On 19-03-2003, Jesse Alter wrote thusly :
I was checking out [[Hepatitis_B]] and noted a prominent disclaimer in red text:
*DISCLAIMER*
Please remember that Wikipedia is offered for informational use only. The information is in most cases not reviewed by professionals. You are advised to contact your doctor for health-related decisions.
Should we be adding disclaimers like that to most of the articles? Do we even need a disclaimer? If so, I think it should be somewhere else, like on the front page, and not on each article we have. I can only imagine seeing the big red disclaimer on [[Food Poisoning]], [[Peyronie_disease]], [[Gingivitis]], [[Cancer]], and [[Chiropractic medicine]] :-P
I thought of removing the disclaimer from each of the Hepatitis articles but decided I should get a consensus here, first.
Jesse and all,
This is just the question whether Wikipedia is meant to be a reliable reference source.
If not, it should be clearly stated that _no_ information is meant to be taken seriously. If yes, we must be prepared to be responsible for what we write here. We cannot be sure that someone wouldn't take some misguided action reading some joke put in by a vandal (even accessible for a short time to readers). Wikipedia could be available in print and all reliable printed sources give such disclaimers. Not only to be on the safe side legally but to be responsible to their readers.
Let's see to it that Wikipedia is not a health hazard.
Regards, Kpjas.