# Doping by Licensed Professionals **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 28, 2012, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329 "2012-11-28T01:10:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/1 "2012-11-28T01:10:44Z")
How would a doping forum be organized, specifically for a certain professional field? If there was one, main considerations would include: 1. validity of source 2. allowable advice - like a doctor asking for opinions while treating a dying patient 3. acceptable references - several lawyers in my country got ass-whipped for using wiki as reference in their case papers. 4. other issues relating to ethics and professional regulation by governments ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/2 "2012-11-28T01:18:07Z")
What’s a doping forum? Where the dopes hang out? Where you go to get wasted? ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/3 "2012-11-28T01:20:36Z")
Both? I got the idea from the Gaydope website. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/4 "2012-11-28T01:24:21Z")
So are you asking how a message board like this one could be set up? Or are you proposing a sub-forum on SDMB? ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/5 "2012-11-28T01:59:06Z")
A sub if you please. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/6 "2012-11-28T02:00:20Z")
While we’d allow discussions of _legal_ medical activity, which is not what I think of when I hear “doping,” we’re not going to set up a forum for it. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/7 "2012-11-28T16:22:04Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > How would a doping forum be organized, specifically for a certain professional field? You mean like “Straight Dope: legal questions”, “Straight Dope: medical questions”, “Straight Dope: engineering questions”, “Straight Dope: penile enhancement questions”? ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/8 "2012-11-28T16:51:40Z")
I doubt TPTB here would want the potential liability from such a forum. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/9 "2012-11-28T17:51:38Z")
[[Obligatory Straight Dope/doping pun]] ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/10 "2012-11-28T21:43:37Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > [[Obligatory Straight Dope/doping pun]] Seriously, dude. You should give up your Wikipedia obsession. You’re getting the coding mixed up between those forums. And you might ban us all, by mistake, _again_. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/11 "2012-11-30T16:41:32Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > Seriously, dude. You should give up your Wikipedia obsession. You’re getting the coding mixed up between those forums. And you might ban us all, by mistake, _again_. > > 😃 That wasn’t a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/12 "2012-11-30T17:38:17Z")
Seriously, Lance Armstrong doesn’t _deserve_ his own forum. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/13 "2012-12-01T13:21:22Z")
How is this not already served by General Questions? ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/14 "2012-12-01T17:59:40Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > How is this not already served by General Questions? It isn’t. Requests for medical advice, legal advice, etc., usually are put in In My Humble Opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/15 "2012-12-01T22:44:13Z")
I’m not sure, but I think the OP has something like this in mind: [http://www.allexperts.com/](http://www.allexperts.com/) I’ve never used it. There are other websites like that. It’s an interesting idea, but would entail a fair amount of work. Posters would use their real names presumably, which would give the website a different flavor. And as noted upthread there are liability issues. I’ll note that allexperts has a medical section but not really a legal one. ---
**Author:** ![BottledBlondJeanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/0ea827/32.png) [@BottledBlondJeanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BottledBlondJeanie)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/16 "2012-12-03T13:29:54Z")
Not speaking for other lawyers, but there would be no way in heck I would be interested in participating even with crazy disclaimers. It’s one thing to discuss legal hypotheticals that are truly hypothetical and not thinly-disguised requests for legal advice. It’s also another to suggest resources, refer to statutes or basically describe certain issues that each lawyer is familiar with in certain instances, but a specific forum for that would be too much like actually asking for legal advice (or I guess medical advice) opening one up to potential legal malpractice claims (or medical malpractice claims).[sup]\*[/sup] Ethically, it would bother me as I would know questions would not be hypothetical, and even though something may be presented as a simple legal question, it often takes a great deal of questioning before all the relevant, correct facts come out before advice could be rendered. Additionally, there are some people who post here who would almost certainly end up trying to sue no matter the generality of the advice. IMHO is a great place for questions involving the law and medicine, IMHO. [sub]\*Doctors also have more specific ethical rules allowing them to render advice. But, in the US, in many states, it is much more difficult to sue a doctor given tort reform.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doping-by-licensed-professionals/642329/17 "2012-12-04T10:22:58Z")
Great replies from the two above this.