Yes, officially this is a documentation bug. From [the *Absent Fields* doc][1]: > Fields that are not always guaranteed to be set... are indicated in the per-type documentation. **Any discrepency(sic) between observed behavior and the documentation should be reported on Stack Apps.** (Emphasis added and note that "discrepancy" is mispellerized. ;) ) ---------- `notice` obviously should have the `may be absent` flag. I eyeballed all of the other properties of [type question][2], as well as [type answer][3] and [type user][4]. I didn't spot any other obvious discrepancies with the `may be absent` flag. [1]: https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/absent-fields [2]: https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/types/question [3]: https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/types/answer [4]: https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/types/user