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I understand that as this site is Beta, we cannot change the decor.

I think we'd save a lot of trouble if under Parenting over the list of questions and in the Ask a Question section -- added to the bold -- Questions that may already have your answer, we could add something like: (I am not concerned with the wording -- only the message.)

This is a parenting site. We do not offer medical advice other than to say -- "Please see your medical professional". WE do not over specific product advice.

Yes, I know there are list of these 'rules' in a few places, but obviously only a few people read them. This might save our mods hours.

I know you may have no control, but if you do -- I think it might help.

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  • I must need to wake up more this morning, but I'm not entirely clear on what problem it is you see and want to solve? Are you trying to reduce the amount of duplicates we get? The number of explicitly off-topic posts? Something else?
    – Becuzz
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 12:06
  • @Becuzz My concern is with the medical questions eg: that parent who was concerned with her baby hitting her head in a fall. We can't and should not answer other than to say what the OP should have already done -- seen a dr if concerned. Recently, we had a person ask what sort of shoes to buy. I think it would save mods the trouble of answering some of these problems. So yes, explicitly off-topic questions.
    – WRX
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 12:11
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    Unfortunately, this is a problem everywhere on the SE network. It just comes down to the fact that some people just won't read the rules. They usually aren't terribly interested in becoming good members of the community. They just want their question answered and have found an audience that might work. They don't want to do the research, don't want to look through what we already have to find help. They just want their answer. Sometimes, there are a few that genuinely will become great members and just need a little help. And that's why we guide them when they mess up.
    – Becuzz
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 12:20
  • @Becuzz I understand that, but thought an added warning in plain view might help our mods. I am not dissatisfied -- just trying to help.
    – WRX
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 12:25
  • We see this on Stack Overflow all the time. With it being a busy site this happens so often you kind of get used to the fact new users don't want to read up on what they can or can't post. I even posts on their questions links so they can get to them directly and quite often they ignore them and reply to someone else who is attempting to guess their question. It can be very frustrating.
    – Bugs
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 13:24
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    @Bugs I was guilty of this, too... That was because I googled and came in on an answer to my first post. I never read anything because I found out I could ask a more direct question. I could not comment and someone told me to ask a question. Had there been a message saying medical questions were not 'allowed' and that had been my question, it probably would have stopped me.
    – WRX
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 13:33

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As a beta site, and not even a partially graduated one, we're fairly limited in what we can modify.

The only two things I think we could even possibly control that would really be effective would be the initial screen right above the "Sign Up" link, and the "How to Ask" on the Asking Questions page (\questions\ask). The latter probably makes more sense; I do believe we have a limited amount of control there.

Currently it reads:

How To Ask

Is your question about parenting?

We prefer questions that can be answered, not just discussed.

Opinions should be backed up either with a reference, or experiences that happened to you personally.

If your question is about this website, ask it on meta instead.

We might be able to add another line explicitly mentioning medical advice; but it seems like nearly no beta site does customize that page (in fact, ours is more customized than any of the others I looked at, including non-beta sites: the second to last sentence is unique to us.)

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  • thanks, Joe... I was wondering... but as mods aren't terribly concerned, I guess I won't be either.
    – WRX
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 21:27
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    Hi Willow - yes, we are, as it would save us a fair bit of effort, however until we are out of beta there is not much we can do.
    – Rory Alsop Mod
    Commented Apr 14, 2017 at 16:11

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