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Health Stack Exchange has a disclaimer page at

https://health.stackexchange.com/help/disclaimer

And so does some other stacks like Law.

A banner to the right on the questions page reads:

Health Stack Exchange is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for individualized diagnosis and treatment by a qualified healthcare provider. Communications on Health Stack Exchange are not privileged communications and do not create a doctor-patient relationship.

On clicking the link in the banner, it takes us to the full text as shown below:

General Disclaimer

The information, advice, links and/or any other materials (“Content”) made available through Health Stack Exchange (the “Site”) are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, treatment or consultation. You should contact a qualified licensed medical provider to obtain advice with respect to any important medical issue or problem. Do not disregard or delay in obtaining professional advice based on any Content from the Site. Content may not be complete, correct, or up to date, and some Content may be obtained or provided without proper citation or review. Content made available through the Site does not represent endorsements or recommendations by Stack Exchange or other users. Use of and access to the Site or any Content on the Site, or any of the e-mail, website, social media or other like links contained within the Site, do not create an doctor-patient relationship between those posing or responding to inquiries, or any other users, even if licensed individuals in the corresponding fields are involved in such use. Further, these are not privileged communication, and no right to privacy exists. Any opinions expressed are the opinions of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of Stack Exchange, or other users. All users of the Site relinquish any or all claims against Stack Exchange, the party providing the Content, and any other users that may arise from reliance on any information obtained from the Site. Reliance on any information appearing on the Site is solely at your own risk.

Do we need something like this?

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    Why do you feel we should have such a disclaimer? Law and Health (and Mi Yodeya, I believe) are outliers, and could receive cases where not going to a professional can be quite dangerous. There's not as much danger of that on IPS.
    – HDE 226868 Mod
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 18:14
  • @HDE226868 I don't know. I'm just asking. :)
    – NVZ
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 18:14
  • @HDE226868 Just now found this similar question: engineering.meta.stackexchange.com/q/28/4619 I'm looking for answers such as "yes/no, and here's why"
    – NVZ
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 18:21
  • @HDE226868 Okay, apparently you have an answer there as well. Ha!
    – NVZ
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 18:22
  • @HDE226868 OMG, you are everywhere. Every related question I find on other stacks, you are there!
    – NVZ
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 18:27
  • Fact: @HDE226868 has at least 1500 reputation on 16 SE communities of which 3 are 12,000+ reputation @ NVZ. Now that's inspirational and makes me proud though maybe we couldn't cover so many different subjects ourself! Yes it's time to consider seriously whether IPS.SE needs a disclaimer.
    – English Student
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 19:36
  • @NVZ My position on that changed for Engineering; I would no longer agree with the idea. My position here's the same: We don't need to have one.
    – HDE 226868 Mod
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 19:49
  • @HDE226868 Ah, I see. I think you have a good answer. :)
    – NVZ
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 19:53
  • You should clearly have a disclaimer. Many of you appear to be dishing out advice as though being a programmer makes you qualified to answer questions about some traumatic event in someone's life. It's irresponsible to call anyone here an "expert" which is the original intent of the Stack Exchange model.
    – rbsdca
    Commented Feb 20, 2018 at 6:53
  • 3
    @rbsdca That comment would go unnoticed. I would prefer it in the form of an answer, where others can show their agreement or disagreement by the use of votes. Please consider making it an answer, and do flesh it out a bit.
    – NVZ
    Commented Feb 20, 2018 at 13:14

1 Answer 1

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No, because you don't need one.

Content disclaimers were (begrudgingly) added to a few sites because the content tended to run up against some of the professional ethics incumbent on the target community (doctors, lawyers, etc). Lawyers are accustomed to avoiding legal advice (even generalized) without a disclaimer; similar for doctors.

This site tends to have a much broader, layman audience. Unless there's a clear indication that professionals focused on how to have clearer conversations are uncomfortable discussing how to be more polite without a disclaimer, it's one of those features that wasn't intended to be used on most sites.

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    Ah, that makes sense. Good points. Ours is mostly for a broader audience.
    – NVZ
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 19:52
  • @NVZ I don't think the audience is exactly broader, since all sites are open to the whole world wide web; I do think that anyone with any relevant professional credentials (licensed counselors, professional mediators, etc.) and the ethical considerations that go along with those credentials is unlikely to post here. Which maybe deserves its own type of disclaimer.
    – 1006a
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 21:03

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