What criteria do we need for questions regarding the law/regulations to be allowed?

Question

We have had multiple discussions on what constitutes legal advice here:

• Are employment law questions off-topic?
• Defining the on-topic / off-topic line on questions that could be answered by a lawyer
• What is asking for legal advice?
• What is "legal advice"?

Since the close vote changes in June, 2013, we have closed 27 different questions as 'asking for legal advice' that haven't been deleted yet. None of the discussions we've had seem to advocate blanket closing of anything that mentions a law or regulation, yet we seem to be doing that anyway.

My understanding of the previous discussions on what constitutes legal advice is as follows:

Asking What the Law Says is Okay

If a workplace expert (manager, HR, etc.) would be expected to know the information, then it is okay to ask. So if someone asks what the law says regarding, for instance, the Americans with Disabilities Act, I would hope that we would be able to point the person to a relevant resource.

Asking for Legal Advice Based on the Law Isn't

So if I say, "The law says A, B, C. I want to do X which goes against the spirit of B, but isn't explicitly prohibited under the law. Can I still be in trouble with the law for doing X?" then it is off-topic. I am not asking for what the law says (in order to allow me to make a decision on whether my action is okay or if I want to consult a lawyer to make sure), but rather for legal advice on the interpretation of a law.

From my perspective, the following types of questions should be perfectly reasonable under this policy (given that they are edited to be clear, etc.):

• Should my employer pay for my 2 weeks? Am i eligible for Unemployment
• Are there any UK laws about allergies in the workplace?
• https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/19614/being-asked-to-leave-a-permanent-contract-legal-rights
• Illegal interview/application questions in the UK?

Yet all the above questions were closed.

I would love questions like:

• What are the laws regarding collection of unemployment in Japan? (answer)
• What constitutes a disability under the ADA? (answer)

These questions are very handy, and there is a good possibility that we can provide a resource that is better than the ones available, or specific guidance on variations that aren't easily accessible on the web. That is how we can create value, but it also means we can't just auto-close questions which seem to be talking about the law.

Question

1. What criteria does a question need to stay open when discussing a law/regulation?
2. How do we communicate those criteria to users? (current advice here)

Answer 1

We need to make a distinction between questions about what the law is and questions about how the law should be applied to a particular situation. I think the former are valid questions here and the latter are trouble waiting to happen.

I'm a moderator on Mi Yodeya, where we have an analogous problem: people asking what they should do in a particular situation (which is really a question for their rabbis), versus asking what the halacha (Jewish law) on a subject is. We have the following custom close reason:

Questions asking for a practical ruling (p'sak halacha) are off-topic. For practical advice consult your rabbi. Try to broaden the question so it applies to a wider audience, such as by asking what sources are applicable to the situation. (More information.)

Note the "broaden" language here. It's fine for somebody to describe a situation (so long as it's not so localized that it will never be of broader interest), but the question needs to be "what does the law say" or "what are the relevant sources", not "what should I do". I understand that Christianity.SE has a similar policy with what they call pastoral-advice questions; you can ask what official doctrine is, but not what you should do.

When Mi Yodeya was setting its policy we got input from other sites where legal questions come up, but unfortunately I no longer remember the details. A look around the network should turn up other sites where this is an issue; The Workplace isn't alone here and we can learn from prior art.

Answer 2

Firstly, it's definitely key that questions be about a real, actual problem. It's key that we clarify that our goal isn't to become a law encyclopedia, even of laws that apply to the workplace. Thus, questions should contain plenty of detail about why the person is asking the question so that there's context, so there's something for future visitors to search for.

For instance, take this Freelancing SE question about hiring workers in other countries and add a bit more details about why this person is interested in hiring someone from another country, and you have a question that can be answered factually, with references from a law text, and that address a very specific problem.

A real experiment in allowing legal questions

On Freelancing SE, during the site's private beta, the community overwhelmingly felt legal questions were critical to the site's mission, and some people are actively trying to push for legal questions to be backed 100% with actual official government regulatory documentation. This Freelancing SE answer about whether a business can have two completely different services is an excellent example of how effective this approach can be. There's just something about that answer that instills trust. As a reader, I feel I either have a solid answer or at least know where to go to find an answer for my specific state or jurisdiction.

Supporting legal questions on Workplace SE won't be easy, and I would think this would require very strict guidelines as to what is and isn't an answer, but I do believe that under the right circumstances and with the right community tools and support, this could work.

We're not a beta site anymore

Conversely, we just graduated. Our community fought long and hard to figure out exactly what this site is about. We have a formula in place that clearly works, and adjusting the dials on the machine may have unintended consequences. Therefore, any decision to allow legal questions is one that shouldn't be taken lightly and one that ideally must involve overwhelming support from the community of users who would help moderate them, as well as the creation of a solid, well-thought out plan.

I'd say, for now, we should watch what the Freelancing SE community does and learn from their experiences. This is a new site with a similar topic as The Workplace SE, and it may be best to watch how events there unfold before attempting this here. Let them be the canary in the mine.

Answer 3

Whenever questions of law appear, we need to consider the impact of answers.

Would a reasonable questioner act on the advice of the respondents? And if so, could the questioner get herself/himself in legal difficulty doing so?

It worries me.

"Should my employer pay for my 2 weeks? Am i eligible for Unemployment" seems relatively harmless. At worst, the OP discovers that the advice given was flawed and is either disappointed at not receiving the expected benefit, or was advised incorrectly and never pursued a benefit that could have been gained.

Similarly "Are there any UK laws about allergies in the workplace?" seems harmless. The OP could be mislead into thinking that laws do or do not exist, but eventually will probably discover the truth either way.

Bad legal advice for "Being asked to leave a permanent contract? Legal rights?" could result in someone avoiding a case where they could have received contractual relief for improper dismissal. This may or may not have amounted to a lot of money.

Improper advice for "Illegal interview/application questions in the UK?" could result in a significant lawsuit.

If we start permitting workplace legal advice from people who aren't lawyers, should we also permit workplace medical advice from non-doctors? I know this is a slippery-slope argument, but it is worrisome.

If you look at other (non-stackexchange) sites, you'll see a ton of bad, and potentially dangerous, legal and medical advice being dispensed. It makes me cringe.

In addition, laws and regulations change all the time. What may be proper and legal today, might be completely illegal tomorrow. How permanent do we want our legal answers to be here? How can we convey "this is the law as I understand it today?"

Of course, laws and regulations are highly locale-specific. While locale-specific questions/answers tend to be regarded as off-topic here, questions about the law would seem almost inevitably to be even more local-specific. What is legal in Massachusetts, may well be illegal in Texas (this same-sex partner benefits), and clearly has an entirely different set of laws covering it that another country.

How does our "back it up" policy mesh with dispensing legal advice? Unless you are a lawyer (and sometimes even when you are), you may not have the requisite knowledge to back up an answer concerning the law.

The other thing that worries me is - how do we convey what is and what isn't on topic to the community? A statement like "Questions regarding legality are off-topic" is far easier to understand than "Some legal questions are off-topic, and some are permitted". I think this community struggles with the off- versus on-topic decision enough as it is. You only have to look at the number of [On Hold] questions on the front page to see how difficult it is for questioners.

Perhaps I just worry too much.