46
votes
Should off-the-cuff claims by Donald Trump be considered notable without evidence that people actually believe them?
It is not reasonable to start with the assumption that statements by the 'leader of the free world' are not notable. Every nontrivial thing said by a person with that much power and influence is '...
- 57.7k
14
votes
Accepted
How to prove notability when addressing a claim very common within an internet subculture that doesn't have a clear notable person making the claim?
There are several reasons for the requirement for notability.
We don't want to waste our time on claims invented by a couple of drunk guys at a bar. "My buddy reckons a tiger could beat a ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
10
votes
Are statements by artificial intelligence constructs notable?
There are several reasons for asking for a claim to be notable.
One of them is to ensure that we aren't wasting our efforts debunking the unhinged theories brought up by a random drunk in a bar. We ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
8
votes
Can a certain numbers of "likes" or "shares" establish a notable claim (or: Are memes notable)?
There are several concepts that seem to be confused here.
A large number of social media likes/shares are neither necessary nor sufficient to show a question is on-topic here.
However, they can be ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
8
votes
Accepted
Should hype-train-riding pre-print articles be considered notable?
I think this question is shining a bright light in the wrong place.
It discusses the importance of peer-review, the changing way that publications are peer-reviewed, and the way that claims can be ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
8
votes
Claims involving personal information about notable people - Part2 (7 years later)
This appears to be a duplicate of your previous question. What has changed?
You got what you wanted. Your question was reopened by a mod. It was left unanswered. Then after about 5 weeks, a bot ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
6
votes
Accepted
How should we deal with claims that only appear in article headlines?
A single instance of a claim is not quite notable: why would a lot of people believe it, and yet stubbornly avoid to repeat the claim elsewhere on the internet? Repetition and virality of claims is of ...
- 78.8k
6
votes
How to prove notability when addressing a claim very common within an internet subculture that doesn't have a clear notable person making the claim?
Searching finds this article which claims:
"natural insemination" is believed to be more than three times more effective than artificial insemination.
The same claim on the Daily Mail appears ...
- 10.2k
5
votes
Accepted
Does a notable claim remain notable if notable sources remove the claim?
I see two parts to balance.
The first is if the retraction means there is no evidence that the claim is widely believed, we should consider it no longer notable.
To give some extreme examples, I ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
5
votes
What kind of sources are acceptable to demonstrate the "existence" of a claim made on a History Chanel type program?
We ask for references to the claim in questions for a number of reasons:
So we can see that it is a widely heard claim. We don't want to waste our time reading/answering/editing/voting on spurious ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
5
votes
Is the existence of a regulation an implied claim that it is effective?
No, but it can lead to explicit claims.
If a regulation exists, it has been enacted at some point. During that process, someone will likely have made a claim as to what it will achieve. This claim ...
- 101
5
votes
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?
For these types of meta-questions, I generally recommend we go back to the goals of our notability requirements, so we are enforcing rules for a purpose and know when to bend them, and not just ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
4
votes
Should off-the-cuff claims by Donald Trump be considered notable without evidence that people actually believe them?
I want to add a few things to @DJClayworth's answer.
We need to remember that there are people on this world who really beleave in a world wide conspiracy by alien Jewish lizard people that control ...
- 33.3k
4
votes
Can notability be scientifically quantified?
I don't think notability is actually that vague. We have an FAQ article to define it. If some part of this is unclear, let's fix it.
There is no strict cut-off for notability. There have been several ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
4
votes
Accepted
Has there ever been a notable claim that justifies a question that starts with "Has there ever been"?
I found the question confusing.
If someone claims:
There has never been an instance of X!
You would test the claim by asking
Has there every been an instance of X?
If someone claims:
There have ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
3
votes
Do we need a "widely believed" filter for claims made by celebrities?
Addressing the claim that no-one would actually believe what Trump says in this example, it's not clear to non-US people that it isn't true. Some places are mostly cashless now (parts of Europe, parts ...
- 3,111
3
votes
Has there ever been a notable claim that justifies a question that starts with "Has there ever been"?
Generally, if you can provide a source to show notability for the specific 'There has never been' / 'Has there ever been' claim, I'd say it is on topic (and we do have a couple of well received has ...
- 52k
3
votes
Can survey results be notable claims?
Let's go back to first principles.
We want claims to be notable so we know the large effort of producing a quality answer (and editing the question into shape) is worthwhile - that it affects a ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
3
votes
Can a certain numbers of "likes" or "shares" establish a notable claim (or: Are memes notable)?
Likes and shares would be a good measure of notability if we had any reason to think sharing something meant believing something.
The problem with many of these Facebook claims/memes is that most of ...
- 11.6k
3
votes
If it's a daft idea is the author no longer notable?
The question concerns a claim by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who is unquestionably a notable source as a late leader of the Lubavitcher movement of Hasidic Jews. His writings are considered ...
- 3,953
3
votes
Are statements by artificial intelligence constructs notable?
The fact that ChatGPT produced something as output does not demonstrate that the claim is notable. The claim might be notable, or it might not be. To demonstrate that a claim is notable, you must ...
- 107
2
votes
Victims of crime
If the claim involves victim blaming (eg "this assault victim was a slut who had sex with six other men the previous night"), then I'd look at the question very closely before deciding whether we want ...
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2
votes
When is a single person's claim notable?
If we're going to assume that what they say is noteworthy anyway (may not always be the case, see the discussion Oddthinking linked), then I would say that otherwise the determining factor is how ...
- 1,721
2
votes
Is indirect notability important?
I think we may be overthinking it here. If you want to move the credentials from the title into the body, that seems quite reasonable to me. Go ahead.
The edit appears to have been made by someone ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
2
votes
Is the question "Is Gina Haspel wanted in Europe?" sufficiently improved to re-open?
This is a little after the fact as the person you mentioned had since deleted the tweet and rescinded the claim, but in general when you ask a question on the site, you should link to the notable ...
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2
votes
Wash away the nutrients - is not a notable claim!
As commented: our rules were refined as we progressed. In particular you will find many questions from 2011 which are a bit different from today's expectations.
Also: explicit proof notability for ...
- 78.8k
2
votes
How to deal with re-surfaced old questions that don't meet today's standards?
There is a method of dealing with some of these types of question used by other SE sites such as English Language & Usage.
Such questions—if of any interest—are locked with the following message
&...
- 138
2
votes
What makes a social media post notable enough to be the topic of a question?
This has been proposed before, and has not received community support.
How about a firm minimum threshold for notability?
Also: Should there be stronger notability criteria for non-public figures?
I ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
2
votes
How to deal with re-surfaced old questions that don't meet today's standards?
This same question came up on puzzling.se a while back, and my answer there is site-agnostic, so I'll just reproduce it here.
Guidance from meta.se says close them.
I refer you to this question:
I ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible