This is a perennial question on /r/askhistorians. For a previous discussion see here. While many of the experts here are uncomfortable with these questions (they can be much harder to answer than third person questions), they are currently allowed.

I believe the reason is that this sub doesn't like to moderate questions harshly given that most people have no idea how to phrase historical questions well anyway. It's hard enough to make people not ask about contemporary issues, prevent soapboxing, etc.

At least for me the reason why I've asked questions here this way before is that it's just much easier. English isn't my first language and while my reading comprehension is quite good actually formulating questions that cover a few aspects can be quite difficult. Consider the example given here.

I'm a Christian peasant in the 14th century Balkans and the Ottomans have just conquered the place where I live. How will my life change?

This is relatively easy to formulate and I could've come up with this too. First it describes the general frame the question is about and then separately it's asking the actual question.

How did life change for 14th century Christian peasants living in the Balkans after being conquered by the Ottomans?

This is already more difficult. All of the relevant information is squeezed into one sentence. To do this in a coherent and (at least decently) grammatically correct way can be quite difficult. I could come up with something like that too probably but it will look weird and it might be very difficult to comprehend. When I post something I usually try to do it in a way such that people reading it can easily comprehend it and such that they really understand what I'm precisely interested in. Using a fictional first person introduction to describe the generell setting is probably the easiest way to do that.

We're unlikely to ban them. The reason for most of our rules for questions is to help people get answers, when we realize that a certain question type isn't working - questions asking for examples of something in history just get lists of examples or people calling them out one at a time; questions asking about when the last time X happened typically either can't be answered or can be answered in a sentence. First-person questions are working, on the other hand. They attract some scorn but they also often attract answers, probably because they're often highly upvoted (because a lot of people are interested in what they ask about).

I personally like them - they show an engagement with and real interest in history, similar to someone writing historical fiction; they're typically about the "ordinary people" of history (pig farmers, young women, laborers, etc.); and they're often more original than the many "is this scene from this show accurate?" or "did [thing] from Game of Thrones really happen in the Middle Ages?" or "why did [gun specs] change to [gun specs]?" (These three examples are all legitimate questions to have. My point is only that we see a lot of them and they are not very creative or imaginative.) I don't think we should be punishing people for the above things, and I'm always going to strenuously argue against regulating these questions for that reason.

Also, we not infrequently get shitposters who respond to these questions with "no you're not" and similar "funny" comments that point out that the OP is a 21st century person with a phone or computer. I definitely don't want to punish posters for the above reasons and at the same time reward/give in to this attitude. The shitposters require removal, and so are bigger nuisances than the questions themselves.

You haven't made much of a case for what's wrong with them. Personally I like putting myself in the shoes of people from different periods but each to their own. Besides, what if they really are a 3rd-century goat herder?..

I don’t love them, but it would never even occur to me to make a thread asking to “put an end” to them across the whole sub just because I personally don’t care for them. The world doesn’t revolve around your whims, not everything you dislike is going to be changed just for you.

OP might enjoy this "Wondering Wednesday" thread from /r/badhistory where we made up the most absurd first-person history questions possible. Many of them are silly.

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I appreciate the comment made by /u/whatkindofred about ELL. Trying to write a syntactically coherent question with depth is really tricky.

TL;DR at the beginning: Sorry, but no, we won't.

Longer explanation: We are well aware some people don't like them, a few passionately so. We're also aware some people like them a lot. Most people don't care one way or the other. This is the case on the mod team. This is the case with the flairs. This is the case with the user base.

Now, that said, at their worst, "I am a" questions can be grating. We do remove a small grouping of them specifically as regards other rules concerning 'good taste'. There is no reason you need to ask "I am a 12th century rapist, do I likely get away with it?" The question is functionally the same as "How capable was the legal system of 12th century England when it came to investigating and prosecuting rape?" and the affectation of first person, far from adding anything, significantly detracts here in a disturbingly unnecessary way.

But at their best? "I am a" questions are often just attempts by users to feel more connected to what they are asking. It isn't how historians generally would approach a topic, but it is how many laypersons want to, and there is something endearing in that. One of the best questions we've ever had and a true classic was "I'm a hot blooded young Roman man of the late Empire hitting the streets of Rome for a night out with my mates and I've got sestertii burning a hole in my purse. What kind of vice and wanton pleasures are available to me?", courtesy of /u/misyo. It used the format to pitch-perfect effect in asking an interesting and coherent question with some great flair to it. The imitations it spawned were a mixed bag, some quite good and some obviously just trying to get in on the meme, but in any case that really I think is the go to example of the strength of the format.

I also quite liked this one recently from /u/goat_im_himmel which both used the format to good effect while also including a subtle tweak at the over-expectations some of these questions occasionally evidence when it comes to what we can know about common people long ago. To be sure, that is a weakness, but it isn't one in the format itself, more just in the assumptions that drive them and one which wouldn't be alleviated if not asked 1st person.

So in short, they are questions, just like any other. Some are better than others. Some make our eyes roll, but so too do some which are in 'normal' format. We're not going to ban them because some people find them annoying, just like we aren't going to ban Hitler questions because some people find those annoying. At the end of the day, I'd urge you to try and read them in a better light, since, as I said, they are often nothing more than someone trying to better connect with the past.