Orphan Claim

What it is

An orphan claim is a live public claim with no assigned owner, usually because the person who wrote it changed roles or left the company. The statement is still published and still being read; what disappeared was anyone with a reason to revisit it.

Why it matters

Orphan claims accumulate quietly on old landing pages, sales decks and help articles, and they are the most common source of drift because there is no mechanism by which anyone would ever check them. Finding them is an inventory problem before it is an editing problem: you cannot assign owners to claims you have not enumerated, which is why registries start with a sweep rather than a policy.