Disclaimers

spiritdogs

  wouldn't it be better to just remove the disclaimer requirement, since I cannot find a single other Internet dog forum that requires it? 

I agree Spiritdogs. The disclaimer rule suggests that we are all idiots and assumes we believe everything we read on the internet. I think the majority of us are a little smarter than that! Those who 'might' need the disclaimer are not going to consider it anyways. JMHO 

I agree... I would be extremely interested to know just why that rule was written in the first place. Extremely interested... But I'll probably never know.

Seriously?

I think these should be added too!

http://www.dumb.com/productwarnings.htm

Disclaimer: I did not write that stuff, had no input of any kind, but found it hilarious.

I seem to remember a discussion a while back about 'someone' posting CM video links and there was some concern expressed about people possibly "trying this at home".  

I posted this on another thread and decided it wuould be better off in this section... and lo and behold, a thread ready and waiting for my meagre suggestions and opinions...

 The disclaimer rule is pretty dumb.  Why not just have a general one up on the main board to cover this???  Like "If your dog is showing signs of being ill, in pain or distress, please get him to a vet quickly rather than just waiting for replies here as they may take hours or even days.  Similarly, if your dog has a behavioural problem that you are trying to solve, please see a behaviourist or trainer to help you before embarking on training methods which pose risk to you or the dog, and especially if the dog is behaving aggressively and/or there are children involved."  I mean, tweak it a bit for wording, but whats wrong with that??? Then there would be no need for individual disclaimers.... and the relevant bums are covered should someone try something they found on this board and it backfire.
 

Instead of adding disclaimers to people's sigs - shouldn't it just say in the forum guidelines that ideas posted by members may or may not be professionals and that they should seek professional help for nutrition, health and obedience issues - something like that. 

I think that people giving health advice is way more of a liability than training advice. 

Truley

Seriously?

I think these should be added too!

http://www.dumb.com/productwarnings.htm

Disclaimer: I did not write that stuff, had no input of any kind, but found it hilarious.

 

 

Good grief those are  hilarious! 

denise m

I seem to remember a discussion a while back about 'someone' posting CM video links and there was some concern expressed about people possibly "trying this at home".  

Here is the thread http://community.dog.com/forums/t/28598.aspx?PageIndex=4

Denise m, IMO the disclaimer is helpful.  In the Dr. Yin thread, the OP endorsed the videos and in one of the videos the trainer created a dog fight as a Proof of the COME command.  Common sense says don't do that at home but that example is an extreme case and people like me who are always trying to solve foster dog problems may not know any better when it is not obviously apparent.  That is how my dog got injured.

The more I think about this entire topic and read past threads, the more I just don't get it. Aren't we all adults here (well mostly)? Considering that the number of visitors to this site seems to have gone down since the change - along with the activity level (new threads posted, etc) I would think that the mods/admins would want to bring people to the site for discussions instead of driving people away by enforcing these disclaimer rules, rules against posting links, videos, etc....

I'd like to think we're all adults....one of the lovely things about adulthood is the realisation that you can't please everyone, all of the time.  We were getting complaints about people posting links....we attempted to correct that and are now getting complaints about our solution.

The fact is, there would be no need for rules or guidelines or even moderators if every member here acted like an adult, all the time.

Which would people prefer....the current guideline on links, or a disclaimer somewhere in the forum documentation, and for mods to delete ANY post that contains a link without an explanation of what said link is for? 

A disclaimer in the forum documentation 

Benedict

We were getting complaints about people posting links....we attempted to correct that and are now getting complaints about our solution.

IMHO, that is one of the problems. Just because you get complaints doesn't mean you HAVE to do something. And people shouldn't be allowed to break the rules just because no one complained. I have seen this so much here, it's ridiculous.

On topic.

Benedict

Which would people prefer....the current guideline on links, or a disclaimer somewhere in the forum documentation, and for mods to delete ANY post that contains a link without an explanation of what said link is for? 

I would prefer a forum-wide general disclaimer stating that any advice given does not reflect the opinion of dog.com and that people should consult a professional in their area. And if you went with that, why would links have to be deleted?? I don't get that at all. If there's a disclaimer, why would you delete links?

No, I think repeated complaints from people who aren't overly inclined to complain DOES indicate a problem.

And links would be deleted, if they have no valuable accompanying text, because that amounts to nothing much more than SPAM. 

But lots of people around this forum post links to all kinds of things and don't give an explanation - not just training. Gina does it, I do it, almost everyone does it. Yes, if you post a link, you should at least explain what the link is - that's just general courtesy so people aren't randomly clicking links that might contain not-work-safe subject matter (or family safe). But that's as far as I would take it. I think that all forms of training - good or bad should be allowed to be discussed (with videos) as long as people aren't attacking each other and being disrespectful.

Just my 2 cents of course. I rarely, if ever post training links unless it is dog sport training related (and I hope that those wouldn't be deleted)