Fist of all, the standards for Questions on the sub, are pretty lax. Basically, so long as there's no alternative-history, no pushing agendas, no getting us to do your work for you, you should be okay with almost anything you wanna ask.

That said, I'd say that there are a few things to keep in mind to make your question better.

There've been some recent Rules Roundtables around here that cover this sort of thing extremely well. Namely Rules Roundtable #16: There Is No Such Thing as a Stupid Question , Rules Roundtable #17: Periodization and Regionalization , and Rules Roundtable #18: How to Ask Better Questions .

In each of these you'll hit on various things:

Roundtable 16 basically reminds you that history is a huge place, and offers some very general guidelines and thoughts on the "types" of questions being asked.The takeaway here is not to push an agenda, don't troll, and don't expect us to do your work for you.

Roundtable 17 discusses how to get a good answer by being specific in your question by mentioning times and places. History is a huge place, and we as answerers need a bit of guidance at times.

We're not asking for something where you may not even know enough to ask such a specific question, such as "What can you tell us about the competition between wool and flax as the preferred fiber in the Flemish textile industry, in the spring of 1484?". But certainly asking "How important was the textile industry to Flanders in the late-medieval period, and what materials did they use for their textiles?" is more than acceptable. Just remember to give us a period of time, and a geographic reference so that we don't end up telling you about, say, Persian carpet-making techniques, or middle-Han Dynasty silks, or Pre-Classical Mayan cotton textiles, when what you really want to know is quite distantly related, either through time or space.

Roundtable 18 is pretty straightforward, and while it may seem a little blunt in how I phrase it here, "do a bit of homework for before you ask your question" is a pretty good summation to it. When writing your questions, think a step or two ahead and try and give us a little summation of what you know, if anything, - if only to help the people that will answer you tailor the response properly to your interests, and the sources you're already familiar with.

For instance, if you're picking up your information from books on the history of textiles, we may focus our answer on how the Flemish textile economy compared to others in Europe and across the world, and focus more on the industry itself. If, on the other hand, you ask after noticing a comment somewhere in a book about the history and the evolution of Ypres or Antwerp, we might instead tailor our answer to how the industry fit into the city at this point in time. Alternatively, if your information on all this comes from a social history, and your interest is in how you see this moment as being the 'start' of a restless Dutch middle-class which then leads in some fashion to the Eighty Years' War a century later, once again we can tailor our answers once again with this angle of yours in mind.

That said, based on the fact that you're even asking this question in the way you are here, I'd say that it's a good sign that you'll probably do just fine here asking whatever comes to mind.

/u/79c4a06fbba64629867a

Please allow me to go further and pose the following: How can I get good replies to my questions.

As a person who tends to answer questions than post them, to me there are two aspects to writing a reply to a good question. First is whether I can understand the question or not. Two is whether the answer can fit the poster's background understanding and willingness to learn.

More on the second part. When somebody asks "Why is China so big?" in my opinion the answer can either be a really breezy trivial one (taking 5-10 mins of my time) or a comprehensive one (taking 30-60 mins of my time). Before I get into writing a comprehensive answer, I want to get an indication that you will get it, and you will read it, and you will appreciate it. Not in terms of upvotes. But in actually further your understanding.

The first part, on the framing, should not be felt as an impediment; as long as you are genuine and you clearly post why you are having a hard time framing the question. That, by itself, can be very enlightening.

I think the so-called flaired users here mostly think the same. There are many fantastically good answer here within threads with almost no upvotes. Help them help you.