@Ooker I can see what you are saying about the name of the site, but I don't think that Medical would be a great replacement for Health. I still think it would attract the same types of questions we've been getting.

@michaelpri I have pointed out that it's not. Which part do you disagree with it?

@Ooker While I don’t think it’s likely to solve the problem by any means, I do think it would be a step in the right direction, as I stated in the comments there. It looks like not a lot of people agree though.

I am following the Medicine Area51 proposal, but also as I said in the comments, I don’t think at this point we have A) enough people/questions to fuel two sites, and (B) substantial ranges of appropriate questions that are unique to each.

So I would favor them being folded into one for now, and if it’s ever overflowing then contemplate separating the “professional” site from the one for more general questions (a la Math [Overflow]).

And to me, the “medicine” topic seems like a better fit for both (A) the stack exchange format, and (B) the strong preference for “hard data” that has been expressed repeatedly on our meta.

(Thanks, @Ooker for the suggestion and for opening the room about it.)

Why is this a locked (“gallery") room? At the moment I believe only mods + Ooker are going to be able to talk here. Was that intentional?

@JohnP @anongoodnurse (and @michaelpri of course), any input you have about ^^^ is appreciated.

@Susan I don't know either. I created it but don't know why

@Ooker Are you okay with me making this room public?

@michaelpri Can you give an example of the type of thing you’re thinking of that isn’t adequately covered by medicine?

Or medical.

But most SE names are nouns rather than adjectives I think.

@michaelpri sure, why not? I'm off now. It's mid night in my time zone. Very funny that i'm on the Health site

@Susan Questions like this and this don't really have much to do with what non-professionals see as medicine.

@Susan I think that Medical will still present the same problems as Health

room topic changed to About the name of the site: I think the reason the site attracts personal questions is because of its name [health] [name]

room mode changed to Public: anyone may enter and talk

@michaelpri Of course I think those are completely medical, but I see what you mean. Health Sciences?

Health Science

Just a little more impersonal (than health), maybe.

Or maybe "Medical Science"

@michaelpri Interesting. An advantage of Health Science(s) may be that the URL might not need to change....

FYI I just bumped this meta question to promote participation in this room.

@Susan Thinking from the perspective of someone who isn't a doctor, a lot of people see "Medicine" as just pills or things you take when you're sick.

@Susan That's a good point, didn't think of that

@michaelpri Yup, I see where you’re coming from. And the professionals are wondering whether surgical topics are on-topic (which of course they are, but distinguished from medicine in some professional circles). Which is why I like either of our * science ideas.

@michaelpri Thinking of hermeneutics.SE... which is Biblical Hermeneutics everywhere on the site.

I'm pretty much of the opinion that there is no name that will protect us from people asking us personal medical questions, or posting one-line questions, or any of the problems that plague us. I would like to be proven wrong, and I'm fine with a name change.

@anongoodnurse @Susan thought of the idea of using [sitename] Science as the name, so for example Health Science.

This might not totally ward off the personal medical questions and one-liners, but it may help to show professionals that we are open to their questions about more advanced topics

I suspect @anongoodnurse is correct. I too would like to be proven wrong, but I confess that I'm not convinced there's a healthy enough signal:noise ratio for that to truly take hold. My thinking is this sites problems are something of a structural problem with the "catchment area" of Stack Exchange