Hello everyone,

For the next month, we are going to be running a test of a Provisional Rule which is currently being referred to as the "Basic Facts Rule".

As will be laid out below, we believe that this is a rule which has great potential to improve the /r/AskHistorians experience for Users, Flairs, and Mods, but we also realize it will be the most significant rules change implemented in several years. As such it has been something the Mod team has discussed and hashed over for quite some time, and we have discussed this change with our esteemed Flairs as well (with generally positive responses). Rather than simply imposing the rule, we want to carefully discern the reception and impact of it, and are provisionally implementing it for the month of March. After this month we will discuss whether to continue as is, modify it, or simply scrap it altogether, a decision for which we welcome input on from the user base throughout the test period.

Now, to cut to the chase, for the next month, the following rule is in effect:

Questions looking for specific, basic facts - for the purpose of this rule, seeking a name, a date or time, a location, or the origin of a word - 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.

With that dispensed with, let's discuss the reasoning and desired impact of this rule. People come here to ask questions which aren’t always well suited to /r/AskHistorians, for any number of reasons. In some cases they might realize the question is basic, but they are distrustful of the first results they find on Google and are hopeful of getting an answer with the accuracy attached to our reputation. In others it might be a lack of knowing other options exist, and still others might simply lack the access to the kind of sources that they suspect could provide them with assistance. Whatever the reason, the questions targeted with this rule are those which can be sufficiently and satisfactorily answered with, at most, a few sentences based on tertiary reference material such as an Encyclopaedia or Almanac.

With our current rules and approach, questions simply asking for basic facts can often get very problematic for people answering them, and consequently those asking as well. OP might be effectively asking a question which has a one word answer on a subreddit which requires that answers give context and background. And in our experience, this just means they generally go unanswered - not always of course, but often. For many potential respondents, it isn't worth putting in the effort for a deep answer when it seems like the OP doesn't really want or need that. In either case though, often this leads to frustration all around, with the technically correct response not comporting with the motto here that 'an answer is good because it explains, not because it is correct'.

In short, the intent of the rule is, in our mind, to help users get the answers that they want. Users ask questions because they hope for answers. If those questions are easier to answer within our rules if they are redirected to the "Short Answers To Simple Questions" thread, users are simply more likely to get an appropriate answer.

An important part of the implementation of the policy is our removal Macro, which we hope will enforce the rule in a way which is useful and non-judgemental (and which we will continue to tweak based on feedback). Instead, the removal macro will hopefully help provide useful direction for users in getting an answer, by not only directing them to the "Short Answers to Simple Questions" thread, where we of course welcome them, but also with links to our guide on asking better questions, and suggesting other subreddits like /r/AskHistory where these types of questions are less in conflict with the rules as a standalone thread.

We realize that this rule might, in the end, not work out, hence our method of implementation, and we're striving to be conscious of that fact in enforcement. Our policy has always been that there is no such thing as a 'Stupid Question', and ensuring that this doesn't become the 'Stupid Question' rule is important to us.

Finally, a few notes on the actual nuts and bolts of the rule. We discussed a lot of variations of questions which might or might not fit, and in the end, we felt that keeping the rule narrow and well defined was an important component of its success. The more objective a criteria we can sketch out, the the more effective the rule can be. As such, we are only considering four basic categories of questions (see below). By far the most glaring omission that will be noticed is the "Yes"/"No"-type question. To be sure, these often might fit under this rule, but we felt that there are just too many examples where the answer is less than clear, and any real answer requires a fair bit of elucidation for why the answer is "Maybe". As such, in some situations these may fall under the "Moderator Discretion" clause, but will not be automatically covered under the rule at this time.

Now as for the categories we did choose to include, here they are below with a few examples of the type of questions considered:

1. NAMES: This is for questions which are essentially looking to find the name of a person, thing, concept, etc. Some examples of this would include:

• What was the name of that big tank battle fought during the First Gulf War?
• Who was the youngest defendant executed following the Nuremberg Trials?
• What country or group does the flag in this painting represent?

2. DATE or TIME: These are questions which are looking to know when something happened, essentially asking for the date of an event, or the time period in which it occurred. Some examples of this would include:

• Was there ever a point when more former US Presidents were alive than today?
• Why are the 1800s referred to as the "19th Century"?
• When was the last time a US state voted for both their Senators in the same election?

3. LOCATION: These are questions which are looking to know where something happened, or asking a question about a physical location. Some examples of this would include:

• After the White House was burned, where did the President live while it was rebuilt?
• What was the first landing spot of the Allied forces on D-Day?
• Where did the Battle of Bull Run take place?

4. ETYMOLOGY: Etymology is the study of the origin and history of words. We will not be removing all questions which relate to Etymology, if they are posed specifically in a way seeking depth of analysis, but we notice many questions asked which likely represent the fact that the user simply lacks access to the OED or similar. Whether to include these questions under the rule was problematic enough that we held a secondary vote specifically for it. This is a subcategory we will be paying especially close attention to in order to get the balance right.

So please, we hope you will bear with us over the next month as we work on fine-tuning this rule, and we also welcome your thoughts and feedback, both now and throughout the test period, to help us better weigh the final decision when we come to it.