One of the fundamental mantras of /r/AskHistorians is that answers must be in-depth and comprehensive. To be sure, just what that means is context dependent. We don't judge answers simply by column inches, and some questions may be answered comprehensively and with depth in a mere paragraph or two.

###The Why

But there still are complications there. The first is that answers are evaluated by the mod team. Just because someone posts a question and says "I'm OK with a quick answer" doesn't mean we will allow a quick answer! If anything, we'll remove the question and ask it be reposted without that, as it creates conflicting signals. As moderators, we are the final arbiters, and the Question Askers don't get much leeway in setting the parameters of how their question can be answered.

Second though... some questions really are just so basic and straightforward that even writing a paragraph to respond to it might be an excruciatingly drawn out and unnecessary process. Just because it is a question about a basic fact though doesn't mean it is an easy fact to find, so we understand why people still want to ask them here rather than trust what they Googled, but these threads can be very tough to moderate, as we inherently will default to the assumption the OP wants that lone fact placed into larger context, something which either they may not in fact want, and regardless which respondents might not care to do.

###The Rule

The result of this is the Basic Facts rule, which reads as follows:

Questions looking for specific, basic facts - for the purpose of this rule, seeking a name, a date or time, a location, the origin of a word, or the first/last example of a specific thing/phenomenon - are not allowed as standalone threads. AskHistorians is intended to be a space for in-depth and comprehensive answers, and as such, those questions which do not require an in-depth answer are not always suited to the format. We welcome these types of questions in the 'Short Answers to Simple Questions' thread which runs every Wednesday, and does not have the same in-depth requirement of the sub as a whole.

In addition to the parameters listed above, Moderators may also use their discretion to remove and redirect further questions they deem to fall under the 'Basic Facts' umbrella, when appropriate.

###The What

As with almost all the rules on submissions, it is to a degree a rule created for pragmatic necessity and reflects the realities of moderation on the site. There isn't a definitive, hard and fast list of what is prohibited by it, but as a general guideline, it is intended to prevent questions which are best answered with tertiary reference works.

Want to know what day something happened? What to know who this person in a photo is? Want to know who the 3rd President of Chile was?

Those are all the kinds of things we'd remove under this rule. They aren't bad questions by any means, they just are ones which can be answered quite satisfactorily with a a single word or two, which creates many problems for modding such threads.

###The Alternative

To be sure, we don't want to discourage the inquisitiveness behind these questions! If you didn't actually want the most basic answer, then feel free to repost your question with a little clarity.

Instead of asking what day, ask about how events led up to things happening when they did. Don't just ask who is in a photo, but ask about the context of what the photo shows. Don't ask just who the Chilean President was, but about the nature of the Chilean Presidency in the early years of the country.

I had asked this in r/history but was told to ask here for a more concise answer. I'd also like to clarify that I understand a helmet in the modern idea is to protect from shrapnel/falling debris and not from direct bullets, so why was this issue only addressed in WW1 when certainly shrapnel has been a problem since the introduction of exploding shells, grape shot, mortars, howitzers, etc. way back in the Napoleonic Era? Copy and paste of my question:

As the basic idea of a helmet has been around for a long time, being used by ancient kingdoms, Romans, Normans, medieval armies, I'm to guess that the helmet was seen as an important and necessary item and that people understood their importance. So why does it seem like the helmet fell from military service around the 1700s until the first world war?

Usually armies of this era are portrayed wearing tricorns, kepis, and even in the early years of WW1, cloth hats. When arguably more dangerous warfare with musket line battles, cannons, and such became commonplace why did the need for a soldier to wear a helmet not become blatantly obvious? If armies from centuries earlier understood the importance of helmets then why in an arguably more dangerous form of warfare their use be seemingly discontinued? Was this a style over function decision or did armies of this age lack a reliable, cost-effective way to mass produce helmets for large armies?

Even going into the first world war the French, British, and Austro-Hungarian armies mostly wore cloth caps, with the Germans seemingly the only exception with their use of Pickelhaubes and Stahlhelms (in later years).

tl;dr: Why did Imperial Romans and crusaders wear helmets but yet 1700s British wear tricorns?