now. --Jayron32 15:07, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
Re "Nothing you've written there has ever happened yet. It's a total strawman", see [1] (a direct quote from a medical expert at Seattle Children's Hospital with no commentary) and [2] (direct quotes from the Center For Disease Control and the National Institute of Health, with a bit of added non-medical political commentary that was removed as being medical advice). --Guy Macon (talk) 15:55, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline – offering medical advice falls squarely within the wheelhouse of what Wikipedia is not, and this page appropriately explains that. As long as we maintain a reference desk on this site, it must do little more than point people to the right section of the encyclopedia, rather than engage in original research, unqualified opinions, or speculation. – bradv🍁 14:06, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    If medical advice is prohibited, then linking to medical advice in Wikipedia articles or in reliable sources would also be prohibited. Several answers that contained only links to Wikipedia pages or reliable sources have been deleted already. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:14, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    Not at all. Referring someone to well-sourced well-written content is very different than offering one's own unqualified opinion. – bradv🍁 14:30, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    Really? How do you explain this?[3] Did I not refer someone to well-sourced, well-written content? Was my answer my own unqualified opinion or was it a link to a medical expert at Seattle Children's Hospital?
Or how about this?[4] Did I not refer someone to well-sourced, well-written content? Was my answer my own unqualified opinion or did it cite the Center For Disease Control and the National Institute of Health? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:21, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • (note: I was pinged by Dolphin51 to participate here) Guideline and yes, I read the part that says to edit other editors' posts (Any answer that provides medical advice, whether the question sought it or not, should be removed, or at least hatted, and an explanation should be given along with a link to Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer.)
"Don't do crystal meth, it is bad for your health" is medical advice and is an acceptable collateral damage of such a guideline. Yes, crystal meth is bad for health regardless of specific patient characteristics, but a policy of "do not give bad medical advice" is unenforceable. Admittedly the worse example I could remember in a couple of years on the refdesk but it was once suggested to tape red plastic sheets to safety googles to reduce the incoming light from a laser dot (don't do this); if I could have reverted this on sight rather than going into a lengthy course of optics I would have done so. TigraanClick here to contact me 15:35, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
"Don't do crystal meth" is definitely not medical advice. Advice? yes. Good advice? also yes. Medical advice? No. Medical advice needs to be specific and tailored to an individual. If someone comes and asks "I'm thinking of taking up crystal meth, but I'm worried it will cause [condition A] given my history of [condition B] and taking [medication C]. Should I start doing meth?" that is asking for medical advice. IF you answered with "don't do meth" that's not medical advice. If you add "it's bad for your health" that's also not medical advice. If you respond "Crystal meth interacts with [medication C] which controls [condition B], so it may prevent your medication from working, and increase your chance of experiencing [condition A] and especially [condition B]. I would recommend not starting a crystal meth regiment." that is providing medical advice because it is particularized to an individual and provides advice on what a specific person should or shouldn't do based upon their specific medical history. If anyone is ever sanctioned for telling someone to not do meth, ping me and I will personally trout the sanctioning admin. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:50, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
I do not care either way whether the crystal meth thing is or isn't medical advice. My point is that I would rather have an overzealous enforcement of a "no medical advice" guideline that let awful stuff like "put laser into your eyes" stand under the rationale that someone else will eventually correct it. TigraanClick here to contact me 14:44, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
Tigraan: You have written about a “no medical advice” guideline. There is no such thing. These three words do not appear anywhere in the Guidelines (try Googling searching for “no medical advice” in the Medical Advice Guideline – you will get a nil response.)
If you look HERE you will find the following advice on the subject: Any question that solicits a diagnosis, a prognosis, or a suggested treatment, or any response that provides them, is considered inappropriate for the reference desk. Note that questions may be about a medical topic ('What is sleep apnea?', for example) without necessarily seeking medical advice, and this is acceptable.
“Awful stuff like put laser into your eyes" can be removed because it is harmful. Anything harmful can be removed - electrical advice, chemical advice, medical advice etc. Your overzealous enforcers don't need to rely on the Medical Advice Guideline to argue that "shine a laser in your eyes" should be removed. Such a silly response is harmful but it is not a diagnosis, prognosis or suggested treatment. Dolphin (t) 08:40, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
Summary of the laser thing: OP says it hurts to look at the laser spot on their cutting machine, answer says to tape red plastic sheets to safety googles to look at it. How is that not a suggested treatment? (If your answer is that there is no underlying medical condition: advice on how to reduce cramp pain or the like would surely be medical advice even if such things are normal in healthy adults.)
Removing "harmful" advice requires to make a determination of what is and is not harmful. Say someone asks for advice in setting up a cool pop science demonstration of electricity. If I suggest to wire up a megahertz high-voltage generator connected to a light bulb at one end and a loose wire at the other end, and closing the circuit by grasping the hot wire and the bulb with the presenter's hands, it seems obviously dangerous and harmful but it is not. On the other hand, if a questioner asks how to cure a hangover and I answer to take aspirin, I am actually giving dangerous advice even if it looks reasonable.
The idea of removing medical advice (yes, defined here as "diagnosis, prognosis or suggested treatment"), harmful or not, is that it is an objective test that requires little medicine knowledge, unlike removing harmful advice which leaves a lot of wiggle room and can require expert knowledge to know it is harmful. Allowing editors to remove posts because they are harmful is a great way to generate endless debates. TigraanClick here to contact me 08:05, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline Giving a poor reference to historical content at worst just wastes peoples time. Giving poor medical advice can have more tragic consequences. Without some form of control over who can answer medical questions, all medical advice should be removed.AlmostFrancis (talk) 15:56, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline Wikipedia has many purposes, but dispensing medical advice in response to specific inquires is not one of them. We are volunteers, not medical professionals (and even the subset of editors who are medical professionals are acting only in a volunteer capacity on Wikipedia); anyone who needs advice and knows enough about the internet to find our reference desks should be able to find the information they need elsewhere. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 16:55, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline per the many cogent comments above - especially AlmostFrancis and Lepricavark. Those sitting behind a keyboard may find it easy to ignore the responsibilities and/or consequences of their actions. Outcomes (dire or otherwise) for a reader should not be caused by volunteer editors. MarnetteD|Talk 17:44, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline - If it ain't broke don't fix it. // Guy Macon's belief that the medical advice he gave (in his two examples, above) should be acceptable is a perfect example of why this document is important and should be identified as a guideline. // IMHO we should require visitors to read our disclaimers first before viewing Wikipedia content. (If they have cookies enabled they would not need to do this upon every visit.) At the very least, we should post easily identifiable links to our medical, legal, risk, and content disclaimers at the top of every page, instead of our current practice of burying one little disclaimer link in the footer.  - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 20:11, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline - I generally try to keep my comments from starting on a tone suggesting my preferred approach is obvious, but I'm going to make an exception here: this is clearly both warranted and necessary to 1) protect credulous parties from overzealous respondents whose desire to be seen as polymaths and experts sometimes runs ahead of their prudence about the possible consequences of their assurances (a perennial issue with the RefDesks), as well as 2) to insulate the project from potential liability arising from such representations (no, a disclaimer does not per se shield against the many potential liabilities in this area, and it certainly doesn't erase any costs to the WMF and the project that might arise out of having to wrestle with such potential consequences--though I hasten to add that this is concern is dwarfed in importance when against the potential for harm to the individual). Surely if ever there was a place where the precautionary principle should apply on this project, it is here. Frankly the codification of this rule is embarrassingly late in the game, but I guess that's down to the rule being treated like a guideline by the vast majority of our prudent editors for a decade now, so intuitive is the general rule--and so pervasive was the shared consensus that it was in fact a formal guideline, adherence to which is not optional. Snow let's rap 21:34, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline per all, no question. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:17, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Guideline- though I think some of the removals Guy Macon is complaining about were overreaching a bit, I think we do require firm guidelines about not giving medical advice. When it comes to diagnoses, prognoses, and suggested treatments the only advice we should be giving is "go see your doctor". The last thing anyone wants is for someone to come along saying "Ref Desk Randy told me I had Morgellons Disease and to treat it with radium paste. I'm suing the WMF because now I'm even sicker." Banning all questions relating to anatomy or epidemiology is going too far, but I don't think the proposed guideline as written actually prohibits giving an answer to "Should I drink bleach?" or "How many pores does human skin have?". Reyk YO! 11:59, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
  • A Type of Essay: I am opposed to any suggestion that one User, or a small number of Users, can remove or hide another User’s edit on the grounds that the User, or the small number of Users, believe the edit is asking for medical advice or providing medical advice. My experience is of a small number of Users who mistakenly believe that anything smelling like medical advice must be removed promptly. Such a belief is incorrect – there is no urgency.
All guidance material dedicated to the Reference Desks should display the principle that if a User, or a small number of Users, see a question or answer that they consider inappropriate, that User(s) should raise the matter for discussion on the Ref Desk Talk page. The broader community who monitor the Talk page will decide if posts are a post constitutes medical advice and needs to be removed, hidden, hatted etc. It should be made abundantly clear that the Talk page community will decide whether a post is to be removed constitutes medical advice. There is no urgency.
Adequate guidance information is available at WP:RDG, including the subject of medical advice. This document is dedicated to medical advice and is secondary to WP:RDG. This document (the one dedicated to medical advice) should not be displayed as a Guideline; it should be demoted to an essay or similar. Dolphin (t) 13:38, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
  • {{Legal policy}} or at the very least policy. It is illegal to practice medicine without a license, and offering particularized (rather than general) advice about an illness or medical condition can be considered practicing medicine without a license. Our disclaimer and this document do not exist simply because we don't like giving medical advice; they exist to disclaim liability should someone act on medical information we provide. Editors and readers should be aware that these documents exist because of the legal implications not just our internal behavioral norms. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:36, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Well, the type of criminal liability you are referencing is probably not something that is very likely to become an issue--the statutes in question would generally involve a requirement that a person needs to make an affirmative, express effort to hold themselves out as a medical professional before there is a clear violation of those laws. Although exact freedoms may vary by jurisdiction, people are (for better or worse) generally free to provide whatever medical advice they want in civil society, provided they do not actively misrepresent their credentials (or lack thereof) as licensed practitioners. That said, we can't say for certain that there would never bee a situation where criminal liability may arise. But beyond that, the real potential liabilities of allowing medical advice on this project and for individuals would be tort liability, particularly the rather sprawling tort of Negligence. It's not going to be super helpful here to get into the weeds of how realistic a civil claim for this or that harm associated with a particular hypothetical might be, but it suffices to say that the risk is very much not zero, considering where our readers are primarily clustered in the anglophone sphere (the same countries that have broad common law claims in this regard, by and large. Combined with the rather significant ethical issues involved, these risks make the prohibition on medical advice about as close to something we can classify as a no-brainer as any practical policy issue I have ever seen in my years on this project. Snow let's rap 02:50, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Essay, and one that I strongly disagree with. In practice medical advice doesn't do any harm, the opposite is true. The more online venues there are where people can discuss medical issues, the better. The theoretical objections against medical advice are based on red-herring scenarios that in practice never occur. They are just like the objections of Donald Trump against mail-in voting. A few days ago he suggested that Iran may mail thousands of forged ballots. When one questions Trump about such outrageous claims, he replied that it is a possibility and that therefore there shouldn't be main-in voting. The real effect blocking questions on medical issues has, is that people who would otherwise learn something useful about a medical issue whether that's the OP or someone who happens to browse the page, now won't. They may later learn that from other sources.
But there are plenty of cases where children as young as 6 had read about the symptoms of a stroke and when his/her mother suffered a stroke and then knew that it was a medical emergency and immediate help was necessary. They then called an ambulance. There are many similar cases where the child didn't have that information and didn't know what to make of his/her mother acting weird. Father was due to come home in ten minutes so the child waited until father came home, and that in a situation where every minute counts.
Just a few weeks ago, a child was able to save his life when during a swim in the sea he was drifting away from the coast. He was sticking to the advice he had seen on t.v. a few days earlier about what to do in such a situation. But if the naysayers against medical advice here were in charge of the programming, they would have argued that it's better that young children not see this and that the program should be aired late in the evening. That to make sure no young children think that it's not all that dangerous to swim in the sea because of things go wrong they can sue the methods shown in the program to save themselves.
Similar logic has been used by conservatives against sexual education. Children should not be told about contraception, because that will prompt them to have more sex. Sexual education should only be about abstinence.
As long as the information we give is generally correct, we're likely to contribute to better health outcomes. Bad information like telling people with COVID-19 to drink bleach should be removed. But we can trust our editors to not post such nonsense here. Count Iblis (talk) 16:27, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

  • History Added to guideline category by User:OlEnglish in 2010 as seen here then subsequently the banner as a guideline was added here in 2012 by User:NTox. In 2020 the guideline categorization and banner were removed based on the fact there seems to be no talk page discussion about it's promotion in the first place ten years ago. Yes it is true that ten years ago our policy promotion protocols weren't strickly adhere to because of the amount of people working on the backside of Wikipedia resulting in pages that many or many not have been categorized/"promoted" as many would say correctly (example WP:POG2019RFC). Thus the question today is not about who did what when...but rather does this page reflect current community consensus and should it be categorized as a guideline today. Does it simply need an update or are the principles wrong altogether thus its categorisation as a guideline should have never happened --Moxy 🍁 04:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    I dispute the motivations Moxy assigns to my actions. They were based upon existing policy. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:30, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
I do believe you were acting in good faith....just not understanding how we go about this as per WP:HISTORICAL. Perhaps a self revert will get us focused on the content you have a problem with over the edit of demotion being the focus. Or in your mind does this page hold zero merit?--Moxy 🍁 16:40, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
If I believed that the page had zero merit, I would have listed it for deletion. It contains some good advice along with encouraging editors to delete other editor's comments. There are a wide range of possible choices between nothing at all and creating a new guideline that allows WP:TPOC violations. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:54, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Only have 2 real choices.... Community endorsed pages and non community endorsed pages. Both have a few different labels assigned to them based on function but all hold the same merit. That said your free to suggest any label.--Moxy 🍁 17:09, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Biased RfC: the author of this RfC failed to write a brief, neutrally-worded question at the top as required by WP:RFCNEUTRAL. Instead they wrote a lengthy paragraph arguing for one particular outcome. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:17, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    The question at the top is: "Should this page still be labeled as a guideline?", which is quite brief and, possibly apart from emphasizing the word "still", appropriately neutral (IMO).  --Lambiam 14:31, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    The bias is in the history section, which completely ignores an important fact in the history; that my edit was according to policy. ("Adding the {{policy}} template to a page without the required consensus does not mean the page is policy"[5]) Instead Moxy provides a biased reason for why I made the deletion that completely ignores my clearly-stated reason. Moxy should place his arguments in a !vote like everyone else, not in the RfC header. I have moved the biased argument into the discussion section where it belongs. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:14, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
If it makes you feel better to move the conversations around mucking up the order that's fine.....but best keep the fact it has been categorized as a guideline for a long time clear to all.--Moxy 🍁 16:54, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment removed....Guy Macon
Reclassification based on a 10-year old omission in process does not hold much weight after this amount time used as a guideline and seen by thousands... WP:TALKFIRST and WP:HISTORICAL. Besides the fact that this page has been referred to and subsequently influenced countless discussions over the past decade can you explain what's wrong with the content. Why is this page you just found now a concern marked as a guideline besides your POV that's is local and not community-based? Let's forget the gaming and get to the current unknown content problems.--Moxy 🍁 05:43, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
The main content problem is that it violates our policy at WP:TPOC. This has been explained to you before. Here is an example of the kind of comment removal that this page encourages:[6] On what planet is that "medical advice"? --Guy Macon (talk) 06:01, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Actually, I would call that medical advice, at least borderline. And (hate to say it) your constitutional law needs work. EEng 11:50, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
I tend to agree. It's borderline, but the first paragraph of that removed answer does offer what could be construed as advice for treating or preventing a communicable illness. Also, the answer rather goes off on a tangent and fails to actually answer the specific question as asked. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:44, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
In Guy Macon's defense, I've always found running off on a tangent better than going around in circles. EEng 02:13, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
Finally an example.....so in response to that edit you demoted this page? So really as per WP:POLCON this should be reviewed and talked about as now is happening.--Moxy 🍁 06:13, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Nobody "demoted" the page. It was never "promoted" to a policy in the first place. What part of "Adding the {{policy}} template to a page without the required consensus does not mean the page is policy"[7] are you having trouble understanding? --Guy Macon (talk) 06:30, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Its been here for ten years and used as a guideline by hundreds WP:PGLIFE. ....its wonderful you found it now and dont like it....but we have a process for just this type of thing.--Moxy 🍁 06:42, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  • As currently written, this page is focused on the wrong thing. ASKING for medical/legal advice isn’t something we have any control over, and to my mind isn’t wrong. What we can control is someone GIVING medical or legal advice. Giving advice IS wrong, so THAT is what needs a policy to prevent. Blueboar (talk) 12:32, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    The page is clearly meant as a guideline on how to deal with questions seeking medical advice, not written for the people posting questions, but for the volunteer respondents. As such it is a useful supplement to the general maxim that Wikipedia does not provide medical advice.  --Lambiam 14:31, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Revert demotion; then Discuss. I find it curious, to say the least, for someone to boldly demote a page from its long-standing guideline status to whatever without clear consensus, and then to argue that reverting this demotion amounts to establishing a new guideline. The best course of action, IMO, is to revert the demotion and then have an RfC on a proposal whether to keep or remove the guideline status, with a proper preceding discussion. If people have issues with the wording of the current version, regardless of its status, these should preferably be discussed and resolved first, because they may otherwise work to muddle the discussion.  --Lambiam 14:31, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  •  Comment: I was pinged about this discussion, as I made some significant edits to this guideline back in 2007, based on a proposal I made back then. As I haven't been active on the RD since 2010, I cannot really comment on the subsequent changes made to these guidelines, other than to observe that it (or at least the recommended procedure for dealing with questions asking for medical advice) already differs substantially from the version I proposed and wrote back then (which was, in a nutshell, to promptly replace both the question and any answers with {{RD-deleted}} and let the asker rephrase the question if they feel it was not intended as a request for medical advice). Not being familiar with the current state of the reference desk, I cannot say whether or not the current version of the guideline still serves its purpose, although I also see no obvious reason to demote it from its historical status.

    However, I'd like to respond to some of the arguments made above in favor of demoting this page by noting that the reference desks are not talk pages. They may look a little bit like talk pages, insofar as they also contain threaded discussions, but they differ from actual talk pages in several ways — most notably in the fact that they are part of the public-facing side of Wikipedia in a way that e.g. user and article talk pages (and also most pages in the Wikipedia namespace) are not. As such, the talk page guidelines, including WP:TPOC, do not and should not be assumed to apply to the reference desks in every respect. The refdesks are really their own thing, not exactly like anything else on Wikipedia, but in some respects (e.g. their intended audience) they're really closer to article space than to talk pages.

    Of course, there's a lot of good advice on WP:TPG for smoothly and civilly conducting any kind of threaded discussion on a wiki page, and much of that advice does make sense also on the reference desks. But it should only be applied insofar as it does make sense here and, in particular, it should not be blindly applied where it contradicts guidelines established specifically for the reference desks. (Also, even if both guidelines were applicable to the same pages, and even if there was an apparent contradiction between them, this would still not in itself be a reason to demote one of them: guidelines are guidelines and, as the template at the top of them says, they must be applied with common sense and with the need for occasional exceptions in mind.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:26, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

    Re: "As such, the talk page guidelines, including WP:TPOC, do not and should not be assumed to apply to the reference desks in every respect", how do you reconcile that claim with WP:TALK, which says that "The guidelines below... apply not only to article discussion pages but everywhere editors interact, such as deletion discussions and noticeboards."? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:36, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    By pointing out the word "editors" in that quote. Talk pages, in the usual sense, are meant for internal discussion between Wikipedia editors, which the guidelines on them reflect. They are not intended for answering questions from the general public, the way the reference desks are. Also, as I noted above, even if WP:TALK is construed to apply to RD (which I do admit its current wording leaves at least somewhat open to interpretation), a contradiction between two guidelines is not in itself a reason to demote one of them. It merely means that one must exercise common sense and situational awareness in applying those guidelines (as one always should), and perhaps propose an edit to make the guidelines more in line with each other. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:01, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
The page is a guide related to a legal policy Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer and would circumvent any guideline we have for legal reasons. It's pretty clear giving mediacl advice is of a legal matter and should be treated as such.--Moxy 🍁 16:13, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Addendum: I did notice that WP:RD/G (the parent guideline whose subpage WP:RD/G/M is) does currently include a section explicitly saying that the talk page guidelines apply to the reference desk "unless these guidelines clarify that they do not apply." So it appears that we do have a genuine disagreement between these two guidelines that should be resolved.

FWIW, the discussion preceding the addition of this section back in 2014 doesn't really show a particular clear consensus for it, although I suppose the fact that nobody's ever reverted it over the years should count for something (at least if one believes that long-standing policies and guidelines in general should be taken to enjoy some degree of historical consensus, regardless of how they were arrived at). Interestingly, said discussion also refers to what seems to essentially be an earlier iteration of this very dispute that we're currently having from six years ago, involving the same pages (yes, WP:RD/G/M is also discussed) and some of the same users. In particular, I can't resist quoting a comment from what appears to have been the tail end of the discussion back then:

"Fut.Perf., that is a compelling argument. Based upon the above, I am changing my position. WP:LOCALCON does not allow WP:TPOC to override the refdesk guidelines, and I should concentrate on making the refdesk guidelines better, not on deciding which guideline can override the other, Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 15:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)"

FWIW, I agree with both that comment and the one by Fut.Perf. that it responds to. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:59, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Yes. I was indeed wrong when I wrote that. Since then I have experienced the unfortunate fact that if you allow deleting other people's comments for a good reason someone will use that permission to delete other people's comments for a bad reason. It sounded good at the time, but in practice turned into a total disaster. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:17, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Another choice that we were not offered: Assume for the sake of argument that someone reading this RfC completely agrees with creating a new policy forbidding asking medical questions but isn't comfortable with letting any editor delete any other editor's comments. Perhaps they think we should have a policy about medical questions but that it should be enforced the way so many other policy violations that are not listed as instantly deletable in WP:TPOC are handled; with a warning template followed by asking an administrator to block them if they keep doing it. Alas, that isn't one of the choices that are being offered in this RfC. Our only choice is to either create a new policy that allows any editor to delete anything that they don't like by calling something as simple as "should I throw away all of my possessions" a request for medical advice or to have no policy at all. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:28, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    Presenting highly contrived hypothetical examples so that you can attack strawman positions is not conducive to a fruitful discussion.  --Lambiam 01:25, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    Please read WP:AGF. There is no strawman involved in arguing that an RfC only gives you a limited sort of choices. Do you [ ] Agree, or [ ] strongly agree? Please choose only one. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:53, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    Is the choice really between everything goes and anyone can remove anything with any idiotic excuse? I hope that you agree that if someone were to suggest injections of bleach as a quick-acting treatment for COVID-19, they this should summarily be removed. But the idea that someone would disqualify the question whether it is is the policy of public health agencies that patients should discard their personal belongings on the grounds that it is seeking medical advice borders on the surreal. This is basically a Yes/No question. The response to such a question might, however, offer unsought medical advice. The guidelines give an (IMO) adequate definition of what constitutes medical advice. Some people may be overeager and misapply the test. The guidelines also suggest a process to be followed when removing a question or response; apparently not everyone is aware of this. There is also a process for obtaining consensus, if disputes arise, on the issue whether or not a request or response sought or gave medical advice. In the past this has occasionally resulted in a hatted or deleted thread or response being restored.  --Lambiam 15:47, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    The choice that I said was not offered was between "letting any editor delete any other editor's comments" and "having a policy about medical questions enforced the way so many other policy violations that are not listed as instantly deletable in WP:TPOC are handled; with a warning template followed by asking an administrator to block them if they keep doing it". There is a word for ignoring what someone actually says and instead refuting something they didn't say. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:17, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment In my experience on the refdesk, a recurring problem is that some users seem to be very over-zealous deleting questions and/or answers. These users will delete any question that even remotely mentions the human body as "medical advice" and then express indignation when their absurdly broad definition of "medical advice" is questioned. When other editors try to have a discussion about restoring the content, it's not uncommon for such discussions to be derailed by histrionics about "allowing medical advice" is a clear sign that the project is going to hell or whatever. This serves to prolong the discussion until it's no longer relevant, and the deletion more or less stands, even when the majority of involved editors thought it was an improper removal.
Therefore, I think this guideline should be updated with clear instructions on when not to remove a question/answer, and a clear guideline that in the case of a disagreement, the burden of gaining consensus is on the person trying to remove the content.
This shouldn't be controversial, that's my understanding of how BRD should work anyway, but as the RefDesk is such a weird exception to the rules, it would be good to have it spelled out. ApLundell (talk) 19:33, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
I agree; making the guideline more explicit in this respect is probably more helpful than dismantling it. A problem that remains is that these overzealous removers with their absurdly broad definitions of "medical advice" quite likely will not have read the guideline. But being able to refer to a clearly defined process in undoing undue removals may cut protracted unproductive discussions short.  --Lambiam 06:45, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
This sounds like a reasonable way forward to me. As for "absurdly broad definitions of medical advice", this guideline actually used to contain a (IMO) fairly clear definition of what should be considered medical advice on the reference desk, although it was apparently removed when the page was reorganized in 2014. (And it still references Kainaw's criterion, an essay based on that definition.) Perhaps going back to the 2012 version of the guideline (maybe adjusted to reflect the fact that current consensus seems to favor hatting over outright removal) might serve as a reasonable starting point for further improvements? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:05, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Boycott

I have been giving this a lot of thought, and I have decided that I am not willing to be part of a group that thinks that a non-administrator deleting an answer that consists solely of a direct quote from a WP:MEDRS source such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the National Institutes of Health is acceptable behavior. I expect that some here will be happy to hear this. Those who I have helped on the computing refdesk, not so much. Please drop me a line on my talk page if the community decides against this. Unwatching all refdesks pages now. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:13, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

At this point perhaps a speedy close is in order...dont see what more could be said.--Moxy 🍁 22:50, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
Let me say that I find it hard to understand this reaction. I see no contributions here that condone or approve of editors (whether admins or not) brazenly removing responses in blatant disregard of our guidelines on the matter. What I do see is scepticism that weakening these guidelines (including demoting them to an "essay") will mitigate this problem. BTW, WP:TPOC is not policy; it is a behavioural guideline.  --Lambiam 10:37, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
That is disingenuous, Lambiam. You know well (or ought to know by now) that Guy Macon's position is that the "no medical advice" refdesk guideline did not have community consensus. (True or not, the discussion above suggests it soon will.) GM's primary argument is that the "no medical advice" guideline, as written, means a non-admin can hat/remove posts based on content, which they consider an unacceptable deviation from general talk page principles. Just saying the guideline allows / would allow it is not an answer to that (see: is-ought problem). Your posts looks like a mild version of WP:GRAVEDANCING to me. TigraanClick here to contact me 11:50, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
Do you think he removed the mentions of "guideline" purely for the formal, procedural reason that this had not been formally been approved by the community through the policy and guideline proposal process? Indeed, when the page was first labelled as such (in its title) – which is when it was created in 2007 – it did not go through this process. Note that the celebrated Talk page guidelines likewise gained their guideline status without going through any formal approval process – or even any prior discussion. This should be obvious, because that process had not yet been put in place at the time; that happened only in 2008. In this dispute from 2014 Guy Macon had no issue with considering our guideline a guideline. Might his change of heart have more to do with his being unhappy about (undue) removals of his responses, than with being a stickler for following formal procedures? Imagine he had removed the {{guideline}} template from the Talk page guidelines page without any prior discussion. As to my supposed propensity for grave dancing, I had an (admittedly faint) hope that pointing out how irrational the announced boycott is, the generally quite rational user who bade his farewell might reconsider their decision. (The admin or non-admin status of any removers is IMO irrelevant here, except that admins can be held to higher standards.)n  --Lambiam 13:35, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Plastic surgery a full Abdiminoplasty September 14 can I ask to be out until Dec 15

Can I ask to be out til Dec 15 getting full Abdiminoplasty getting it done September 14 2607:FEA8:F243:5700:70EF:7FFF:F94E:F481 (talk) 05:18, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

The word "sanctioned"

Generally speaking, responses are more likely to be sanctioned than questions.

This is a confusing sentence, because "sanction" has two opposite meanings. It should be changed. —Lights and freedom (talk ~ contribs) 18:17, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

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