For example questions that are too often asked, questions that provoke answers that don't really add anything to the discussion, that sort of stuff. Or are there questions so dumb that they aren't even worth replying to?
In pirate history, so so many! Mostly they relate to the mythos of piracy, but there is one particular question (and answer) that never fails to make me irate.
Why did pirates wear eyepatches? Eyepatches were worn to accustom one eye to the dark so that when they went below deck they would be able to switch the eyepatch over and have good vision
The science behind it is good, so it's very believable. In fact, Mythbusters did a segment on it so of course everyone believes it.
However, before we question why pirates wore eyepatches we need to establish that they did wear them. There is not one scrap of evidence of a pirate wearing an eyepatch. Not one.
Secondly, even if pirates did wear eyepatches more than other people, the idea that they did so for any reason than to cover an injured or missing eye relies on the idea that pirates cleverly discovered the night-vision thing but that nobody else was clever enough to think of it.
Thirdly, wearing an eyepatch might give you a few seconds advantage when going below deck, but would permanently affect depth perception for the whole time it was being worn - in effect it would mean sacrificing a big and constant advantage for a small and momentary one.
Fourth, the question of eyepatches is basically insignificant in the study of pirate life.
It's a pointless question with a ridiculous answer that defies all logic and evidence, but for the last decade at least it's probably the most commonly asked question about pirates.
"Why do so many people believe the Holocaust happened when I have clear proof it was all a conspiracy to justify the creation of Israel?"
I think most people are tired of that one, and it is very, very bad.
Ah, this question reminds me of some old-school /r/AskHistorians "you're at a party" threads. Check these out if you enjoy listening to ranting historians
As a Historian, what Question do you often get asked and absolutely dread?
What common historical misconception do you find most irritating?
Speculation: maybe this is why historians have a rep for drinking at parties
There are a great deal of misconceptions in my field, specifically related to Native North American populations after contact. I don’t ever get angry so much as throw up my hands in frustration and exclaim, “Even your question is wrong!”
Let me explain what types of questions I mean…
The first kind of question is completely well-intentioned, but the person asking the question has no idea the depth and breadth of their query. The user doesn’t know what they don’t know. We understand, we were all there once, and we face the same issues when we want to know something outside our knowledge base. Prefacing your answer to a question about “Native Americans” by reminding the user they are asking about hundreds of nations in more than a dozen linguistic families, spread out over two continents, over ~15,000 years of history is slightly frustrating. There is no one answer. We need to address this complexity before diving down to answer the small portion of the question within our specific area of expertise. Answers to these questions will be incomplete, simply due to the wide range of time we have to cover, and leaving incomplete answers is sometimes frustrating.
Take home message: the more specific you can be regarding time and place the happier you make historians.
The second kind of frustrating question are the same dozen or so questions asked every few months here. Native American scholars are accustomed to this type of question, and we usually point people toward the Frequently Asked Questions page while quietly weeping that no one asks about the incredibly fascinating, but evidently obscure, nuances of our field of study. Seriously, why are people so interested in tornados? Wouldn’t you like to hear about how archaeology and ethnohistory inform our understanding of non-violent resistance in Spanish missions in North America? No? Oh well.
Take home message: search for similar questions before you ask yours. There is nothing wrong with asking about new research, but check to see if your query was addressed in the past.
The third kind of question, much like /u/ETFox mentioned about pirates, assumes something currently under debate (or outright wrong) as a given, and then asks a question from that perspective, forcing us to spend the first few paragraphs explaining why the truth is slightly more complex than the question implies. These questions are challenging because it takes a great deal of time to explain why the premise of the question is flawed, and the person asking the question usually doesn’t want a lecture on why they were wrong in the first place.
Take home message: try to eliminate preconceptions from your question, if possible, and dive to the root of what you want to know. For example, if you really want to know about Europeans facing novel diseases in the Americas I would change the example question to “Do we have any evidence of Europeans falling ill from pathogens native to the New World?”
The final kind of frustrating question is less well-intentioned and seeks to re-inforce previously held beliefs. You’re not fooling anyone, my friend. We’ve been at this for a while now, and can tell the “just asking questions” users from the ones with legitimate questions. Help the mods out and hit the report button if you find something in this category. We greatly appreciate it.
On this sub: I won't say it's "bad" per se and I certainly don't get angry about it because I'm happy to discuss questions about my area of study but a lot of questions we get on the Middle East and Islam involve some sort of cultural, technological, or military determinism coupled with a lot of unconscious Eurocentrism. There's a sort of Sid Meier's Civilization view of things where like each country has a linear tech score and then competes militarily to find out who is best for the rest of time.
So "How progressive was Islamic Spain?" or "Why did the Ottomans go into decline after 1529?" or "When did Europe become technologically superior to the Arabs?" type questions. It's basically history as clash of civilizations. The answers are also generally super vague.
In real life: Israel/Palestine stuff. Doesn't really matter what aspect of it you're discussing, it's too much of a live issue for many people, and it often becomes impossible to discuss it in a detached manner without getting accused of being pro-Israel or pro-Palestine. Inevitably my friends who identify as one or the other accuse me of being the opposite because I enjoy bringing up a lot of things that make each side pretty uncomfortable.
Sometimes questions are based on misconceptions. Sometimes these can be easy to sort out ('why did Medieval Brits like iron maidens so much?') but some are more difficult.
If you've got an assumption in your question, then check before making it, or maybe rephrase the question. For example, someone might want to ask 'why were Medieval people supportive of gratuitous torture?" But who are 'Medieval people'? The Medieval period is so long and saw a lot of change, is there a specific period you are interested in? Were people supportive of torture? Was there torture? Was this torture gratuitous?
That question could then be rephrased in multiple ways which might produce far better answers. 'How did attitudes to the use of torture change in X society between the 11-14th centuries?' 'How did the use of torture change in X society between the 11-14th centuries?' 'To what extent was torture used in X society in the 10th century? 'How did the use of torture in X society change between the early and high Middle Ages?' 'Did X and Y society use torture differently during the 13th century and why?' A problem I personally have is that sometimes I'm interested in a subject but don't know enough to actually make even a fairly reasonably okay question. I'd just be going 'ancient Egypt, dogs, tell me?' In which case generally I search on past posts or googlebooks if there's no articles or whatever. Also, PMing someone who might know a bit about the topic, eg someone flaired in a society/era/subject you're interested in. For me, sometimes figuring out what I actually want to know can be very difficult, and that makes asking a question difficult, which I think is sometimes the issue posters might have on here.
The only question I've looked at and thought, fuck that, was a question asking about torture in the Armenian genocide. It was asking, iirc, for the worst types of torture used. It came across as wanting to know for the sake of wanting to hear gory stuff. I can't explain it, but I really dislike any question involving my flair which treats the subject like a horror film. It is not a horror film or fantasy, this involves actual people and attitudes and life and death! Most questions on my subject, by the nature of the subject, involve a bit of gore or at least some not very nice imagery, but asking just so they can have horrors listed off at them as if it was a /r/nosleep story to cringe at rubs me up the wrong way.
As mentioned by others, questions with preconceptions in it are usually the most irritating, especially when the person asking is seeking confirmation of the ideas, and not willing to listen.
A common one I encounter in my area of study is "Would Shu have reunited China if Wu did not back-stab them?" The number of assumptions within that question already makes it pre-positioned towards a very specific answer, and it does not take into consideration the many variables that can occur between the time of 'back-stabbing' and 'reuniting China'.
Likewise "Why didn't Cao Cao check the weather forecast before the Battle of Red Cliffs?" gives me nightmares. It really isn't as simple as asking for a Southwestern wind instead.
But the worst have got to be questions that work off on a piece of fiction and then go onto all sorts of strange areas. "Why didn't the Wu navy use the reflective shields to set Cao Cao's army on fire so they didn't need to collect arrows?" or "Why didn't Cao Cao punish Cao Pi for murdering Cao Chong?" or "Why didn't Liu Bei just send Zhao Yun against Lu Xun in the battle of Yiling?"
Please get your facts from fiction right, then we can start from there.
The stubborn persistence of Lost Cause mythology bothers me a lot.
Ok so many commenters have made great observations here. I am a literature scholar who has a lot of historical background (medieval and early modern literature). Please excuse the errors-on mobile.
With that said at cocktail parties I often get:
A: read Larissa Tracy's book 'Torture and Brutality in the middle Ages' and get back to me.
A: no, wouldn't be very good in combat to have extra protruding appendages.
Eh, I'm tired of typing on my phone at a bar. I could provide more tomorrow if there is enough demand. All best to you guys and gals--let me know.
Most annoying imo: "Why does history repeat itself?"
Don't know if this is historical question or not, but "Why is history important when we need to focus on the future and just forget about the past?"
Also, for my field of study, it's annoying seeing questions from people who think Japanese liberated Indonesia from the Dutch and should be thanked.
I do history of science / history of ideas, and the question I hate the most is "why was X so stupid / wrong" or "why didn't they know about X at time Y?"
People don't seem to understand that we can only know X because of a series of developments that lead to it being obvious and accepted. Right now there is some major X that we still don't know, and in 200 years time everyone is going to laugh at us for not realizing it.
And as a corollary of this, I really really hate all these scientists who ridicule Aristotle or any other ancient or medieval philosopher. Yes they were wrong about basically everything. But their reasoning behind their opinions was positively brilliant and paved the way for future developments.