The thread you've highlighted here is an interesting one to choose from our perspective, as it lies at the borderline of what we would consider a question to which a substantive answer is possible or one which is just asking for examples of a wider phenomenon (eg the information that the German navy has commissioned lots of Emdens). The latter we tend to redirect to our Short Answers thread, where you could provide the kind of brief information you consider to be most relevant above.

However, what made us keep this question is that it has a more substantive side to it - namely, the question of why and how warships get named is a matter of military culture and tradition, which most certainly have a history. In this sense, to our eye what the question is calling for here is less 'there were many Emdens, I will flesh this out by offering a history of each Emden' and more 'how did the German navy decide how to name ships, and why did they keep coming back to some particular names?' Emden(s) may be a good case study to illustrate this process, but the conceptual scope of the answer is then a little broader than any single example.

If you did want to write such an answer, sourcing would then be less about finding individual references for specific facts like 'when was the third Emden commissioned', and more what kind of scholarship you would use to gain insight into this broader question of how the German Navy (or European navies more broadly) went about naming ships and how particular traditions emerged. What book(s) have you read that gives you insight into how the German navy (and politicians/wider public) thought about this question? Those are the sources we want to know about as mods/readers, not the basis of every specific factual claim. In that sense, our source requirements are actually much more lenient that commonly believed!

It may be of course that while you have a decent appreciation for Emden, you don't have as much knowledge of these wider issues. If you're interested enough to do some research and share it, that's obviously awesome but we don't expect you to do that, and if you can't or don't want to, we expect you not to comment. Our attitude here is unusual, and often trips users up. In most places on Reddit (and elsewhere online), the bar for commenting in most discussions is 'do I have relevant knowledge or information I can share'. Here, being able to provide relevant information is not enough by itself to form the basis of a comment, since from our perspective it's not an answer.

If you are looking to get your feet wet in terms of providing answers, I would note that we do offer some opportunities to share knowledge where either our expectations are lower (such as Tuesday Trivia or Friday Free-For-All), and also have a regular Saturday Showcase where you can write posts that match your knowledge rather than waiting for just the right question to come along. We're also always very happy as a mod team for you to drop us a line when you think you might be able to answer a question, but aren't quite sure how best to go about it or whether what you can write would meet our requirements. For real - it's absolutely awesome to see when longstanding members of the community try to push their boundaries like this!

I think your example is a useful one about the trouble with Wikipedia as a source. It's a mile wide and an inch deep.

I don't know anything about the ship's history, so I reviewed the wiki and then your comment, and here are the types of questions I might have:

You write that the Emden name became common because of the first one's gallant raiding in WW1 while following the rules of war. Well that sounds plausible but the Wikipedia page doesn't exactly say that. It describes its activities in WW1, then mentions that after its destruction it was awarded the Iron Cross and the Kaiser himself announced the new Emden. Ok...was it common for an entire ship to be awarded the Iron Cross? Was that the exact cause and effect (i.e. Iron Cross equals name reuse?) It seems to have had a successful career but how exceptional was it compared to other ships in similar roles? Did it have an unusual popularity? They probably weren't the only ship that performed well and then got sunk in combat - were they the best performing ship out of all of those (and how would you quantity that?), or was there some PR at play? If this were an unusual activity for a ship to undertake was there a specific reason that ship and crew were selected?

Were Iron Crosses awarded for individual acts or for cumulative performance over time? You said its following the rules of war and gallantry played a big role (not just its combat performance). Where'd you get that fact from? Is there a write up for the award that goes into specifics (as you see with, e.g. the medal of honor in the US which is awarded, AFAIK, for individual acts)? If so it doesn't appear to be a source on the Wikipedia. For all I can tell from the Wikipedia its Iron Cross could be exclusively from its final action against the Sydney. In fact I did a quick google and found a brief newspaper clipping with a note from the kaiser to the city of Emden saying the ship performed bravely in its final battle and a new one would take its name.

Wikipedia says the Kaiser announced the new ship, did the Kaiser commonly get involved with naming ships or was this a special circumstance? Was he REALLY involved, personally, himself, or was he just announcing a decision made by the military command?

The source for the ship being awarded the Iron Cross is a book written by a non historian: maybe it has some more of the details I'm asking about but they didn't make it to the Wikipedia.

I don't think you'd need to know all these answers or discuss it all for a good answer, but I wanted to show how something that seems so matter of fact is not always that simple. In fact some of the answers currently there (not deleted last I last checked) aren't super detailed but seem to get the job done. This question COULD be under the simple answers to simple questions thread, but since it's not it's sort of asking for that kind of deep dive.

I understand the dilemma - there's a question the other day where someone asked why the new kingdom of Egypt wasn't on a Wikipedia list of empires, and why it wasn't in another list of longest empires. The answer is they misread the first list and it simply wasn't long enough to make the second. There are a few deleted answers that I'm guessing say that much and I was tempted to say that. If I were to try and answer that I would draw attention to the very arbitrary definition of continuous empires that wikipedia uses. The new kingdom is separate from the kingdom of kush in the list. That's reasonable enough, but then the "Babylonian Empire" is treated as continuous from Hammurabi on down to Nabonidus, despite centuries of being ruled by foreign dynasties and frequently under dominion from Assyria towards the end (and for a large chunk of that time simply not being an empire in any form). Even more egregious is doing that for Babylon but then separating Assyria into Middle and Neo. Anyways, I digress!

I would like to point out that some questions have simple answers to you, but people without your own experience will not have what you might consider common knowledge.

A few months ago I answered this question, https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/w6zc4j/according_to_the_bible_in_ancient_israel_people/

While I used the bible as a source to obtain the initial numbers used in my answer, I am not a biblical scholar. I used my own experience in animal husbandry and herding, and experience with sheep specifically, to give a more extensive answer as to the requirements and limits of what would be possible. I then referred to a paper on the subject of the types of temple offerings of the time. It did not take a specific college degree, or specialized field of study, to answer the question. All it took was a single book, a paper written by a professor on a closely related topic, and my own personal experience.

The mods allowed my answer to stand even though it is by no means perfect.

There is a lot more I could have written on the subject but it would have made the answer much longer than it needed to be and could have been confusing. For example, at least a few sheep are unsuitable for breeding each year due to injury, but that is not quantifiable. I also left out that some mothers reject their offspring and the lambs either must be hand fed or culled.

I could have also mentioned that, in the case of triplets, a different mother will have to be tricked into caring for the third lamb because the biological mother will not produce enough milk for triplets to grow properly. Honestly I have no idea how long shepherds have been tricking sheep into caring for lambs that are not their own, but it could very well date all the way back to before biblical times.

I could have also mentioned why a herd of sheep should never be less than 5 adults. Simply put, a herd will develop anxiety or become aggressive when they are few in number. Extremely small herds are rarely healthy herds.

In other words, in depth answers are encouraged but simple answers are sometimes just as good.

What about when it's painfully obvious the questioner just needs a few search terms? There are a lot of questions that I can direct people to the right information but I'm not a master of the sources. And a lot of times these are questions that go entirely unanswered. I have private messaged some helpful info every now and then but that always feels creepy