On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 4:56 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 5:46 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I believe this one has been debated before and was considered to be covered in the nest of disclaimers linked from the general disclaimer.
- d.
There's really two arguments here, a legal argument and a moral one. Legally, the talmudic list of general disclaimers (which no sane person reads) probably covers us, but is that enough? Should we stop there?
The moral argument says that we should make sure that people don't rely on only our information when it comes to serious decisions with serious consequences. I don't think it would be a bad thing at all if at the dosage section of an article on drugs we say "Consult your physician before taking medication" or on the article on nitroglycerin, have a small little disclaimer in the "Manufacturing" section saying "It is extremely dangerous to try this yourself if you are not a trained chemist".
Trouble is, if you do that for some articles and not others, you leave yourself (or Wikipedia in general) open to claims that we failed to "protect" people on the articles where such "in-article" disclaimers haven't been added, or were removed (by well-intentioned editors, or even by vandals).
Such "in-article" disclaimers, if they were ever used, would have to be carefully monitored. It is much simpler to write and maintain a general "boilerplate" disclaimer that applies to all articles, even if no-one reads it.
Carcharoth