Comments recently claim he committed genocide and that it is genocide denial to clam that he didn't. How true is this?

The comments in question:

One of the underlying principles of AskHistorians is that it is not simply a space to seek out for the technically correct answer, but rather it is a space where you come because you are interested in getting an answer that goes deeper in its explanation, and is written by a user who is knowledgeable about the topic, and with whom you can engage with follow-up questions and further discussion.

Because of this, the rules of the subreddit prohibit responses which consist either of mostly a link to off-subreddit material, or else is mostly a quotation from a source.

Linking Off Sub

There are several reasons why answers primarily consisting of outside links are prohibited. The first, is, as noted above, that simply linking somewhere else defeats the reason that the subreddit exists. It isn't simply intended to be a place to get an answer, but rather it is specifically a space curated to provide answers of a certain style, where users can engage with the author.

But beyond the admittedly tautological explanation there, two other important factors come into play. The first is that, in most cases, when users link somewhere else, they either choose to link to Wikipedia, or else they are providing a source that likely was the result of Googling the keywords in the question title. Regardless of the quality of those resources, it is the year 2020! Internet search engines date back to before the Web itself existed, and Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites on the planet. It is generally a safe bet that the person asking the question is aware those resources exist. Many may already have consulted them, for that matter!

Furthermore though, the quality of course does matter. Wikipedia can be a fun rabbit-hole to lose oneself down, but it also can be of mixed quality at times, peddling in outdated scholarship, or reflecting a very narrow viewpoint of a specific editor. Likewise, simply taking the results one Googles might result in a decent article, but just as easily can turn up some wild and outlandish conspiracy theories from someone who has good SEO skills. Even limiting a search to specific engines such as Google Scholar, simply linking to a result doesn't guarantee it is a good result, nor does simply linking to it suggest that the user in question read it. To be used well, a user needs to be familiar with a source, and able to engage with it and put it in context, and simply dropping a link doesn't demonstrate that in the way that incorporating it into an answer can.

Linking to the Sub

The one exception to this, however, is that we do allow links to older answers on the subreddit. We don't remove duplicate questions, but we also recognize that sometimes there is already a great answer on the sub from before, so while it does mean you might not be getting something fresh off the presses, we do feel that it balances competing interests to allow for this. In many cases, the OP of the original answer is still around in any case to answer follow-ups!

There are a few rules of thumb to follow though. The first is that we very much appreciate users include a username ping for the original author to credit them. If you don't, Automod is supposed to send you a friendly reminder. We also ask that you not quote extensively from the original post. If the OP is still around, they are welcome to repost it themselves, and it is a bit rude to steal their thunder. The link and username ping is fine. Finally, we ask you to be mindful of the 'vintage' of the thread. Threads seven years old reflect a much older state of the sub's rules, and while we make some leeway to reflect how things have changed, we do sometimes clean up older threads if they get linked, or else remove the linking post if upon inspection, the one linked to is wildly out of date as regards the standards we have today.

Quoting from Sources

Good answers on the subreddit quote from sources. There is no ironclad rule there, but it certainly correlates well, I would venture. But those answers aren't simply quoting from a source. They are providing analysis and placing it in context. They are often drawing on multiple sources and engaging with them to show how they might support each others arguments, or as is often the case, disagree on certain points. Especially when it comes to the kind of specialist literature that is produced in academia, not to mention primary sources themselves, the source often can't simply 'speak for itself' when the audience is composed of laypeople with little background on the topic.

To be sure, in many cases, the sources being quoted from reflect the same foibles as link-dropping does, where the choice of quote is less reflective of a deep understanding of the topic and picking the ideal source, but rather reflects a quick search of Google books and quoting the first paragraph that seems reasonably related, but even when that isn't true, such responses still are problematic for the above reasons, and additionally of course because they don't reflect anything on the user themselves. Answers being provided by people capable of engaging with the topic is key. Even if someone quotes from the book on a topic, we, as moderators, still don't know if it is because they knew exactly what book to go to and where to quote from, or because they got lucky. We need to feel reasonably confident that a user is knowledgeable and can engage with the topic, and simply quoting from someone else doesn't tell us that.

There is no hard and fast rule about how much non-quoted text is enough, as it is, of course, a holistic evaluation, but certainly one should always be conscious of the balance and consider just what role the quote(s) play compared to the text you wrote yourself. Do they amplify and provide illustration of what you are explaining, or would not much change insofar as the information communicated if you removed anything that isn't quoted? Always make sure to consider that before hitting 'post'!

Book Recommendations

Kind of a mix between links and quotes is the occasional comment that recommends a book. While these aren't entirely prohibited, we do have fairly strict expectations for responses which do this. The first is that simply naming a title and author won't fly. Even if the thread is explicitly one asking for reading suggestions, we expect at the very least a sentence or two about why it is being recommended. When it comes to a normal thread though, this is doubly true, and users who chose to recommend reading instead of providing a full answer to the question should be prepared to provide a decent sized review of the work in question that reflects, at the very least, your own familiarity with the work, its broader academic reception and quality, and explaining how the book relates to the topic and hand, and some sort of summary of it. For the most part, this sort of approach is limited to the kind of broad questions where, well, you need a whole book to answer, and we very much suggest reaching out to the mod team before writing a response if you believe such an approach is warranted for a question.

Context is Key

What all of these restrictions come down to is the matter of context, which could be something of a mantra for many subreddit rules, but these more than most. The rules of the subreddit are about curating a space where 'Good answers are good not because they are right, but because they explain', and responses which merely link somewhere else, or drop a quote by itself generally don't. Sources need context, they need elucidation, and they need engagement, and we simply prohibit situations where that is almost always going to be lacking.

Putin has published a commentarey on the 75th anniversary of WWII. I was wondering whether a) his quotes and citations are correct and not taken out of context, and b) how much he omitted or whitewashed events in the leadup to WWII.

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