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Subreddit rules

/r/AskHistorians aims to provide serious, academic-level answers to questions about history. We have written these rules to support this aim and maintain the high standard of discussion this subreddit has become known for.

Please note that /r/AskHistorians is actively moderated. Moderators regularly take action to enforce these rules.

Civility

All users are expected to behave with courtesy and politeness at all times. We will not tolerate racism, sexism, or any other forms of bigotry. This includes Holocaust denialism. Nor will we accept personal insults of any kind.

For further discussion of this rule, please consult this Rules Roundtable.

Scope

Submissions to /r/AskHistorians must be either:

  • A question about the human past
  • A meta post about the state of the subreddit. Anyone may start a meta post, but please check with the moderators if you aren't sure you're using the label correctly. Short questions (e.g. clarification of moderation policy) that don't require discussion are better sent to the mods directly.
  • An AMA ("Ask Me Anything") with a historical expert or panel of experts. These should be arranged with the moderators beforehand – please message us if you're interested.

The moderators also post weekly feature posts on a variety of themes.

No current events

To discourage off-topic discussions of current events, questions, answers and all other comments must be confined to events that happened 20 years ago or more, inclusively (e.g. 1997 and older). Further explanation on this topic can be found in Rules Roundtable.

If your question was removed for current events, a non-exhaustive list of subs you may wish to consider include /r/Ask_Politics, /r/NeutralPolitics, /r/GeoPolitics, /r/IRStudies, or /r/CredibleDefense.

Questions

People asking questions should make every effort to ensure that their questions are clear, specific, and novel.

Questions should be about an event or person or culture in history. They can be direct questions such as "What events led up to the War of 1812?", or they can be indirect questions such as "How historically accurate is Assassin’s Creed?". Please put your question in the post title; if you put something like "A question for you all (details inside)", you may not attract the interest of the historians you want. Make sure your main question gives a clear idea what you're asking about. You can then expand on the question using the text box. For more information on the best way to format a question, check out our handy guide!

Questions may also be about historical method (e.g. “How should we deal with the biases in primary sources?”) or the “world of history” more generally (e.g. “What are the major collections, archives and museums in your field of research?”).

Please note that there is no such thing as a stupid question. As long as it falls within the guidelines here, feel free to ask it, even if you think it's obvious. And, if you see a question which looks stupid or obvious, remember that everyone comes to learning at their own time; we're not all born experts.

Posts that ask for reading recommendations are allowed. You may also wish to check the book list.

Check your ego at the door; a large part of asking questions is accepting the possibility of being told things you didn't know.

Some good questions:

  • "When did the modern concept of borders and customs start?"
  • "What were the consequences for the British in choosing to hold on to Northern Ireland after World War I?"
  • "Roman historians -- how do you approach and interpret ancient sources regarding Catiline?"
  • "What sort of training regimes did Greek or Roman warriors follow?"

Some bad questions:

  • "What were the most disputed borders in history?"
  • "Was it a good idea for the British to hold on to Northern Ireland after World War I?"
  • "Tell me about Catiline."
  • "How buff looking were warriors from ancient Greece or Rome?"

Is this the right place for your question?

  • While we welcome questions about mysterious objects you may have found, you should also try asking about them in r/WhatIsThisThing. They have a much better track record!
  • Questions about current events and politics may be more appropriate for r/AskSocialScience. Their political scientists, lawyers, economists, sociologists, and more, would be glad to receive your question.
  • While there is a great deal of overlap, questions about early human history (beyond the written record), or proto-human history may be better suited to /r/AskAnthropology, and users should consider X-posting such questions there.

Homework

Our users aren't here to do your homework for you, but they might be willing to help. Remember: AskHistorians helps those who help themselves. Don't just give us your essay/assignment topic and ask us for ideas. Do some research of your own, then come to us with questions about what you've learned. For further discussion and explication of the rules on homework questions, check out this Roundtable Discussion.

You can also consider asking the helpful people at r/HomeworkHelp.

History may not repeat itself, but questions about history sure do! We maintain a list of frequently asked questions and the most useful answers to them on the popular questions wiki page. Please check this before you post your question: you may find the answer you want without having to wait. However, you are still welcome to ask your question if it has been asked before: you may get new answers from different people.

If you spot a question that gets asked often but isn't in the popular questions, please do message the moderators so we can add it to the list.

You can find more information about the Popular Questions in this [META] thread.

NSFW content

If your question contains (or is likely to contain) adult topics or language, please try to keep title as SFW ("safe for work") as possible and make use of reddit's NSFW tag. You can tag a question as NSFW after you post it by browsing to your post and clicking the "nsfw" link below the title. Questions with NSFW titles will be deleted and we will ask you to repost it with a different title.

This is to help anyone browsing the subreddit for whom NSFW text may be a problem, and to allow people to know that a question contains NSFW content before they view it. Only the title of the thread is relevant; the body of the question and comments in reply to it are free to contain NSFW content.

No "poll"-type questions

"Poll"-type questions aren't appropriate here: "Who was the most influential person in history?" or "Who was the worst general in your period?" or "Who are your Top 10 favourite people in history?" If your question includes the words "most" or "least", or "best" or "worst" (or can be reworded to include these words), it's probably a "poll"-type question. These questions do not lend themselves to answers with a firm foundation in sources and research, and the resulting threads usually turn into monsters with enormous speculation and little focussed discussion - and, as such, are banned here.

For further discussion and explication of the rules on "poll"-type questions, check out this Roundtable Discussion.

No "Example Seeking" Questions

One of our key principles regarding questions is that they should be as precise as possible. We do not want threads that will attract only bad answers or are so generalized that they cannot be answered to the standards we ask for here. We therefore remove questions that are seeking examples rather than informed answers.

Our guiding principle is that if a thread can be summarized as "tell me random stuff about X" then it falls into this category. Questions likely to be removed are those asking about all history and all places at once or an extraordinary range. If a question isn't reasonably limited to a specific time and/or place, it likely will be removed. If your question includes the phrase "In your area of expertise", "examples of [X] throughout history", or "What are some facts about [X]", strongly reconsider posting it, or else spend some time to narrow the scope of what you are asking. Your question may be a good one, but given the limits of Reddit and our ability to moderate it, we cannot allow this category of questioning because of the stress it adds to the mod-team.

In the case of a question looking for trivia or an extremely general topic, you might consider asking it our weekly META threads; the Friday-Free-for-All thread in particular is well suited to many of these questions, as is the Tuesday Trivia thread, for which we are always open to topic suggestions. Many general questions have been well explored in the past, and you might find lots of interesting information in the archives of both Tuesday Trivia and Friday Free-for-All threads.

For more information, please consult this META thread.

No "Soapboxing" or Loaded Questions.

This subreddit is called AskHistorians, not LectureHistorians or DebateHistorians. While we appreciate your enthusiasm for the history of issues that play a role in your life, we are here to answer your questions about issues, not provide a sounding board for your theories or a podium for your lectures. All questions must allow a back-and-forth dialogue based on the desire to gain further information, and not be predicated on a false and loaded premise in order to push an agenda.

Example:

  • Good Question: "People say that Nixon is the worst President of all time. Why is this so?"
  • Bad Question: "Nixon was the worst President of all time. Why isn't Obama considered the worst?"

The bad question is a fishing expedition to try to start a debate about Obama's presidency. Most of these questions will break our 20-year rule, or try to set up a debate about an issue using a long wall of text in the main post.

Additionally when posting, we prefer that any posts that you make are well-sourced and directly address the asker's question. Do not take the opportunity to make claims that are politically or religiously motivated. All comments are expected to be sourced, answer the asker's question, and relevant.

For further discussion and explication of the rules on sopaboxing and loaded questions, check out this Roundtable Discussion.

No "What If" Questions

Questions should be about what did happen, not what could have happened. If your question calls for the crafting of a counterfactual scenario to answer it, you should either look to rework it to remove that element, or else send it over to r/HistoryWhatIf.

For further discussion and explication of the rule on "What-If" Questions, please consult this Rules Roundtable.

Privacy

Certain questions can lead to privacy concerns, and with this in mind, there are specific inquiries that we prohibit where, in our estimation, possible privacy concerns override the historical value of the question. As such, we do not allow questions which pose possible privacy issues for living, or recently deceased, persons who are not in the public eye. The cut-off for "recent" is 100 years, but even if a question does not meet the exact criteria above, we may remove at moderator discretion if we believe there nevertheless remains certain privacy concerns.

In the case of questions seeking military records, as well as seeking to identify service information from uniforms or photographs, try referring to our guide on Military Records and Identification. This thread provides more information and guidance on the rule. Additionally, /r/Genealogy provides an excellent resource on this site for researching family history.

Limitations on Questions Concerning Historical Artifacts and Items

The goal of /r/AskHistorians is to provide an educational forum for people who have questions for experts. Often, those questions include inquiries about items or artifacts which have come into their possession. It is our policy to disallow posts asking for further information on artifacts where there is a likelihood that the acquisition or possession of the item might be illegal, unethical, and/or run contrary to sound, historical practices. This includes, but is not limited to, items possibly taken from archaeological sites, or requests for appraisal in preparation for sale. It should not be taken as a ban on questions about any items, such as family heirlooms, or common collectibles such as books, stamps, or firearms.

If at first, you don't succeed...

... ask again. You are allowed to ask your question again if a reasonable time has passed without receiving a useful answer. We recommend waiting at least 24 hours, to give everyone around the world a full day to see your question. On the other hand, please don't ask the same question every day. Use some judgement.

Answers

Answers in this subreddit are expected to be of a level that historians would provide: comprehensive and informative. As such, all answers will be assessed against the standards of Historiography and Historical Method. You should cite or quote sources where possible. A good answer will go further than a simple short sentence. As described here, "good answers aren't good just because they are right – they are good because they explain. In your answers, you should seek not just to be right, but to explain."

Sources

Sources are highly encouraged in all answers given in r/AskHistorians. A good answer will be supported by relevant and reliable sources. Primary sources are good. Secondary sources are also acceptable.

However, tertiary sources such as Wikipedia are not as good. They are often useful for checking dates and facts, but not as good for interpretation and analysis. Furthermore, Wikipedia articles are open to random vandalism and can contain factual errors; therefore, please double-check anything you cite from Wikipedia. As outlined here, Wikipedia, or any other single tertiary resource, used by itself not a suitable basis for a comment in this subreddit.

It is also important to point out that you are not a source.

Even though sources are not mandatory, if someone asks you to provide sources in good faith, please provide them willingly and happily. If you are not prepared to substantiate your claims when asked, please think twice before answering in the first place. Please keep in mind that all posters who fail to substantiate their posts when asked in good faith run the risk of having their posts removed.

If you would like to provide a link to a book, please use WorldCat, OpenLibrary or any other non-commercial source for linking. The reddit spam filter is overly aggressive on bookseller links (especially Amazon!) and your good sourced comment may be auto-removed by the spam filter until a mod is able to approve it. Referral links (for Amazon or other referral sites) are firmly against the rules.

Here is a helpful guide[1] to providing in-line citations using tooltips.

For further discussion and explication of the rules on sources, check out this Roundtable Discussion, and further discussion about Wikipedia specifically.

Write an in-depth answer

An in-depth answer gives context to the events being discussed so that someone who is unfamiliar with the area can understand. An in-depth answer is usually more than a sentence or two. Use a balanced mix of context and explanation and sources and quotations in your answer. Being able to use Google to find an article that seems related to the question does not magically make you an expert. If you can contribute nothing more than your skills at using Google to find an article, please don't post.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Do I have the expertise needed to answer this question?

  • Have I done research on this question?

  • Can I cite my sources?

  • Can I answer follow-up questions?

If you answer "Yes" to all of these questions, then proceed. If you answer "No" to one or more of these questions, seriously reconsider what you're posting.

No personal anecdotes

Personal anecdotes are not acceptable answers in this subreddit. They are unreliable, unverifiable and of very little real interest. For further discussion and explication of the rule, please consult this Rules Roundtable.

No speculation

Suppositions and personal opinions are not a suitable basis for an answer in r/AskHistorians. Warning phrases for speculation include:

  • "I guess..." or "My guess is..."

  • "I believe..."

  • "I think..."

  • "... to my understanding."

  • "It makes sense to me that..."

  • "It's only common sense."

If your answer includes any of these phrases, it is likely that you are merely sharing your opinion or speculating, and not posting a proper answer. For further discussion of this rule, please consult this Rules Roundtable.

No partial answers or "placeholders"

An answer should be full and complete in and of itself.

Do not post partial answers with the intention of prompting further discussion. You do not need to post a part-answer to prompt historians to answer the question; they will answer it if they can, regardless. The question is already the "starting point" for discussion; there's no need for anything more.

If you see a question without answers, do not provide a part-answer merely for the sake of putting something in the thread. If you can not answer the question fully, wait for someone who can.

Do not provide a part-answer as a "placeholder" to come back to expand on later. Wait and provide the good answer when you can.

This is not a race for karma: a good answer late is better than a bad answer early. Good answers take time, and that's okay.

No political agendas or moralising

This subreddit is a place for learning and open-minded discussion. As such, answers should not be written in the interests of advancing a personal agenda, but should represent a sincere effort to make an argument from the historical record. They should be constructed in keeping with the principles of the historical method - that is to say, your evidence should not be chosen selectively to support an argument that you feel is right; your argument should instead demonstrably flow from your critical engagement with an appropriate range of evidence. This is not to say that answers can not or should not delve into controversial topics, or deal with political hot-button issues when necessary, but rather that we would expect the answerer to approach the issue earnestly and in good faith. History often is controversial, and we aren't shying away from that, but rather asking that users will show proper respect for the historical method in constructing their response and avoid approaches which might be viewed as polemical.

For further discussion and explication of the rules on political agendas and moralizing, check out this Roundtable Discussion.

Do not just post links or quotations

Do not just post links to other sites as an answer. This is not helpful. Please take some time to put the links in context for the person asking the question. Avoid only recommending a source – whether that's another site, a book, or large slabs of copy-pasted text. If you want to recommend a source, please provide at least a small summary of what the source says. (This does not apply to questions that are only created to request sources.) Linking to past /r/AskHistorians questions is allowable.

Regardless of the quality of the source you are citing, an answer should not consist only (or primarily) of copy-pasted sections of text from that source. The intention in providing an answer in r/AskHistorians is to answer as a historian: making a statement of your own, while using sources to support that statement.

A good answer will be a balanced mix of context and explanation and sources and quotations. Only links or only quotations is not a good answer.

For further discussion and explication of the rules on links and quotes, check out this Roundtable Discussion.

No plagiarism

We have a zero-tolerance policy on blatant plagiarism, such as directly copying and pasting another person's words and trying to pass them off as your own. This will result in an instant ban.

For further discussion and explication of the rules on links and quotes, check out this Roundtable Discussion.

Beware of historiographical fallacies

Historiographical fallacies include:

Jokes and humour

A post should not consist only of a joke, a humorous remark, or a flippant comment. You can certainly include humour as part of a full and comprehensive post, but your post should not be made solely for the purpose of being funny.

There are a number of satirical and humorous history subreddits:

Digression

All comments should be related to the topic as outlined in the OP. Substantial digressions will be redirected towards a new thread.

Follow-up questions

If you have a follow-up question to the original question, please feel free to ask it.

If you have heard or read something which might be related to the question, and you want to check it, then make sure you ask it as a question. Do not post "I'm not sure if this is true..." or "Someone will correct me if I'm wrong." If you're not actually answering the question, then make sure your comment looks like a question.

AMAs

Please do not answer questions in an AMA when you're not the OP or are not on the AMA panel. An AMA is explicitly designed to offer a platform to specific, named experts.

Pictures, videos and memes

Any comment which consists only or mainly of an image or a video or a meme will be deleted. Photos and documentaries which support an answer are encouraged, but generic images, gifs, and internet memes are not welcome here.

If you want to post any of these things, please go to these subreddits:

Bots, usernames, and novelty accounts

We are not interested in bots and they will be banned on sight. If you operate a bot, please consider blacklisting /r/AskHistorians to save us the trouble.

If your user account's name is something that would be unacceptable on a post - bigoted or hateful slurs, references to sexual violence, and so on - that user account will be banned on sight. We recommend you use an account with an innocuous name when posting on /r/AskHistorians.

We are also not interested in "novelty" accounts. Users may post from novelty accounts provided they do not do so "in character".

Moderation

This subreddit is actively moderated. Posts that break the rules will be removed to maintain the quality of the subreddit. Additionally, moderators may:

  • Post a reminder of the rules, asking a user to shift their tone, improve their posting style, or provide sources for their claims – but without any suggestion that the matter is especially severe.
  • Issue a formal warning for a serious infraction or for persistently breaking the rules. These will be marked by a serious, declarative command, e.g. “Do not post like this again.” Continuing to break the rules after a formal warning will likely result in a ban.
  • Remove the flair of a flaired user who repeatedly fails to meet the expectations for someone with flair (making informed, well-sourced, and polite answers).
  • Ban a user from the subreddit. Bans are reserved for:
    • Users who ignore warnings and repeatedly break the rules
    • Users who respond with hostility and rudeness to attempts to warn them*
    • Users who engage unrepentantly in racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted behaviour
    • Users who engage in blatant plagiarism
    • Obvious trolls
    • Spammers
    • Bots

* This doesn't mean you can't respond at all. It's fine to ask why warnings or reminders have been handed out as long as you remain courteous. However if you have a serious disagreement with the subreddit's moderation (e.g. "You should just let the downvotes take care of it") then consider creating a separate meta post to discuss it rather than cluttering up somebody else's question.

Appeals

If one of your comments has been wrongfully deleted, or if you feel you have been wrongfully banned, you can message the moderators and explain your situation.

These rules are subject to change at any time, though such changes will be publicly announced. Questions should be directed to the moderators.

revision by sunagainstgoldModerator | Medieval & Earliest Modern Europe— view source