Are you to blame?

It would be very close to impossible to name and warn against every and all possible things that could go wrong with any build. I have to agree with some others here, there must be a line drawn in the sand saying, HEY, we warned you to go slow and take it carefully. If you hurt yourself, it is your responsibility, since you hurt yourself. All this blaming others for my own actions is so immature and so very much without any thought involved.
If a person can't take responsibility for their own actions, they shouldn't

DO

anything.
Period.

Most regulars have seen it all before, but with all the non-regulars making one off instructables they'll never go away. I say be responsible for what your own grubby paws do.

I was drawn to see this Instructable when I got my email showing the featured projects as I knew my brother in law would be the kind of dude to attempt to make a bike from bamboo. When I read the disclaimer I did not feel like it was something that was too flip or not taking more responsibility for what people decide to do with the information he provides in this tutorial. Also, the author is not the first person to create this kind of project, there are other ways to build a bamboo bike. Which brings me to the reason I stayed and read the discussion for this Instructable. Even though for myself, I would not be into doing this kind of project, I really got into the discussion among the members about the science of the design, how to calculate the amount of stress the bike could handle on certain pressure points, the use of adhesives and alternate materials to improve his project so it would not break in certain places, I got a little education there. That interested me a lot. There are tutorials about making wine and beer. Does that mean the authors of those tutorials would be responsible for someone who creates their own brew, drinks it all in one sitting and gets alcohol poisoning? No matter what kind of disclaimer you put, you always have someone who for whatever reason, doesn't want to be careful, doesn't take safety precautions, doesn't use common sense, and they end up on the 11 o clock news with a pole up their rectum or something ridiculous...I make wire jewelry, and I poke myself all the time with the ends of wires needles, tools, and I have a lot of little red pindots on my thumbs and forefingers from working on my projects. Am not going to sue the wire company for not telling me on the label that manipulating craft wire could cause punctures on human skin. I just had a look at my iron. It says on the bottom, "CAUTION: Do Not Immerse In Any Liquid." It doesn't say why. So if I do that, then I can sue the manufacturer because they should have put "..in Any Liquid because it can ELECTROCUTE YOU." I think for the most part the folks on Instructables have common sense to not do the most blatantly stupid things with found objects and end up hurting themselves. If I am going to build a bike out of paper cups, I should have the common sense to know there is a possibility it may not hold me up.

""For rock climbing, you shouldn't need to warn that falling off is dangerous"" actually...falling isn't dangerous at all...it's that quick stop at the bottom that does the damage a sense of self responsibility is something that's being bred out of our children these days....everyone has a cop out for anything they do... didn't do well in school? oh well i must have ADD, it's not my fault got in an accident in your car? oh well it must have been the manufacturer of the road surface, it's not my fault murdered your whole family? my dad beat me as a kid...it's not my fault lather rinse repeat from a legal standpoint i wonder how the nature of what's done here is actually handled...i mean no one is purchasing the instructions or being forced to follow them. does that remove culpability from the person posting the instructions? in any case shouldn't a simple "i'm not responsible for anything that goes wrong (or goes right) and causes harm" be enough here?...as far as strict CYA

In my opinion, all that is needed is a warning about dangers that are not obvious.

For rock climbing, you shouldn't need to warn that falling off is dangerous, but it would be sensible to warn about a particular kind of rock being brittle, or extra slippery when wet.

You shouldn't need to warn about soldering irons being hot, but if you are using it on a material not normally subjected to heat, and it creates particularly noxious fumes, that is a useful warning.

Basically, if it is unexpected, or counter-intuitive, warn about it.

This question is more of a moral question than a legal question. With that in mind, it should be noted that every person has a slightly different perspective on the moral imperative of posting DIY instructions. The DIY community, in general, is a pretty effective self-policed community. We know there are risks, seen and unseen. Most of us possess a fair judgment of our limitations. We ask questions when we have them. Of course, there are those here who would try anything that they see here, whether they have the skills to pull it off or not. There are also those who feel that if someone published it, it must be relatively safe to do. Clearly foolish propositions. Comments that question the safety of a given Instructable should be taken seriously. I believe it is not in the best interest of the community to ridicule a poster who raises a safety issue, whether you think it is appropriate or not.

It is my opinion, as a professional industrial designer with 25 years of experience, that the DIY community benefits from the greatest amount of input from the greatest amount and diversity of people as possible. That includes not only hazardous Instructables, but also posters who raise the red flag over them. I agree with Kiteman that it is appropriate and wise to post warnings about things that are not obviously hazardous to a layperson on your published Instructables. I believe that, unless you are manufacturing a product for sale, your liability and culpability ends at your disclaimer. But I also believe that the writer has a responsibility to use his/her own intuition and experience as a guide. For example, I am an intermediate level mushroom forager. I could certainly write an Instructable on foraging for wild edible mushrooms. However, the possibility of an error through misunderstanding, typo, or some small piece of incorrect information could be fatal. I would not want that on my conscience. There may be members who feel perfectly comfortable posting a Mushroom Hunting Guide. That's what makes the community work.

Worth noting that the site covers it's self pretty well in legal terms, which gives you a lot of cover. For example TOS 7g:
By using Instructables or any Service, you may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent, objectionable or unsafe. Each user must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with, the use of any Content, including any reliance on the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such Content.

L

I'm on Kiteman's side (and on PKM's in the original post) -- an author should reasonably expect (and be reasonably expected!) to provide warnings about non-obvious, non-common-sense, or hidden dangers. I try to implement this philosophy in my own work.

For example, look at my baby-crib mod. I have a whole Step discussing the fact that this modification is technical "unsafe," as it violates the CPSC's rules for rail heights on cribs. However, I don't bother to warn people that a power drill might put a hole through their hand if they're too stupid to use it properly.

The proliferation of lawsuit-driven, liability-fearing warning labels, or the enumeration of "possible" drug side effects with no indication of probabilities, leads to both irresponsible victimology ("it's not my fault, you didn't warn me!") and to a desensitization for real dangers.

From a legal perspective, you can never truly protect yourself with a disclaimer. We rely on users to use a little common sense. We hope they will not sue us if they stick their tongue to the electrode of a fully charged Leyden jar. But they could sue us, even if we publish a disclaimer not to do this. Whether they win a settlement or not would depend upon the temperament of the judge. This often happens in the automotive industry. For a publisher or manufacturer, the disclaimer acts as some bit of legal protection, but more like a tool to dissuade people from suing. If you knew there was a disclaimer, you are less likely to jump into the expensive process of litigation.

One of these days, I swear I will make an instructable involving dangerous things, and leave out all obvious disclaimers and safety precautions on purpose just to make a point about common sense.

What about the soda-can-tab chain-maille?

I'm quite happy with what I do myself, but in publishing this I thought about electricity and added some notes of caution. If you give people instruction that can be followed it's worth considering who might follow and what you aren't sharing.

You need to address hazards reasonably, if someone has a table-saw it's reasonable to assume that they know how to use it, or can otherwise lose fingers without following your instruction (unless it involves an unconventional use of the machine).

If you're hacking or otherwise perverting something that was safe (like electricals, home made pyrotechnics) it's advisable to point out where safety is compromised. If what you show is obviously hazardous (hot molten-metal) there's less to be said, but the two do cross over.

In conclusion, be sure that a 10 year old has enough information to be aware that there are hazards and roughly what they are (whether these are obvious or explicitly stated)

L