Questions tagged [asking-questions]
The asking-questions tag has no usage guidance.
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Do the requirements of an old claim change if the claim relates specifically to current events in that time period and not timeless scientific fact?
I know that generally, old claims need to still be notable today to be allowable here. This makes a whole lot of sense in that it isn't worth debunking obsolete scientific theories that haven't been ...
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To what extent is a notable claim of "we don't know" in scope?
I follow some YouTube channels on classic video gaming (retrogaming). Several of these channels have published videos on a certain product that was hyped in the marketplace in the early 1990's as an ...
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Is a claim that a public figure is transgender an acceptable claim?
I have recently encountered a claim that a certain well-known public figure/celebrity that has publicly denied being transgender is, in fact, transgender. The claim appears plausible and mentions some ...
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What kind of sources are acceptable to demonstrate the "existence" of a claim made on a History Chanel type program?
If I want to request input on a claim made on a television program for entertainment purposes rather than from a scientific source. For example, Ancient Aliens, Curse of Oak Island, etc., what kind of ...
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Deriving a well elaborated question on a delicate and difficult historical/actual topic
I've come across a thing/claim which is quite unpleasant but it comes from a blogger I have used to trust for a long time, he has also a considerable audience, and I've also double checked the ...
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Is a notable discussion/debunking of a claim enough notability to ask a question about the claim itself?
If a question only cites a notable news report, a debunking, or some other discussion about a claim (rather than someone making the claim), is that enough to satisfy our notability requirement and ask ...
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Should questions asking to verify a disproportionate statistic be allowed without meeting certain criteria?
My question is motivated by questions such as:
Are black people disproportionately shot more than other people in America?
Are African Americans victims of a disproportionate number of police ...
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Are very old claims on-topic?
The vast majority of questions on this site cover recent claims, but I have not been able to find anything in the Help Center or Meta saying that a claim becomes off-topic after a certain amount of ...
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Why are my questions related to spiritual experiences downvoted?
Here some of my questions: one, two, three, four. Why are these questions so downvoted despite being on-topic? What insights should I gain from this for potential future questions I may want to ask?
user56618
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Are questions about supposedly haunted places or objects on-topic?
There are a fair number of claims about supposedly haunted places or items, and some of these claims have been documented in articles and documentaries with somewhat specific claims (e.g. here) of ...
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May I question the past findings of a tribunal or investigative body?
One of our standard close reasons is
Questions about unresolved current events and issues currently under investigation by a court of law, government, or other similar investigative body are off-...
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Where should quote-hunting questions go?
Skeptics.SE regularly receives on-topic questions of the form "Did Person X say Quote Y?"
The answers fall into a few categories:
Yes, they said it at Event Z.
No, Person A said it, at Event Z.
...
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Help writing good, on-topic questions
I have problems with writing good, on-topic questions and would like to know what went wrong with some of my questions and how to improve them. If something is clearly obvious to you, it might not ...
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Is it acceptable to ask a question about general methodology?
For example, this answer makes the following statement:
What is true is that [vaccine effectiveness] in people aged 65 or older is 9%, with a 95% confidence interval that spans from -84% to 55%. ...
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Is answering with fundamentally a recitation a third-party analysis of a claim acceptable?
Background and motivation
So, I saw this question on a edited video of an interaction between journalist Jim Acosta and a White House intern:
Was the video Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted out against ...
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Are answers based on personal (but documented) experience acceptable on skeptics?
I would like to know if I could contribute by either asking questions or supplying answers that are based on my personal but documented experience.
Obviously, I cannot prove anything scientifically, ...
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May I post a series of questions to fact-check a book by a supposed quack?
I am now holding the original, Polish edition of a book called "The Hidden Therapies - What your doctor won't tell you" authored by Jerzy Zięba, who is widely considered to be a quack by medical ...
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Should possible/partial answers be edited out of a question?
This question quotes a critique in the question text.
It is my understanding* that this should be edited out.
Is that correct? I can't find this on meta yet.
* First comment under my question here
user22865
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Sorry, but we don't care about your political opinions
This is a reminder of an issue that has come up before - around the last US election: Are political comments a problem?
If your comment is little more than tribal markings to indicate the US ...
OddthinkingMod
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How are we supposed to use tags associated with a person?
The description for the "donald-trump" tag is:
for questions where the claim is about Donald Trump. Do not use this tag for questions about stuff Trump claims.
When I posted the question Did a ...
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A "boiling" question
I just stumbled over the thing again today, so I did some search and came to nothing conclusive, thus I thought about asking here on Skeptics. But, first, I'd like to know if it is a question that can ...
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Why was the recent question about Democrats inciting riots put on-hold WITH comments disabled?
So this question:
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/35561/21907
...was asked over in Politics SE and migrated here, but the migration was rejected, and it was put on-hold, but the comments were ...
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What happened to my Ken Bone question?
I asked a question about Ken Bone and his newly acquired Internet fame, and whether Anderson Cooper, the moderator of the second presidential debate, intentionally selected Bone to ask the last ...
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Do history questions belong on skeptics?
Are questions tagged history more appropriate for History.SE?
Yes, there are a lot of questions tagged as history on Skeptics.SE. Especially when it concerns historical matters involving religion, it'...
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Request support with this question: Do US vaccines increase the risk of cancer?
I asked this question:
Do US vaccines increase the risk of cancer?
It was put on hold by Oddthinking with a request that I focus on one claim at a time. That's a clear and reasonable request, so ...
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Are "what is this?" questions on topic?
What is the source for the supposed "sound of hell"?
This question asks, and gets an answer for, the question:
what is the origin of this sound?
Is this type of question on topic? If so,...
user16797
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FAQ: Should I ask if something is "authentic"?
There are many questions (as of now) using the words "authentic" to ask a question, however I was told that my question is unclear because of it.
What is the correct usage of the word "authentic"?
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Asking questions about things everyone has heard but there are no studies for
So my first question was put on-hold because it didn't fit site guidelines about there needing to be a published study making the claim I'm asking about.
The mod is right--there aren't a lot of ...
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To what extent can OPs discredit sources in advance?
Current policy is that the reference/evidence given in an answer should be 'better' than the reference/evidence being questioned.
To what extent should an OP be allowed to discredit (in their ...
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Should I ask a question if I think it may not be answerable?
I recently asked this question about 9/11, but I almost considered not asking it because one of the sources of the claim (Snopes) said that the claim was essentially unanswerable.
As it is, someone ...
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Should we really change statement into a question?
Skeptics Stack Exchange is filled with questions of the form
Is X true?
For example, "Does Global Warming happen?"
Basically we have a statement. The questioner wants to ask whether the statement ...
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Why do you put a question on hold after OP shows an effort to improve it?
I asked a question 12 hours ago.
Do more "animal sacrifices, desecrations of cemeteries" happen at Halloween?
When I checked it back there was 2 close-votes and explanations about why it ...
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Why are only questions allowed that are related to a specific, notable claim? [duplicate]
I now know what a notable claim is, but why are we only allowed to ask, if the question is directly related to a specific, notable claim?
Let's say you live in a very small town and there's a new ...
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Should suicide be a taboo topic?
To date, we don't have any taboo topics - subjects that may not be freely raised and discussed.
(Sure, we have rules about how the questions are asked and answered, we expect questions to be asked ...
OddthinkingMod
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Handling news questions about current events
We keep on getting asked questions on ISIS. I have no problem with the subject, but most of these questions are about current news, have little-to-no evidence and are all around receiving weak or ...
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Should questions about "motivation" of organizations, rather than individuals, be considered OT?
I've just had my question Was Aeroflot SU2074 intended target in MH17 shooting? closed with reason "This question is about motivations, as such, it's off topic.".
This of course refers to Politics, ...
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Should "actually" and "really" be blacklisted in titles?
See also "Is there *really* a reason why so many questions *really* need to include the word 'really'?" for the reasons why using these two adverbs is not good for this site.
I periodically ...
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Why do we get so many wildly off topic posts?
I'm posting from mobile now so I won't link to specifics (most of them are deleted anyway), but I notice a large number of questions that are completely unrelated to skepticism or notable claims. ...
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Why was my question edited many times removing text that I put on purpose?
I asked a question on Skeptics which was edited by two moderators to remove content that I added on purpose for several reasons. Let me first break down my reasons and explain why I did what I did.
I ...
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What if I don't have an online or easily accessible reference?
I have a question about something I'm skeptical about, and being a SE user, I naturally immediately checked the Help Center and FAQ. I found this FAQ post, and I'd like a bit of clarification for my ...
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Are questions about repeatable experiments on-topic?
Are questions about the existence of repeatable, scientific experiments to validate a hypothesis on topic?
For example, there are two questions asking for experimental evidence for evolution, one of ...
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What did I miss when asking this question? Is it actually inappropriate to ask "Why?"
The question is here: Did the US ban the Volkswagen XL1 for being too fuel efficient?
More than one person has commented on it saying that asking about motivation is off topic. That's fine, my actual ...
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Reasons for Conspiracy Theories
A lot of the questions on Skeptics revolve around the legitimacy of conspiracy theories or other theories. Is it considered off-topic to ask for the origins of these theories as separate questions? If ...
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Question closed because opinion based. How can I reword this question?
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19842/are-there-any-official-studies-to-support-cunninghams-law
I have since reworded my question to make it have a focus on asking for studies and/or ...
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Are claims from conspiracy websites off-topic?
I had a comment on one of my questions that started like this:
in fact it's a conspiracy theory website. The mere fact that something is mentioned as "fact" there almost certainly means it's not.
...
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Does a notable claim in a question have to be definite?
I've asked a few questions that got arguments that that the notable claim is non-definite. Does a claim which says maybe or probably X belong on this site?
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Can the About page be improved?
New user comments say, "this site's on/off-topic definition is kind of confusing compared to other SE sites", and, "I took the tour".
The "tour" must be a reference to the About page (because the ...
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Should we routinely link to PubMed for biology questions?
Many discussions are instigated by peer-reviewed academic publications, which are subsequently covered by popular media (for example, here). In this situation, it seems obvious to me the question ...
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Must every questioned 'notable claim' include a referenced citation with a quote?
FAQ: Welcome to New Users links to How should we enforce notability? in which the accepted answer includes the following:
It is not required to have an explicit cite for a claim in questions, ...
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Topic of the week: Discontinued
As proposed by Sklivvz in this question we are going to be running a topic of the week.
The main aim of this is three-fold
To focus the community on specific topics to increase the number of ...