Factual History Site

I'm on-board with a History site. I'm also on-board with having room for discussions and debates. However, I'm not sure the title "factual history" would necessarily still apply for all such discussions and debates, as they can often become speculative.

From a little experience in online forums, online debates need some serious moderation, otherwise they can get drastically out of hand, so that's something that needs figuring out.

posted almost 3 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Harel13‭

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Right now we don't have a good way of identifying people who would help build a new community, so let's do this: if you are interested in helping to build this site, please either edit or leave a comment describing your level of interest (casual visitor, enthusiast, expert in this topic within the site's scope, something else?). I'll edit them into the post later.

• I'm interested as a casual user. I expect to have occasional questions (particularly about crafts and daily life in historical periods). I have some knowledge in some very niche areas. — Monica Cellio

• I'm somewhere between casual to enthusiast. I'm also more niche. I'm particularly interested in Jewish life through the ages, though there are other subjects I like, such as the American Revolution and IDF history (if the latter counts as separate to some extent from Jewish history). While Jewish history may be a subject kept in Judaism - should such questions pop up here, I'll be happy to give my two cents. I'm willing, however, to try to help get the site going as best as I can. — Harel13

• Happy to participate, but not sure how much I'd be able to contribute by way of meaningful answers. — DonielF

• I'd be a casual visitor, I have participated in a similar initiative in the past. — 8063♦

• I also have only niche interests, but I would participate as far as the subjects I can contribute to are brought up — user8078

• I would actively ask question, especially about France in 1648 and thereabouts. — ‭tommi‭

• Casual visitor. Likely to help out with various meta stuff early on to get the site going. - Lundin

• I took history in college. I'll definitely be asking questions! — High school student‭

• Sign me up! I've taken history courses. — Technologically illiterate‭

• History is a hobby of mine. Specific interests vary over time, but usually pre-WW2. I'd ask questions occasionally. — FractionalRadix‭

• I have at least 20 questions? I'm stipulating a number so that you know you'll be seeing many questions from me! - Chgg Clou‭

posted over 2 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

2y ago

Monica Cellio‭ staff

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I have two issues about 'History' 😅

1. Sites like Quora are always plagued with trolls — people who ask insulting questions such as 'If France is so much bigger than Belgium, why haven't they annexed it?' (or variations thereof). In spite of my nickname, I'm actually not Welsh (just love Welsh names!) but Portuguese/German, and I'm tired of answering such questions seriously. It's always hard to figure out if the OP is just a troll or are genuinely interested in historic details. So how will this be addressed in an upcoming Code of Conduct?
2. I'm not a historian, just like history, and I'm quite narrow in my focus. I tend to specialise in very obscure and humorous episodes from the past. Most of these are not generally 'public knowledge', rarely feature in history books, and can sometimes be offensive to some people, because they 'rub against the grain' of what is supposed to be the history learned in the school textbooks. Now, some of these episodes may look far-fetched or 'alternative history' even if they aren't; but in this age and time of 'fake news', 'whitewashing', all sorts of crazy beliefs (flat/hollow earth 'theories', Nazi bases in Antarctica and the Moon, aliens building the pyramids, Holocaust deniers, and so forth) and several other politically-incorrect things, relating such episodes outside the 'common trunk' of so-called 'established history' are often confused with 'fantasy' claims without any factual basis, and, as such, are not always welcome. How will such issues be dealt with?

Besides those two points, I'd definitely support a History site!

posted over 2 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Gwyneth Llewelyn‭

0 1 4 0

Tossing out this draft proposal to get things going, based on what's been said so far. Please leave comments below - I'll update this post with given feedback. Though feel free to edit it yourself & regard it as "community wiki".

Community name: History
URL: history.codidact.com
Categories: Q&A, Discussion, Meta.

On-topic

• Questions about past events in the history of mankind, that can be answered with sources and references.
• Questions that can be categorized under the various auxiliary sciences of history are generally on-topic.
• Questions about how to perform historical research in practice, including methods, tools and sources used for such.
• The Discussion category¹⁾ allows for more subjective questions, that may not necessarily be answerable with facts or documented research. This includes speculating about alternative history scenarios ("what if...") or discussing matters where historians have not yet reached consensus. However, answers are still encouraged to be backed with references and come to conclusions based on related research or related historical events, rather than pure opinions.

Off-topic

• Questions that are rants in disguise ("If x were so great, then why didn't they...") or otherwise purposely provocative for the sake of creating conflict ("trolling"). Also see Codidact Code of Conduct.
• Low effort questions that can easily be answered by a quick Wikipedia search or similar, including copy/paste of homework.
• Pre-historical questions that pre-date mankind and rather fit under various natural sciences, such as biology/evolution thoery, geology, astronomy etc.

Scope overlaps

• Questions about ancient languages and etymology may be on-topic, but should preferably be asked at Languages & Linguistics.
• Questions about historical events related to a specific religion may be on-topic at other communities too. These kind of questions should be fine to ask here even though they may be on-topic elsewhere too.

¹⁾ Including this as a separate category, as per this answer, which currently sits at community consensus 7 for, 0 against. This seems like a potential "hot potato" however, where people might have strong opinions for or against.

posted over 2 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

2y ago

Lundin‭

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Scope question: Asking "what if X happened" would be considered too general; would asking "if X happened, is it plausible that Y would be its outcome" be in-scope? (Not sure whether a subject being on-topic on spec sci should influence any scope decisions here.)

posted over 2 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

DonielF‭

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