Guardrails over-refuse legitimate questions
Category: Bugs Priority: P2 Severity: major Area: ai-answers Reports: 2 Status: Open
Summary: Two users hit overly aggressive refusal behavior in Qaf's answers. Khodr (on iPhone) gets "sorry I can't help with that" repeatedly across his questions; after he shared a chat link on request, Abdellatif confirmed he could pinpoint the bug. Samim reports that any question containing the word "rape" is declined outright, which blocks legitimate fiqh/Islamic questions on the topic; Abdellatif attributed this to guardrails added in response to a wave of bad actors and said they would be refined "in a few weeks". Together these show the current guardrails are keyword/over-trigger based and are refusing benign, on-mission queries — a core product-quality issue for an Islamic Q&A app whose users ask about sensitive real-life topics.
What users say
Khodr Merhi khodrmerhi@hotmail.com — 2026-08-07, English, 19fda54b01fb1cb1 — Abdellatif replied: yes
The app keeps refusing his questions with "sorry i can't help with that" (sent from his iPhone). When asked, he shared a chat link demonstrating the refusal, and Abdellatif replied: "Thank you, I can point the bug now. Will fix it insha'Allah."
hi team
app keeps saying sorry i can’t help with that?
thanks khodr
Samim Parvez samimparvez998@gmail.com — 2026-08-09, English, 19fe2dc2c5519014 — Abdellatif replied: yes
Any question containing the word "rape" is declined entirely, blocking legitimate questions on the topic (subject: Qaf not answering Queries With "Rape" keyword). Abdellatif explained guardrails were added due to bad actors and will be refined.
Whenever I ask qn that has word "rape" in it, it declines answering anything. Pls fix it.
Details / repro
- Reproducible case (Samim): include the word "rape" anywhere in a question → Qaf declines to answer at all. Looks like a keyword-level block rather than intent classification.
- Concrete refusal example (Khodr): shared chat link
https://qaf.ai/s/1dd18aee-316e-47dd-b109-598136e32d40(plus a screenshot of the chat) — Abdellatif confirmed on 2026-08-13 that this let him pinpoint the bug. - Refusal string shown to users: "sorry I can't help with that".
- Khodr's reports come from an iPhone ("Sent from my iPhone"); Samim's device is not stated.
- Context from Abdellatif's reply (2026-08-10): "we had to add guardrails due to a wave of bad actors. We'll refine the guardrails more in a few weeks insha'Allah" — so the fix is planned refinement of guardrail triggers to distinguish abuse from legitimate fiqh questions about sensitive topics.
Threads
19fda54b01fb1cb1— Khodr Merhi: app repeatedly refuses with "sorry i can't help with that" (shared chat link provided)19fe2dc2c5519014— Samim Parvez: any question containing the word "rape" is declined outright