hi

Hello everyone. Lila and I want to invite you to a little discussion, but less formal than a Meta post. I'm planning on creating a custom close reason for our site for cases when it's absolutely impossible to help the OP over the internet and a vet is the only one who can provide any help. 2 example questions are pets.stackexchange.com/q/29933/12501 and pets.stackexchange.com/q/25574/12501

As always, I struggle with how exactly I should call this reason. We do allow questions about medical problems and injuries, so where is the line that makes these questions impossible to answer?

Our best idea so far was "The problem presented in this question needs direct physical veterinarian's attention and cannot be reasonably and safely solved via applying self-help advice."

I would agree. That would also prevent answers saying "go see a vet" as their only content.

I don't think he is a bad person, or is deliberately trying to write bad answers, but I don't think it is generally acceptable to answers questions so quickly, with such low quality.

I have thought a lot about this.

The nature of new users is tricky and unpredictable. I don't want to come off like a jerk, but I don't think it is in the site's best interest to let new users write answers with a lower bar than our standards. Is this right? Am I overthinking this?

Not sure if relevant, but on pmse when someone asks "Would (some external authority) consider (thing) to be valid?" generally it gets closed as Primarily Opinion Based. With someone often adding a comment to the effect of "Ask them, not strangers on the internet."

@Nai54 You can always downvote a low quality answer. I honestly think that's a bigger incentive for users than leaving a comment alone, although I personally like to point out in a comment why I downvoted so the user can learn from their mistake. As moderators we cannot delete answers just because they are quick and low quality. As long as they answer at least one aspect of the question, they are valid.