First let me say that as a long-time reader (and even occasional contributor) I have the utmost respect for the mods and broadly agree with the rules and requirements of this sub. This is more "how can we as question-askers approach this" than "can we change the rules". That said:
I asked a question last night about the trope of "unerring storytellers" - aka a storyteller who was expected to know their tales perfectly, under pain of death. It's something that I've seen in a couple of fantasy-type stories, and I was curious as to whether it had any basis in fact. The question was removed for 'example-seeking' - fair enough. If this is a topic that I want to know about, though - is there any way to get at this information? I can think of a few ways, none of them great:
Ask specifically about groups that I know (or believe) had a strong oral tradition. "How well did the Vikings fit this trope?" "How well did the Bedouins fit this trope?". The problems are that (a) this would get pretty repetitive and (b) there are likely places that I've never heard of - maybe some civilization in South America had a strong oral tradition, but I would never know.
Ask in less-moderated subs like /r/history or /r/AskHistory and come here to confirm or deny. Given some previous experiences with those subs, I have a feeling I would come out of there more confused than I am now.
Do my own research. Possible, but a daunting task. I'm not a professional historian (barely even an amateur one, really), and it again runs into the problem of not knowing what I'm looking for.
Does anyone, mod or user, have any suggestions or perspective on how to approach this kind of issue?
Two suggestions I would make. The first is that especially with these kinds of "unknown unknowns" we're usually fairly lax in the SASQ thread. Some example-seeking questions get nixed there, but especially in a case like this, it is the kind of thing that generally would be allowable: Ask there, get some examples, now you have more specific thing(s) to ask as a standalone question for more depth.
The second is that, having looked back at the exact way you phrased the question, my first thought was that you kind of disconnected the question from the premise. You state that there is the trope in fiction, and then ask are there real life examples. Why not more clearly connect them and ask about the genesis of the trope? Do we know where it originated in fiction? Who was the first to use it? And most importantly, do we know what they were drawing on for inspiration?
Those are just my two cents, and others may have different thoughts to add, but hopefully it offers you some possible avenues of attack!
If this is a topic that I want to know about, though - is there any way to get at this information?
These questions are typically removed because they are too broad, and encourage people to reply with the examples they are aware of rather than anything they know in enough depth to answer to AskHistorians quality. We do allow people to ask about tropes and so forth, and we will work with people to find a better phrasing of their question.
Most of the time, it comes down to homing in on what the questioner really wants. That can be tricky, because sometimes the redditor only has a vague conception of what they're going for. When it comes to the question of the "perfect recitation," the question is not really "did those people exist?" - there are Islamic scholars today who have memorized the Quran, and they're not a recent development - the question is more along the lines of: How did this trope develop? What was the historical precedent?