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Which is a sensible answer. People want a simple solution to a complex question. The idea of creating a hero for Marvel comics called Spider-Man indisputably began with Stan. The hero we know as Spider-Man, however, was indisputably forged to a large degree by Steve.

Stan clearly thought he created Spider-Man. I don't think you can make a proper argument that Steve Ditko wasn't co-creator though and I think the argument that Stan and Steve were co-creators of Spider-Man easily trumps all other arguments. You'd have to have an extremely superficial understanding of the subject to exclude Ditko.

People do love the idea of the singular genius though

 No one deserves more credit for Marvel than Stan, but Jack gets overlooked, Steve gets overlooked -- and even those of us who are very familiar with Marvel's history are all too ready to lay our wreath at the base of these three pillars, forgetting the contributions of Steranko and Buscema, Thomas and Romita and Wein, to name but a few.

Marvel is a tapestry from which the most important threads originated with Stan and Jack and Steve, but there were many weavers involved.

Not indisputably. Both Joe Simon and Jack Kirby say otherwise.

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Joe Simon had an idea to create a hero for Marvel Comics called Spider-Man? You seriously think that?

My wording was very specific.

Joe Simon may have had an idea for a spider-related super-hero for another comics company, but if you try and claim that the idea of creating a hero called Spider-Man at Marvel resided with anyone else but Stan Lee, well, good luck to you.

The "Spider-Man" name, however, wasn't really original. The Golden Age DC hero the Tarantula was actually referred to as "Spider Man" (no hyphen) a few times in his first appearances.

The Silver Spider pencils that I've seen here and there aren't Kirby though, they are apparently C.C. Beck.   What Kirby supposedly submitted to Stan as "Spiderman" was five pages of something new, yet vaguely similar to both the Silver Spider and The Fly.  Ditko's recollections describe a mysterious neighbor who was an 'inventor' rather than the Silver Spider's magic genie benefactor.   Unfortunately these critical Kirby pages were either discarded or went walkabout but Simon retained the Silver Spider pages.   About twenty years ago I asked Mark Evanier where he thought Kirby's Spider-man story might be and he seemed to fall on the side of it being destroyed.   Pretty much the only element from the Kirby version to make it into the finished Ditko product was the "Spiderman" name, which was later revised to the hyphenated version (you can still see this paste-over on the Smithsonian scans).   Unless you count the living with the uncle and aunt thing but that's certainly not unique.  Stan had used that setup before -- and even used it earlier in 1962 with the names "Ben" and "May" in STRANGE TALES 97.

But I digress... this is a subject better suited for it's own thread separate from our condolences and tributes to Stan.

However, I do agree with Rob's statement that this is not the time nor the place for this.