Should this site be a free-for-all for COVID-19 questions? And if so, how does it recover?

Question

In this question I agreed to lighten up on moderation of COVID-19 questions, and I have. The problem now is the deluge of poor quality questions. I'm spending hours per day on this site that I can't really afford. I get some occasional help from the other mods but mostly I'm on my own (that's not a criticism, just an observation). I'm getting criticism from all sides for not allowing anything and everything no matter how shoddy, and then criticism from other sides for allowing it.

Where do you suggest we draw the line? The answer I'm getting from some quarters is "anything, no matter how shoddy, if it relates to COVID-19." And then I get the opposite criticism from others. Simultaneously, I'm having to debate link-only answers, copyright infringement, etc.

But here's the real question: Once this pandemic is over, or at least tamed down, how do we return this site to normal? I think we're setting a precedent here where medical advice and opinion questions are readily accepted and I can foresee having all these questions thrown in my face when I try to close such questions in the future.

So where's the line?

Answer 1

The previous meta post primarily focused on answers even though "questions" was in the title, and only one of the answers there has a pattern of voting that seems like community agreement: https://medicalsciences.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1140/8728

People need information now, not next year, so for us to strictly enforce the policy on such answers would be pedantic and unhelpful, in my opinion.

It seems reasonable in the near term to continue to be a bit flexible on answers: to allow answers based on prior experiences, biological knowledge of other coronaviruses (in particular SARS and MERS), and other respiratory pandemics (in particular influenza). These sources can provide reasonable "best-guesses" while we deal with an ever-shifting situation.

I think we can also be slightly more flexible on medical advice questions if they can be interpreted and answered in terms of public health advice. There are medical guidelines for the general public released by authoritative figures and designed for consumption by the general public. I think it's reasonable to direct people to those guidelines even while we refuse (as we always have and should have) to answer individual questions directly. That is, we should not and cannot say "you should do X" or "you have/do not have covid-19 symptoms", but we can continue to say "the WHO says ________", "the CDC guidelines are _______", etc - this is the same sort of advice provided by reputable news sources, and doesn't involve anything like a doctor-patient relationship.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to catch these under a single community wiki canonical answer.

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I don't have much patience for the "is this a cure"-type speculation questions without prior research. I do think it's reasonable for questions to be asked about the progress of clinical research into therapies as long as the asker has put some effort into it as well (at a minimum, citing some popular press literature about a treatment, for example; not just "hey I wonder if lazzer beems would solve Corona").

I'd also be in favor of closing most of the "prognostication"-type questions (when will this end, how many will die, can this be stopped, etc) as primarily opinion-based. Questions about how these estimates are derived may be useful, if they contain some prior research and/or citations to scientific estimates and models.

Answer 2

Since this would probably get lost in the numerous comments under the question, I'll note as an answer that Bio SE now has a Covid-19 FAQ, which starts with:

Stack Exchange Biology receives many questions about the outbreak of a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19) that has spread worldwide. This is understandable. However, in many cases these posts are either closed as off-topic for various reasons (e.g. asking for health advice, speculation on number of deaths, suggestions of means to combat the virus), or may not receive a satisfactory answer. In either case, posters may not obtain the information they are seeking.

There are two answers, nearly equally upvoted. The first says:

Personal medical questions (including "what should I do") are as always off topic on every SE site.

On topic questions include:

• general questions about biological concepts
• questions about the biological mechanisms behind medical conditions
• questions about techniques in a biological or biochemical laboratory

Any question that fits the above bullet points is on topic, whether or not it is about coronavirus. A number of our users with various backgrounds have sufficient expertise in virology to answer coronavirus questions that are about concepts, mechanisms, or techniques.

News reports of an epidemic have provoked many medical questions that we are not able to answer:

We are able to answer some questions, provided they meet the standards for this site. Speculative questions are not a good fit for the SE model.

Users with speculative questions in mind should use outside resources (like reputable news reports) to motivate their questions, and then form questions based on the underlying biology: ask about mechanisms and approaches, rather than outcomes or "expert opinions".

I think that can be adapted with a few (obvious) changes for Med SE.

The latter/2nd answer is a more extensive list of resources, which probably makes less sense to adapt, but the last section of that has mostly medical resources, albeit they are few and obvious (WHO, NIH etc.)

Answer 3

Should this site be a free-for-all for COVID-19 questions?

Yes for most cases. (I'd say 90% yes 10% no)

Yes because some people really don't know what to do, where to ask for help, they don't wanna go to the hospital because currently it's risky, etc. Some others, as a non medical people, don't know how to search properly and hence don't find the answers, whence end up asking here.

No for exceptional cases, for example yesterday there was a question about "how to be more productive in this time of quarantine due COVID-19, I'm addicted to blah blah.."

And if so, how does it recover?

When things become stabilized or normal or at least not that bad, as it's currently, simply Close them as they would normally be.

For example:

-no previous research, close

-seeking personal advice, close

etc.

Answer 4

I think COVID-19 questions should be treated the same way as non-COVID-19 questions, because COVID-19 is just one disease amongst many others. There exist other deadly diseases too, such as cancers, aging, diabetes, or Alzheimer's disease, so it is unclear to me why singling out COVID-19.

However, I think that the moderation on questions posted here tend to close questions too harshly. E.g., "no previous research" shouldn't necessarily result in closing a question.