It has nothing to do with malpractice, it has to do with the crime of practicing medicine without a license. It’s also illegal to practice veterinary medicine without a license.
Then doctors, who are actual experts could answer. They can’t.
Furthermore, they were giving nutrition tips, something that is allowed on this board with humans.
Finally, I’ll throw out that practicing psychology without a license is against the law, too, but that has absolutely not stopped the threads where people [del]beat up on[/del] try to help the mentally ill.
This “too many conflicting opinions” rule will be interesting in GD. Poof. All politics threads just got disallowed. You might be lead to vote for Lyndon LaRouche or something because someone convinced you it might be a good idea.
And CS: movies/books/literature? Many, MANY conflicting opinions…someone might be led to read a book that psychologically damages them and sues the SDMB!
Hey and what about cooking questions. I personally have seen people argue for the use of Miracle Whip–some poor fool could follow that advice and make a terrible luncheon and be mocked by his or her friends, leading them to commit suicide! And it would be THE SDMB’S FAULT for allowing people to have diverse opinions.
MSIMPS and GQ-Lawyers give opinions (but not advice! 
) all the time. Often the opinions are in conflict. What if someone actually acts on one of the conflicting opinions! It could be a catastrope!
And…MIGOD! Computer questions! You almost never get a concensus there: what if someone takes some bad advice, plugs their hard drive in backwards and it explodes sending shrapnel everywhere and starting an electrical fire that burns down three houses! Where would the SDMB be then, hmmmm?
Look, this thread and the Spectre of Whatsitscalled one have something in common: a mod with a hobbyhorse (Per Dex, Spectre’s hypersensitivity to anything racial and his bizarre “Someone might see something out of context on Goole” phobia, here Ellen’s hypersensitivity to animal issues) trying to make brand new rules, on the fly to enforce his/her particular pet issue.
There was one that set off a nasty 6-months long fight where an admin, with a particular political view made up a rule on the fly and warned a poster because she didn’t like his politics…and for no other reason–totally fake, made up rule (“All thread titles must be 100% factually accurate–no embellishing, hyperbole, humor, etc”). This current trend of “That thread offends my personal delicate sensiblities, so I must make up rules to mod it” has to stop or I believe you’ll eventually end up with another 6-month long fight–which won’t be good for the SDMB, the posters, the mods or anyone else.
Most of the mods realize…the vast majority of the mods realize that their particular tastes aren’t the basis for rule enforcement. It would be nice to have that issue reiterated with the mods so everyone is on the same page.
This closure simply beggars belief. A thread closed because there is conflicting advice? How many threads would that apply to in the past? This is moderation by whim rather than sound good sense. Senior staff really need to rein in some of the more trigger-happy mods before they stifle discussion on this board.
It’s not like it was a kitteh, its just a dog. Let the bad advice flow!!
Riddle me this : If conflicting advice is disallowed, what kind of advice remains?
Ellen’s reason for closing the thread was simple, clear, and unequivocal.
What else can this possibly mean other than that only advice that does not conflict with other advice; i,e., a consensus, will be allowed?
You’re, of course, correct that this has nothing to do with malpractice. Practicing medicine without a license isn’t the issue either though. I’m pretty sure that giving medical advice on a general interest message board doesn’t fall under the category of practicing medicine. I can’t imagine a statement like “I have diabetes and my doctor told me that I can eat all of the bacon grease and pie I want” is practicing medicine, for example.
The reason medical advice threads aren’t allowed (as well as legal advice threads although those aren’t enforced as strictly) is because the management is deathly afraid of getting sued. The management believes that someone could ask for advice, be given incorrect advice and then they or someone else could take that advice and suffer harm from it. Based on that, they feel that the person harmed could then blame The Straight Dope’s parent company (who the hell is it these days anyway?) and find a lawyer to sue them. To be fair, no one believes that the law suit would prevail. They just don’t want to be bothered with the time and expense to defend it. I happen to think that this is silly but it is one of the very clear rules that we must follow if we want to post here.
The thread in question is about an animal, not a person. Despite the fact that laws governing veterinarians are nearly identical to those governing medical doctors, the above rule has never applied to vets. Ever. That’s not exactly the reason the Ellen Cherry gave but it’s implied. If that’s not the reason then it can only be her stated reason which is that conflicting advice was given in that thread which is simply baffling. If that’s the case, we may as well shut down IMHO. It certainly can’t be because of the Jerk Rule because everyone was sincerely trying to help.
I am not upset about this, just amused. That said, a mistake was made and it should be corrected.
Conflicting medical advice.
About a dog.
Wiil you at least stop pretending that you thought she meant all conflicting advice?
I don’t think that. None of us do. We’re asking for clarification because that’s what she said, without qualification, and well all know that that can’t possibly be what she meant.
veterinary advice.
And more technically, diet advice. It wasn’t “How can I perform gall-bladder surgery on Mr. Snuggles at home?”, it was “Mr. Snuggles is under a vet’s care and on a vet-approved diet that he doesn’t like. What can I give him to tempt him to eat it?”
So…no. Not really medical advice by any stretch of the imagination.
Things aren’t as cut and dried as that with animals and vets. I dealing with a dying pet right now who has seen 4 different vets, each one giving completely different advice about how to make it eat. In some cases alternate anecdotal opinions on problems like eating disorders are very useful. I myself have successfully given advice to help someone whose cat would not eat anything their vet suggested.
Was the thread closure justified? Good question. It seems to be on the borderline of the Rules, and could have been decided either way. Closing it pending further discussion and clarification is certainly the prudent thing to do. Maybe after reading the comments on it folks will re-open it, or perhaps not.
Oh yeah, even though I work for Cecil, I’m not a Moderator of this message board. I have to post that, you know.
So it’s safe to assume that diet advice/threads for people will be closed when there are any conflicting opinions?
Why leap from a specific situation to a huge generalization? Our moderator decisions are made based on applying the Rules to the individual circumstances in each situation: what went before, what went after, who said what and why to whom, the emotional tone (level of politeness/anger), etc.
IF THOSE CONDITIONS ARE EXACTLY REPEATED in a future thread, verbatim, then I hope the moderators will make the same decision. However, if there’s a major variation (topic, tone, number of posters, emotional level, extent of variation from scientific fact, etc etc.) then a ruling in one case may be different from that in another.
I think that keeping the discussion open about what to feed dogs could be enlightening, if people back up what they say by cites, facts la la then a few people may learn something for the better?
You know, get the straight dope on the subject and all. I suppose each dog varies though…?
There are a couple of posters in this thread who wished my dog well, (I forgot to quote them) so thank you. I’ll just say that he is is much better since the vet said to feed him teeny amounts up to ten times a day so he doesn’t get overloaded and um, he’s peeing everywhere actually, thinking about starting a thread about how to get him out of that habit…I imagine it’s really boring reading about my dog, I* feel *boring.
Will you point out to me where the word “medical” appears in the quote I cited? While you’re at it, will you tell me when the mods decided that Dopers were too stupid to evaluate conflicting advice and decide for themselves which to follow?
Except that’s not what she said. She said “conflicting advice.”
You have got to be fucking kidding me. Exact conditions? Repeated verbatim? That may be the stupidest idea I’ve heard in quite a while. Any idea what the odds are of that thread appearing again in exactly the same form?
Why can’t you guys just admit that she got it wrong?
Seriously? To try to make a point. To show through example why we thought that the decision was incorrect. Did you really not get that?
OK. Now we seen to be getting somewhere. Exactly what Rule was broken? Ellen Cherry said that she closed it because there “seemed to be conflicting advice.” Until your post just now, that was all that we had heard from anyone on Staff to explain the baffling decision.
What was it, in the specific thread reference in the OP, be it what went before, what went after, who was doing the posting or the emotional tone that was reason for that thread to be closed?
Why?
samclem just reopened the thread.
Thank you.