This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Per discussion here (I know this will be archived, so search for 6 April 2014, "Proposals to modify refdesk guidelines on matters of removing and/or hatting controversial questions"). Addendum: now at [1].

I regard the consensus as reasonable, that these guidelines should be modified to focus on answers more than questions. Furthermore, I regard it as reasonable to work on the compromise solution, that outright removal is discouraged. The consensus was not perfect. I have also read the talk page archives for this page, and there was not much of a consensus about this page at any point, so it seems more than reasonable to change it. This would mean changing the various paragraphs that mandate absolute removal, and replacing them with "Outright removal is discouraged". Similarly, the solution would be to "add a link to Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer, and answer by giving information, such as links to articles. If the question appears to be seeking medical advice, the first answer in particular should advise the person to see a qualified professional. Subsequent answers must never bring this advice into question, and should reiterate it if there is any doubt."

There is a separate discussion about the priority of talk page guidelines and the reference desk guidelines. This discussion and any resultant changes will have no impact on that discussion. This is about the content of the current page, not about what trumps what. See Guy Macon's link above. IBE (talk) 05:13, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I fully support the proposed changes. If a question is a clear (or even borderline) request for medical advice, we leave the question there, link to disclaimer, and only provide references, with no speculation or synthesis. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:11, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Done! IBE (talk) 04:21, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

An RFC which may affect the status of this page is located here please comment if this interests you. --Jayron32 16:32, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Noticed today that this page was demoted to an essay from a guideline. I assume there is some sort talk on the matter somewhere. Can we get a link for historical purposes please.....last rfc on the matter was long ago here .--Moxy 🍁 18:26, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

The one thing that makes me hesitate is that this page focuses on the wrong target. We can’t control what questions people ASK at our Reference desks... and I don’t really think that ASKING for medical or legal advice is necessary wrong.

What we DO have control over (and want to prevent) is our editors GIVING medical or legal advice. That is where we could get into trouble.

So before we promote this page back to guideline status, I think it would need a minor re-write... shifting the focus from “asking” to “giving”. Blueboar (talk) 19:16, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Promoting this page back to guideline status would violate existing Wikipedia policy.

WP:PROPOSAL is crystal clear on this: "Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy. Adding the ((policy)) template to a page without the required consensus does not mean the page is policy, even if the page summarizes or copies policy."

Please note that the page is currently untagged, not tagged as an essay. I did not want to assume that "has no more status than an essay" equals "is an essay".

Per our policy at Wikipedia:Consensus#Levels of consensus, an RfC on Wikipedia talk:Medical disclaimer can not override a policy or guideline. (Also, Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer contains nothing that resembles the so-called "guideline" that the RfC discussed.)

Again per Wikipedia:Consensus#Levels of consensus, until this "guideline" has been formally been approved by the community through the policy and guideline proposal process, it has no more status than an essay.

If someone wants to go through the process of making this into a real guideline, I suggest first editing out the portions that clearly contradict existing policies such as WP:TPOC, then proposing the new policy or guideline at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) or at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). --Guy Macon (talk) 19:31, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

So I am guessing that there is no talk on this matter....just your interpretation of what constitutes a guideline page and how they were tagged in the past. So how do we move forward here....does one editor and their interpretation of past events override past RFC and longstanding tag on the matter? As of now this looks bad because the normal demotion process or even disputed process was not follow and involves a change by someone in a dispute on the content. We are talking and a page tagged for over half a decade and referenced hundreds of times in disputes. --Moxy 🍁 20:31, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I gave you links and exact quotes to the relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Can you explain why you want to violate Wikipedia's clearly-written policies other than "that's just your opinion, man"?

Regarding that "half a decade", in the last five years there has been exactly one edit by one editor -- by you in 2018, improperly adding a content guideline category to a page that has never gone through the process of becoming a content guideline.[2] --Guy Macon (talk) 23:58, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I understand the policy I helped write very well. But as a long time member your fully aware that the majority of our guidelines and policies did not go thru this process thus you need to explain whats wrong here over arbitrarily making a decision for the whole community. So what we have is someone coming by 7 years after the tag was added to page that was subsequently referenced in hundreds of conversations leading to other consensus saying they "don't like it". As your aware and linked above there is a process to demote a page you have just found that has been longstanding in its classification. Personally have no clue if the content is still valid but can tell you the precedent you're trying to set will cause many problems. So let's do this properly so it does not look like your ducking around with a community endorsed page all on your own with no community input. We had this same problem with the portal guideline and I took lots of input to change....not changed because one person is in a dispute about its content. Serious conflict of interest.-Moxy 🍁 02:23, 10 August 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)

• Neither: The above question presents a False dilemma. Category:Wikipedia supplemental pages is a better choice than either choice listed.

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 where 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)

• 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)

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)

• Not enough choices: Asking "Should this be categorized as a guideline or an essay" excludes other viable options such as placing it in Category:Wikipedia help or Category:Wikipedia supplemental pages. We have a page on this: False dilemma. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:17, 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"[3]) 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)

• Too soon: WP:PROPOSAL says this:

Good practice for proposals

One path for proposals is developing them through steps of

1. ((brainstorming))
2. ((draft proposal))
3. ((proposal))
4. ((policy)) or ((guideline))

The first step is to write the best initial proposal you can. Authors can request early-stage feedback at Wikipedia's village pump for idea incubation and from any relevant WikiProjects. Amendments to a proposal can be discussed on its talk page. It is crucial to improve a proposal in response to feedback received from outside editors. Consensus is built through a process of listening to and discussing the proposal with many other editors.

Once you think the initial proposal is well written, and the issues involved have been sufficiently discussed among early participants to create a proposal that has a solid chance of success with the broader community, start an RfC for your policy or guideline proposal in a new section on the talk page, and include the ((rfc|policy)) tag along with a brief, time-stamped explanation of the proposal.

In my opinion, this RfC should be voluntarily withdrawn and the author should start with the first step listed in WP:PROPOSAL. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:17, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

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:[4] 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"[5] 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)

• 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)

I've been a Wikipedian for over 11 years and I am not sure what "hatted" means in this sentence, which appears in the third paragraph of the section titled, Dealing with questions asking for medical advice: "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."

I think it means using a generic hatnote like ((Hatnote|CUSTOM TEXT)) or ((Selfref)), but I'm not sure. Whatever the case, providing a brief explanation and an example would help. Many thanks  - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 20:21, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

For future reference, Wikipedia has a Glossary of wikijargon, where this term is explained.  --Lambiam 18:44, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Markworthen, I believe it refers to the practice of using the collapse templates, such as Template:Collapse. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 22:27, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Correct: it's an idiom that evolved from the name of the template ((hidden archive top)), also invokable via ((hat))--although, used as a verb, the term now refers to the use of any collapsible template employed to close a discussion, especially for procedural reasons. Snow ^{let's rap} 22:39, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

 – I have replaced "hatted" by "((collapse))d", which is hopefully self-explanatory.  --Lambiam 14:04, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, Lambiam, given the glossary entry you have pointed out, might it make more sense to keep the original "hatted" language with a piped link to that entry? After-all, I do believe that ((hat)) is still the typical template for this purpose: the two templates have very similar functions and parameters, but they have become associated with different purposes for collapsing (as described in their respective documentation pages) and using one rather than the other might give the wrong implication to veteran editors at a glance. It does vary somewhat by namespace, and for all I know the trend has not remained as absolute at RD as it once was (I used to be a very regular contributor here, but not for years now), but I do think there is an argument for keeping the hat and collapse boxes distinct in their uses. It's a small point, so I am happy to follow your impulse on which is the approach that leads to the lowest aggregate confusion, but I thought I'd at least raise the point. Snow ^{let's rap} 02:34, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks y'all! Wow, I'm glad I asked because I did not know about almost everything you all discussed. Much appreciation  - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 22:32, 14 August 2020 (UTC)