So many questions asked everyday include unnecessary preamble statements or premises, many of which are non-expert opinion (or outright false) but presented as historical fact (and therefore read by vast numbers of people as historical fact). In the vast majority of cases these questions do not actually rely on the premise as written, and could be trivially rephrased to be questions alone rather than statements with an arising question.
The issue I have with these types of questions is:
The premise is very often wrong, malformed, or prejudiced. Often if a user could authoritatively establish the premise to a certainty, they could answer the question themselves.
The premise may be rebutted, but only if the question receives an answer.
False information in the question (ie. the title) will be read by far more users than the answer itself.
One of the basic principles we have here is that we don't expect people asking a question to know the answer to the question; that seems pretty basic to a question-and-answer subreddit. There are no stupid questions.
That also implies that people may have the wrong idea about historical things when they ask a question. It comes with the territory.
One thing that a lot of our readers and subscribers don't seem to realize is that a human moderator reads every question asked here and decides whether to approve or remove them.
We already have a rule against loaded questions and soapboxing, and while approving questions can often be a judgment call, it's pretty trivial to call on some other mods to check on things. We already remove questions that are soapboxing, in poor taste, etc., but it's not practicable to remove every question that might contain a wrong premise, and comprehensive answers that we allow to stand will correct any false premises.
If you see a question that you think should be removed, hit the report button and it will tell us to take another look at it.
Overall I don't think there is a reasonable way to improve the current policy by establishing stricter requirements for the "quality" of a question. OPs can in all fairness be just wrong on something - and especially on somewhat delicate topics, this can very well derive from their specific education.
I am certain that I have misconceptions on American history that may rise more than a few eyebrows - and having thought a few classes around here, I have seen kids holding thoughts that border on downright offensive. And I assure you most questions centered around Italian history do contain a few flawed assumptions. But as pointed out by /u/jschooltiger, that's the nature of questions. Most people ask questions about things they don't understand; and that may include also those who have a generally poor understanding of history and historiography (and who have the same right to ask a question regardless, and possibly to receive a good one).
I fear that forcing requirements on the questions - beyond those basic ones that already exist - would either discourage those naive but genuine questions. Or end up producing more elaborate and well argumented questions, that might still be substantially wrong while appearing at first glance better quality (which may make the problem worse rather than improve the situation).
Outside of that, I don't think OP's concern to be entirely misplaced. There is an intrinsic problem with (a certain type of) questions: that the question itself implies an alternative, the existence of a debate. Is this position right, or is the other one? What is the consensus on the issue? But while at times there is in fact a true and substantial disagreement, or a pattern of different interpretations; there are also those when no genuine alternative exist.
Except that, once the question is asked, answering the question becomes then also a matter of explaining and clarifying that there is in fact no question, that one alternative is so "out there" that it does not really require a historian's answer. If you don't, who is to say that one reader may not take your answer as implicit confirmation that the debate exists and that there are indeed two legitimate points of view on the matter, even if this answer claims one to be wrong...
A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a question that I had to re-read a dozen times to understand it. It seemed incredible to me - but I have no evidence that everyone who read it felt the same. And in answering I would have felt compelled to explain as thoroughly as possible why that one wasn't a "true question". To clarify that point, I'll paraphrase it into something ahistorical that hopefully should create the same reaction:
Why do people say that Michael Jordan never played for the Utah Jazz, if he was Scottie Pippen's team mate?
How many of these questions are needed before someone begins questioning if perhaps Pippen played for the Utah Jazz? Or at least to believe this is not after all such a clear cut issue. Maybe you don't know what I am talking about, and feel a need to google Pippen's career or to look for sources explaining why Pippen didn't play for the Jazz. I mean, if the question is fair...
I don't know what prompted this discussion but the "Why is Freud so popular today?" question I saw this morning made me reflect on the policy of this sub.
Who says Freud is popular? What is the basis of this affirmation? The premise of the question implies that Freud is popular, instead of letting historians debate if Freud is or not popular. To me, this question is in the same category then the "Nixon was the worst President of all time. Why isn't Obama considered the worst?" given as an exemple of a loaded question. I don't think it should have gone through in this form.
IMHO, it should have been refused with the proposition of reposting it in the "Is Freud still a relevant source in the field of psychology?" or "Do the theories put foward by Freud still stand the scientific review today?" or, at least, "Is Freud a popular figure in today's world and does his theories stand the test of time and science?"
I just wanted to share my observation, cause it seemed necessary to find what prompted this discussion to discuss it. I thought that sharing my experience that fited with the discussion could help. Remove if not pertinent.
I honestly don't think there's anything wrong with false premises. The point of this sub is that the person asking the question wants to be educated about a topic. Frankly, it's kind of insulting to the intelligence of readers to assume they aren't clever enough to think that maybe the question itself could contain misinformation.
Sometimes premises for questions are popular misunderstandings, though. For instance, a few months ago I asked a question about the cake-burning myth and learned that the biggest argument in favour of it being ahistorical is that Wessex wasn't conquered to begin with, and the person who asnwered explained some of the origins of the myth and why that premise was false to begin with.