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Currently there is not really any guidance on here on what makes a claim notable. There's obviously "it was said by Trump/Biden/Johnson/Cook/Rihanna/insert A or B-list celebrity here" and "it was the subject of a news article by a major news source", but beyond that there is a 3rd category of claims: claims that are widely shared on social media by non-celebrities, but we don't really have any guidance, whether strict limits or vague tresholds, that makes a claim worthy of being seen as notable.

Could we look into establishing some sort of basic guideline for minimum notability? Even if it's something as basic as "it needs to be shared by around X0,000 people or more" or "the user sharing it needs around X00,000 followers or more", having something like that can make it significantly easier for users and moderators to decide if a claim is notable enough, and for sticklers to rules like me to figure out if a claim is notable enough to share.

I've read FAQ: Must all questions be notable? and it doesn't go any further beyond "it needs a reference" and "there need to be at least some people who believe it". I've read How notable does a claim have to be for questions about it to be considered on-topic?, and it also doesn't go into any specific details. So please don't close this question as a duplicate of either of the above, because I read them and they DO NOT answer my question at all.

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This has been proposed before, and has not received community support.

Also: Should there be stronger notability criteria for non-public figures?

I am convinced I have written an answer against the idea on another question too, but I haven't found it.


There are several reasons for having a reference to the claim. The one related to how notable it is is to establish notability to persuade people that this is a question that is worth our effort - not just to answer, but to read, to edit, to keep clear of spam, etc.

Different people are going to have different thresholds, and it is going to also depend on other factors - how dangerous the idea is (if false), how interesting the idea is, etc., so putting one hard-and-fast numerical rule doesn't seem valuable to me.

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