This question was "put on hold" because it was "unclear" that what I am asking. I was asked to define what I mean by "natural".
Same happened with this question. I had to define the word "loyal".
Both of these questions are being asked on around, understood and have different answers. I cited the links where same questions were asked (some are science blogs, sites). How much definitions are needed on this site to make it a clear question? What kind of terms need to be defined?
As long as you have presented an exact quote of a notable claim, you don't need to define the terms in the claim. If the claim contains terms that appear ambiguous, so be it.
It is up to the answer to reasonably interpret the terms using context and expert opinion/practice, ideally in a sense that is generous to the claim.
We should not close questions simply because a few of us (or even all of us) don't know how a particular term would be operationally defined or empirically tested. Many lay-terms may have well-accepted analogues as field-specific terms-of-art and operational definitions that would be difficult to find without expertise in the field.
It is fine if a question goes unanswered for a long time.
If you are summarizing a notable claim without using an exact quote, then it may be you that is introducing ambiguity or misunderstanding, so in that case, it is important to be precise, and to clarify when commenters as for clarification, but your introduced precision shouldn't change the claim so that it no longer matches that which is believed by a bunch of people.
I think you are seeing a pattern where there isn't one.
In the recent question about babies and swimming, it wasn't closed for being unclear about definitions. As I just posted in a comment, before seeing this meta-question:
It was an unclear question because all of the references you gave denied that babies can really swim. None of them made the claim that you were skeptical about, so it wasn't clear where you were getting that idea.
I could have equally closed it as Off Topic, because it didn't contain a notable claim. That has now been remedied. The question is currently open.
There is a question in the comments about what it means to be a "natural" swimmer, and another one distinguishing between swimming and the diving reflex.
Why is this relevant? Well, I haven't answered the question, but I predict it is going to be a dull discussion of definitions - that babies cannot keep their heads above water, cannot move themselves through the water and cannot completely prevent themselves from drowning. They often make what appears to be paddling movements, they can hold their breathe/slow their heart which increases their chance of survival, and they probably have a high fat-muscle ratio which promotes floating. Whether that can be fairly called "swimming" isn't a question of empirical evidence. It is a question of what the various words mean. (To paraphrase Dijsktra's analogy: Deciding whether submarines can swim isn't terribly relevant.)
I base this almost entirely on the references provided in the question, which aren't very definitive, so I am keeping my mind open that someone will post an answer that doesn't match my expectations.
Meanwhile, the question about whether dogs are loyal was a train-wreck, and remains closed. It remains totally unclear what the question means. How would we empirically test for loyalty?
You did attempt to define loyal, but it didn't help the question. If you define a dog's loyalty by the fact it follows its owner, and you observe it follows its owner, then by your definition, the dog is loyal.
The link you eventually posted claiming it had the answer didn't seem to address the issue in the slightest.
Not much.
In general, if someone else makes a notable claim, such as, "You have to farble the greezer", then you can ask the question "Is it true that you have to farble the greezer? What's the evidence?" without defining/explaining what the claim means.
People who answer the question must explain the claim they're answering, or justify/explain how there's a relationship between their answer and the claim, if that isn't clear.
The policy of this site is that the questioner is not required to understand/explain the claim they're questioning.
In fact, to some extent you're forbidden to invent your own idiosyncratic definition/interpretation of the claim. If you did you might be required to show that that interpretation of the claim is "notable" i.e. that significantly many other people use the same interpretation/definition.
In the question about babies swimming, DVK asked you to explain "natural", however that's not the reason why Oddthinking closed the question. The reason why it was closed is because you're asking whether they can swim, whereas none of the claims you quoted actually claim that they can swim.
In the question about dogs, you were trying to invent/specify your own definition of loyalty i.e. "loyal to an owner as opposed to loyal to a source of food". If you'd just asked, "Is it true that dogs are man's best friend?" then maybe that would have been on-topic (because it's questioning a notable claim) and you wouldn't have had to define it. I'm not sure but that might still be unanswerable though, as "too broad" or "too subjective/opinion-based".
