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Moderators just got the ability to label questions or answers with "post notices," which put some pre-set text at the bottom of the post in question.

Currently, there are exactly two notices available:

  • "This post does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed."

    (e.g. here)

  • "Post is related to a rapidly changing event"

    (e.g. here)

Naturally, when I learned of this feature, and that they're open to adding more options, including site-specific ones, I thought of using this feature as part of our ongoing efforts to make sure that people don't think of this site as a rabbi, capable of rendering professional advice.

Perhaps we ought to have a post notice along the lines of:

This is a question about Halacha - Jewish law. Please note that this site does not offer professional rabbinic advice. If the issue discussed here affects you practically, we recommend that you consult with your Rabbi, possibly using information presented here to inform the discussion.

We could append it to any halacha questions that are particularly practical, or maybe we could even get the SE developers to append it automatically to any question tagged .

What do you think of this idea?

Please feel free to suggest alternative wordings or strategies.

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    If it will eliminate the obligatory CYLOR comment on every question, I'm all for it.
    – Menachem
    Commented Sep 25, 2011 at 17:49
  • I'd love it if it were added to the Halachah tag. But what if someone has a question ABOUT Halachah - not about a topic of Halchic concern but about Halachah itself as a topic? Is there a Halachic theory tag?
    – Seth J
    Commented Sep 27, 2011 at 16:47
  • @SethJ If this becomes an issue, we can certainly create such a tag and re-tag old questions that fit it but not h-j-l accordingly.
    – Isaac Moses Mod
    Commented Sep 27, 2011 at 16:51
  • 5
    I think you've just challenged me to start posting questions on Halachic theory. This will require some research, but challenge accepted, @IsaacMoses.
    – Seth J
    Commented Sep 27, 2011 at 17:39

3 Answers 3

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I think a comment suffices, but I wouldn't object to either of your two suggestions.

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I think this is a great idea! I'd also include a link to the Why ask your Rabbi question.

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I think a manually-added annotation of this sort, with a link to the "why ask a rabbi" question as Charles suggested, would be helpful. I wouldn't want to see it be automatic; per guidance I've seen from Shog9 (community manager), annotations should be rare or they lose their oomph. So we should save it for questions that are particularly practical in nature, not all questions tagged (221 at this writing).

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  • Good point. Can you suggest a standard and/or cite examples on either side of "particularly practical"?
    – Isaac Moses Mod
    Commented Jun 3, 2013 at 21:15
  • @IsaacMoses Regarding "standard comment," see meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/q/2250/5323
    – MTL
    Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 22:15
  • @IsaacMoses I think it'd have to be a judgement call, same as for the other post notices. (There are presently 3699 halacha questions, so we really don't want it to be automatic.)
    – Monica Cellio Mod
    Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 22:18

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