Recently there have been several calls for some kind of tag to distinguish ‘answered’ from ‘unanswered’ questions. ^[1][2][3] In the past similar suggestions have been made. That’s why we wanted to provide an in-depth explanation of our thinking regarding such a tag.

This post will first explain what it means for a historical question to be answered. That in-depth theoretical part will be followed by an explanation of the practical difficulties of an ‘answered’ tag.

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The Historical Process

If we consider “the past” to be ‘everything which has ever happened’, then “history” is how we view humans and human-related things in the past, based on what we know of the past. By definition, what we know - can know even - of the past is only a tiny portion of what actually happened. It is impossible to have a complete record of all of the experiences of all humans ever; I dare say even in this modern age it still impossible to get a complete record of the experiences of even a single living human – efforts of tech giants notwithstanding.

Historians are aware of this limitation and they try to work around it. When writing history, historians generally will go through to following steps:

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Step 1. Asking a question about the past

All historical inquiry begins with a question. Questions can be sparked by reading something and wanting to know more, they can be raised by an (apparent) contradiction in sources, they can arise spontaneously, or any other way really. Any question goes; later on one might find that a question is unanswerable, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from asking the question.

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Step 2. Gathering information

Based on the question being asked, an historian can begin to gather information. The information is gathered from as many different sources as possible: writings from people involved, artefacts from the time period, archived materials, but also works from other historians who have written on subjects related to the question.

It is essential that the historian gathers a wide range of sources to get as accurate a view of the past as possible. Depending on the question and the historical period it can be difficult to know when to stop looking for more sources. It may be very hard to find relevant sources, and continuing the search may be a waste of time – or there may be so many sources available that at some point one has to decide to stop looking or no other work will get done. In any case, there are many reasons why two historians asking the same question may come up with a different selection of sources to use in the next step.

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Step 3. Organizing the information

The information which has been gathered has to be organised, or it won’t be very useful. Information from different sources has to be combined, or a single source may be used to explain more than one thing. Facts have to be separated from opinion, plausible truths from apparent lies. The historian might decide that some information is more relevant than other information, or that some sources are more trustworthy or reliable than others. Here too, two historians organising the same sources may come up with a different categorisation of sources.

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Step 4. Explaining events/developments

Once the information has been organised, the historian can begin to explain events or developments related to the question being asked. If a good variety of sources has been selected, sources will likely point to different explanations, which a good historian will take into account. All explanations which can be gathered from the sources, no matter how implausible, should be documented to ensure the final step gives a good result. Still, it’s possible that two historians looking at the same organised information may come up with different explanations.

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Step 5. Constructing an image of the past

The final step is to use the organised information and the various explanations to construct an image of what happened in the past. This ‘image’ is what is used to compose an answer to the question. The historian may consider some explanation (or explanations) more important, more likely, or more insightful than others, and thus give that explanation (or explanations) more weight in the final ‘image’. This may be getting old by now, but two historians using the same explanations to construct an image of the past may come up with a different view.

It should be clear by now that for historians there is not a ‘correct’ answer to any question. The historical process simply does not put out a single ‘correct’ answer; much depends on the choices made by the historian who’s looking for an answer to the question. This is why in the field of history there are always debates between historians about the details of events – how or why something happened.

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An example^^[see ^^note]

Let’s have a look at a practical example of how the above – especially the later stages – works. If we ask the question “Why was Charlemagne crowned emperor by the Pope?”, there are many possible explanations.

One explanation (step 4) could be that Charlemagne had helped the Pope in this struggle with the Romans, and this was his reward. If someone would write this in a longer answer giving some background to the situation, it could be a valid answer for /r/AskHistorians. It is an entirely valid, if a bit simple, view of what happened.

Another explanation might come down to essentially the same answer, but might place it in the context of the fall of the Roman Empire, the Germanic migrations and the growth of the Christian church. This answer would give a broader view (step 5) of the coronation than the previous explanation alone.

Yet another explanation arises if one interprets the question as why Charlemagne wanted to be crowned by the Pope. An answer to that question would involve concepts such as the rightful succession of the old Roman emperors and the representative of God being the only one legal to crown earthly kings.

Then there’s the explanation which focuses on why the Pope wanted to crown Charlemagne. It would focus on the religious and political nature of the papacy at the time. Crowning Charlemagne would cement the supremacy of the Pope over earthly princes; it would give the Pope the upper hand in his own struggles in central Italy; it would also set up a new empire to rival the Eastern Roman Empire – with the Pope having a lot more influence in that new empire.

In this quick overview of the question “Why was Charlemagne crowned emperor by the Pope?” we have seen 4 different but equally valid explanations (and to be clear, this list is not exhaustive!). An expert crafting an answer might choose to focus on one explanation, or they might try to craft several explanations into one in-depth and comprehensive answer based on their own view on this event. Experts might debate on whose idea it was to crown Charlemagne, and who benefitted most from it. In this debate, they can give different ‘weight’ to the various explanations – for instance one expert might consider the political nature of the papacy a lot more important than the divine approval for Charlemagne. This will lead to different views and different answers.

What would an in-depth and comprehensive /r/AskHistorians answer to this question look like? I can’t tell you as I’m not an expert on the matter. Submit the question to the sub and find out ;-)

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What does all this mean for /r/AskHistorians?

In /r/AskHistorians it is not the historian asking a question about the past, but you. An expert may then decide to answer it. Since they’re an expert in their field, step 2 – gathering sources – will often be very short; they already know what sources are available, and will have read most of them. Often their knowledge will vastly exceed what’s strictly needed to compose an answer to the question.

For an answer on /r/AskHistorians, they’ll still move through steps 3 to 5, making choices along the way. The final answer they’re giving will be their expert view of the historical event or development. Again, this is not necessarily the only possible view which can be constructed. Others might come to a (perhaps only slightly) different view, and might want to add their own answer to a question.

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Why we don’t have an ‘answered’ flair

The main reason why we don’t have an ‘answered’ flair (or tag) for questions is that – as has been explained above – there is no definitive answer to a historical question. An ‘answered’ flair suggests that everything that is to be said has been said. It also suggests an endorsement of the one answer that was posted, an implicit rejection of alternative views. It should be needless to say, but we want to avoid giving that impression at all costs.

Other issues with an ‘answered’ flair are:

• It suggests an answer is free from errors, even though we mods can never be entirely sure it is; experts – and this includes flaired users – sometimes make mistakes. An ‘answered’ flair might discourage others from challenging apparent mistakes in an answer. It’s been mod-approved, so it must be correct, right?
• Flaired users have indicated they’re less likely to post if a thread has such a tag. After all, anyone who has already seen the thread and read “the” answer is unlikely to check back later if anything has been added. On the other hand, if the thread isn’t tagged, people might come back later to read new additions. In other words, an ‘answered’ tag gives the impression – even to flaired users – that a thread is ‘closed’ or ‘finished’ in some sense, even though it isn’t.
• Who would make the decision that a question gets the tag? OP likely isn’t qualified enough to judge if an answer is sufficient and meets our standards (we do see people posting “thanks for the great answer!” in response to answer we have to remove) and automod can’t evaluate answers either; it’d have to be mods, which brings me to my next point…
• Work load! We get more than a hundred questions a day, with answers being posted – and removed – throughout the day. We’d constantly be updating flairs in addition to the work we’re currently do. Speaking of work…
• Already we have people posting low quality answers “because there’s nothing here yet”. We’re afraid that an ‘answered’ tag would only encourage such behaviour. If there’s no tag yet, people might want to make one appear.

There have been suggestions to use a different type of flair instead of an ‘answered’ tag. However, many of the issues above apply to an ‘unanswered’ or ‘unaddressed’ flair as well. The wide range of comments we get, from high-quality answers to barely sufficient answers to not-yet-removed answers, and from clarifications by OP to follow-up questions by other users, means that any automated solution (a bot) is not workable. Constant manual updating of all threads is even less workable.

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Conclusion

We’re opposed to an ‘answered’ tag because in history, there are no definitive answers. There’d also be practical issues with implementing such a tag.

We are aware that some people dislike clicking a thread and not finding an answer. These complaints pop up from time to time, and we are seeing if there’s anything we can do about that – but the fact that in 4 years we haven’t found a satisfactory way of handling this yet should tell you it isn’t an easy thing to deal with.

We know that it can be frustrating to come in here from your frontpage and see only [deleted], but we ask for your patience and understanding. Our Twitter, the Sunday Digest, and the Monthly "Best Of" feature highlight the best of what’s posted to /r/AskHistorians, so you may want to check those out if you haven’t already.

Note: The example of Charlemagne is adapted from Havekes, H., Van Boxtel, C., Coppen, P.-A., & Luttenberg, J. (2012). Knowing and doing history: a conceptual framework and pedagogy for teaching historical contextualisation. International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research, 11(1), 72–93.

https://www.academia.edu/14581427/_A_Soviet_Jihad_Against_Hitler_Ishan_Babakhan_Calls_Central_Asian_Muslims_to_War._Journal_of_the_Economic_and_Social_History_of_the_Orient_59_1-2_2016_pp._237-264

It includes translations from speeches by Muslim leaders in the Soviet Union who called for the world's Muslims to join together & wage jihad against the Nazis.

I am interested in learning more about Muslims who fought against the Nazis. There is a lot of good research out there on Muslims who fought with the Nazis (including David Motadel's excellent recent book, Islam and Nazi Germany's War), but I want to learn more about the other side of the story.

I would be grateful for any leads, links, book/article recommendations, anecdotes, personal histories, or anything else you all may be able to offer that sheds light on the history of Muslims who fought with the Allies (whether in the Red Army or anywhere else).

Thank you!

Here's the video.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Niaux

Humans painted elaborate, skillfull cave paintings 14 000 years ago (and further back in time, too!), which makes me wonder what kind of language they had. I know evidence of spoken language disappears, but is there anything we know about what kind of languages were around, say, roughly 14 000 years ago?

Second can anyone confirm if this is his Tamgha (seal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulagu_Khan#Communications_with_Europe

Third this is the closest thing I've found to his letter

https://www.quora.com/Where-can-I-find-the-translated-letter-that-Hulagu-Khan-wrote-to-the-caliph-of-Baghdad

As badass as it sounds, what the hell does toss you in the air like a lion mean?