User:Wnt/Just Edit The Friendly Article
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: The best way to deal with Refdesk "ethical" disputes is to fix the article itself so that a Refdesk answer becomes unnecessary |
Background
[edit]In general, improved educational level among the general public reduces the risk of death from all causes, including medical causes (though the most important knowledge also seems the most basic).[1]
The Wikipedia Refdesk guidelines make it clear that the purpose is to answer questions in general, describing what is known about a topic, not to provide individualized advice. In the case of legal and especially medical advice, this becomes very contentious because of the degree of perceived overlap between simple biomedical information as opposed to suggestions, diagnoses, recommended treatments, etc.
A popular dividing line is Kainaw's criterion. This essay was written after some participants dissented from this criterion and applied harsher standards to questioners who revealed that they have a medical condition, even if they carefully rephrased the question to focus only on general knowledge without requesting any diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment advice. I feel that that treatment effectively violates a questioner's civil rights (as they should be, not in a legal sense) by discriminating against him based on his known medical condition. If applied to others who rephrase or resubmit these questions, it also infringes the ability of Refdesk volunteers to research and answer basic scientific questions, or to ask these questions themselves out of personal curiosity and interest or to facilitate article development.
Just Edit The Friendly Article
[edit]- Read the redacted question and see if you know or can figure out an answer.
- If the answer is in fact general biomedical knowledge, then it belongs in a Wikipedia article. Identify, or if need be create, the appropriate article.
- Edit the article as you would any other, to cover the relevant topic in accordance with usual policies and guidelines.
Advantages
[edit]- This approach makes it very clear that you are working on generally expanding the encyclopedia rather than providing individualized medical advice which may be subject to legal or other prohibitions.
- This approach makes this information available to everyone reading the article, not just the one who asked.
- Sources you find while looking for the answer, which don't quite answer the question, are still useful for updating the article.
- You can take the time to address unsourced, inaccurate, or inappropriately written statements in the article itself, which probably accomplishes a lot more for Wikipedia's ethics than anyone could ever accomplish by denying you the chance to answer one person's question.
Disadvantages
[edit]- Some degree of collaboration in understanding the original question is lost. This is especially true because people have objected to posting a Refdesk Collaboration template in reference to the article being improved to the Refdesk. Oddly, it was even suggested that responding to the original poster on his talk page or his e-mail would be better, even though this offers the least protection against erroneous medical advice.
- In some cases, a new article to cover the topic may be seen with some degree of skepticism regarding its notability. For example, if a question about "what can cause a lump on your foot?" is redacted, you can answer with "The Differential Diagnosis of Foot Lumps", but a new article on Foot lump or List of causes for foot lumps may encounter some resistance.