Wikipedia:Reference desk advice
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Don't ask the original poster unnecessary questions edit
Something I think is plaguing the reference desk these days is the inability of respondents to use their imagination and make assumptions. If someone asks a question without realising more detail could be helpful, make the detail up or use whatever option would be most likely. If you can't do that then supply the answer for every option. Look at this example, adapted from a real science desk question.
- What kind of fuel do you plan to use? I ask because different fuels have different masses.
The answerer should obviously have chosen the lighter option. But without thinking, he decided the questioner hadn't provided enough information.
No medical or legal advice does not mean no medical or legal answers edit
Many respondents don't seem to understand what consititutes a request for advice we can't give and what is a simple question. Consider the following:
The first example is a clear request for legal advice. The reference desk can't give that advice because we aren't lawyers and, as with any online answer service, it may be incorrect or misleading. The second example however is not a request for legal advice. It is rather a requst for legal information: a simple informal statement of legal facts, possibly with an attached opinion.
The differences are subtle and difficult to explain, but I think the two examples above are quite good illustrations of them. Our article Legal advice is a bit clearer. This also applies to medical advice.
The obvious may not be obvious edit
The difference between these two questions is again subtle, but a distinction can be drawn at the point where there is intent to apply this advice in a medical situation. In the first example, then, the poster clearly references a real-life personal situation to which he may immediately apply any advice given. Therefore, if the Reference Desk were to give advice and the poster were to use it to cut out a cyst on his sister's forearm, thus perhaps causing infection or bleeding leading to a death, the connection from means to ends is clear.
In the second case, if the poster were to use the same advice in the same manner, it would be quite an unpredictable result, something a person using common sense would not think to do. And yet, this poster is clearly not a doctor, but there is no cause to think that they are not just curious as to how doctors use a very basic tool. There is less cause to think so since arm surgery implies much more complexity, much less specificity, and many more tools than just a scalpel, while to cut out a cyst may conceptually be simpler and more accessible of a problem.
Yet in both cases, the opposite can be argued. The fundamental question is the same, and a medical use is referenced. However, there are other uses for scalpels, not just medical, and perhaps the poster referenced this just because of the familiarity when really they just wanted to use it to polish leather-hard clay on a sculpture. In the second case, the poster may really want to "play doctor" on their sister, with the starting incision being the first step before running back to the Reference Desk with more questions while their sister bleeds out.
The point is that while there is gray area, the only obvious rule is where the line between means and outcomes is clear - there is really only one possible use that this person is after - and that is rarely determined after a one-sentence question. Perhaps one should be cautious and give either generalized responses and external links with a question for specifics, or simply use common sense while allowing consensus rules to hold as responses are given before closing the thread.