Talk:fact-free

RFD discussion: May–December 2022

 * Delete, blatant SOP. —Svārtava (t/u) • 06:36, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment. As used in practice, the meaning is not literally “devoid of facts”, but, rather, “marked by a lack of care for the factual truth”. Do we have a rule for the case in which the common meaning of a term is not literal but hyperbolic, like we have for sarcastic meaning inversions? --Lambiam 07:28, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * “The straightforward sarcastic use of irony, understatement and hyperbole does not usually qualify for inclusion. This means, for example, that big should not be defined as “(ironic) small”, “(understatement) gigantic” or “(hyperbole) moderately large”. Common rhetorical use can be explained in a usage note, a context tag (such as (usually sarcastic)) or as part of the literal definition. Terms which are seldom or never used literally (e.g. fat chance) are not covered by this rule, and can be included on their own merits.” (WT:CFI.) — Cheers, Jack Lee –talk– 11:00, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I think this term is rarely used literally, but merely denotes a (possibly intentional) disregard for getting one’s facts straight or basing one’s argument mostly on facts. For example, here the logic of Alito’s recently leaked draft of the SCOTUS majority opinion is called “fact-free”, but few will dispute the factuality of his point that Americans hold sharply conflicting views on abortion. And when Clinton’s lawyers write in a court filing that Trump’s lawsuit is “fact-free”, I don’t think they mean to imply that the assertion by team Trump contained therein that “Marc Elias, in his mission to obtain derogatory anti-Trump ‘opposition research,’ commissioned Fusion GPS, an investigative firm, and its co-founders, Peter Fritsch and Glenn Simpson, and directed them to dredge up evidence—actual or otherwise—of collusion between Trump and Russia” is not mostly based on facts. In contrast, the assertion that Jar Jar Binks is “an annoying and irritatingly cute and unfunny creature” is obviously not based on facts, but one wouldn’t label it with the attribute “fact-free”. This only applies when an argument is presented as if being fact-based. --Lambiam 13:55, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Ehh... you certainly could call a statement that contained only opinions and appeals to emotion (about Jar Jar, etc) "fact-free"; that people are less likely to do so with regard to Jar Jar seems to be due to extra-lexical factors — that one doesn't as often treat "is Jar Jar annoying?" as a discussion where it is important to evaluate the factual basis of assertions, compared to "is abortion OK?". It's probably also more common to say someone's stance on abortion (etc) is "poorly researched" or "fallacy-ridden" (etc) than to say someone's dislike of Jar Jar is, for the same or similar reasons (whether it's a topic area one should've researched, whether one's stance was researched, whether it's presented as if it were researched) but I don't think this makes "poorly researched" idiomatic. I'm leaning towards Delete per Jack. - -sche (discuss) 14:01, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * One could call a submarine a “cucumber”. The issue is not what people could do, but how they actually use terms. --Lambiam 06:52, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah, I was unclear: I'm not saying people "could" in the sense of "might theoretically", I'm saying that contrary to the suggestion that people wouldn't label an argument of that type "fact-free", people do have the ability to do that, and exercise it as often as necessary (it's just less often necessary to, like people less often call criticism of Jar Jar "poorly researched"). - -sche (discuss) 21:37, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Can you then point me to cases where people use fact-free in its literal sense of “devoid of facts”? If such literal use is sufficiently rare, as I expect, the term qualifies for the CFI exception (“Terms which are seldom or never used literally (e.g. fat chance) are not covered by this rule, and can be included on their own merits.”). --Lambiam 07:02, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Leaning keep; Lambiam's arguments are convincing. &mdash; Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 23:32, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. Rather idiomatic. ·~   dictátor · mundꟾ  22:20, 16 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep as idiomatic. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 06:24, 6 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Kept as redefined Flackofnubs (talk) 09:32, 23 December 2022 (UTC)