ADR-049: A QUESTION is Answered by an Active CLAIM or THEORY, and a partly answered question is split into an Answered child and a narrowed Open parent

Context

The QUESTION scheme (ADR-032) has five statuses. Until 2026-10-21 two of them had never been used: no question was Answered and none Dissolved. Of 240 questions, 229 were Open.

The promotion audit (ADR-047) has been moving CLAIMs and THEORYs to Active, often after narrowing them. An audit of the questions on 2026-10-21 (curation entry of that date) found that 44 Open questions already listed an Active CLAIM or THEORY in answered_by. None of the 44 was answered as posed. The Active entries answered one half, one model class, or a sufficient condition where the question asked for a characterization. In 16 of them the answered part could be stated exactly.

Two things kept those answers out of view. The first is that luria.yaml defined Answered as “the record holds an Active claim that answers it”. It did not say whether an Active THEORY counts. Read literally, a question answered by the literature would need a CLAIM restating the reading before it could be marked Answered. The second is that no rule said what to do with a question that is only partly answered, so it stayed Open, and its answered part could be found only by reading its body.

Decision

An Active THEORY can answer a question. An Active THEORY is “the current account”, the best explanation the record holds. That is the standing an answer needs. Answered means the record holds Active CLAIMs, Active THEORYs, or both, that together answer the question as posed. A CLAIM is the record’s own assertion (ADR-032). It is not filed only to restate in the record’s voice what a reading already establishes. A CLAIM is still filed when the answer is the record’s own: a derivation, a combination of readings that no source makes, or a negative finding drawn across several readings.

Answered means answered in full scope.

• A sufficient condition does not answer a question that asks which things have a property.
• An answer for one model class does not answer a question posed for all of them.
• A negative answer is an answer: a counterexample to “must X?” answers it.
• The question’s own “what would count as an answer”, where it has one, is the test.

A partly answered question is split.

1. The child. The answered part is filed as a new QUESTION that refines the parent. It is worded to exactly what the Active entries settle, and it is marked Answered. Its body names the answering entries and says in what sense each one answers. The answering entries’ answers links move to the child.
2. The parent. The parent is reworded to the part that is still open, with a version bump and a history note naming the child, and it stays Open. Entries that bear on the open remainder keep their answers link to it.

A split is not a reframing. The parent’s remainder is the same question narrowed, and its other children still refine it, so the parent is not Superseded. Superseded remains for a question replaced as a whole by a better-framed one.

Answered is not permanent. If an answering entry is demoted, Rejected, or narrowed below what the answer needs, the question returns to Open with a history note. If the remaining answerers still answer part of it, it is split again.

Size. Splits follow the status review’s pass size, which since 2026-10-27 is ADR-057’s: what a reviewer can read in one sitting, with each split listed in the pull request. ADR-047’s limit of three, which this clause first followed, went with ADR-047. Each split is one status change, the child’s: rewording the parent changes no status. Repairs to answers and refines links change no status either, and can go in their own pull request. The audit that finds the candidates is recorded apart from the changes it proposes.

Alternatives considered

• Require an Active CLAIM, as the old blurb read. This was the first proposal. The owner rejected it. Every answer from the literature would need a CLAIM that restates a THEORY. Then the CLAIM scheme would hold assertions the record relies on others to justify, beside the ones it makes itself. That blurs the split between the record’s own argument and its readings, which ADR-032 exists to keep.
• Mark a partly answered question Answered. This overclaims. A reader who sees Answered would stop looking, and the open part would vanish from the open-questions view.
• Reframe the parent into two new questions, one answered and one open, and mark the parent Superseded. This mints a code that only renames the parent. It also moves the parent’s other children, its history and its inbound links onto a successor, for no gain over rewording the parent in place.
• Status quo: leave such questions Open and note the answered part in the body. That is what had happened. The answered parts could not be seen in any index, and Answered was never used.

Consequences

• The Answered blurb in luria.yaml says “an Active CLAIM or THEORY, or several together” and cites this decision.

• The audit of 2026-10-21 found these split candidates:

  • Answered on Active CLAIMs: QUESTION-022, 100, 121, 220, 221 and 222.
  • Answered on Active THEORYs, now eligible under this decision: QUESTION-010, 052, 055, 067, 093, 103, 114, 115, 120 and 217.

  QUESTION-103 and QUESTION-114 may still want a CLAIM. QUESTION-103’s link to signal detection is the record’s own, and QUESTION-114’s negative answer is drawn across several readings.

• Each split adds a question, so the record’s question count rises with no new inquiry behind it. The child’s refines link keeps the pair readable as one.

• An Answered question’s standing depends on its answerers. A promotion pull request that narrows or demotes an entry has to check the questions that entry answers.