Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice

Marked as a guideline page

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.[1] --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)