https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fj1jym/rules_roundtable_vi_no_historical_whatif/
created by Georgy_K_Zhukov on 05/04/2020 at 13:00 UTC*
74 upvotes, 3 top-level comments (showing 3)
"What If" can often be a fun historical game to play, and it is one which many users, and even mods, enjoy. Imagining how history might have played out in the face of even minor changes to events can easily create a whole different world, far removed from our reality. But it is precisely because of this that one of our submission rules prohibits questions that are Historical "What Ifs", and we limit questions to what did happen, not what might have gone differently.
We prohibit these questions for two reasons. The first one is simply a matter or practicality. A 'What If' question is less going to result in an *answer*, than it is a response that presents a plausible scenario. And while someone well informed on the topic can craft a compelling one in many cases, it isn't something that can be judged in the same way an answer to a 'normal' question is. These scenarios by their nature require making assumptions and setting ground-rules, and even the most minor of differences can result in two wildly different conclusions coming from the same information if handled by two different people. Expand this to a popular thread, and you can easily have dozens of responses of varying knowledge and quality, but none of which can be judged in the same way that we do a sourced response.
So in plain terms, we can't moderate these kinds of questions to the standard that /r/AskHistorians[1] is based around. We know they can be fun to read and think about, but they aren't fun to moderate.
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians
Additionally though, and on less practical terms, there is the deeper issue of how 'What If' questions engage with the historical method. To be sure, counterfactuals are one of many tools within the historians arsenal. Some enjoy making use of them, while others shun them, but while they can often help an historian think through the implications of a conclusion, they don't make up the sum of our work. You can often see them mentioned and worked through on the subreddit as part of a larger response which is grounded in sources and reaches a conclusion supported as such, but that doesn't mean we can unleash them onto the subreddit on their own, as they simply aren't answers themselves, but rather intellectual exercises.
As with *all* of our restrictions on asking questions, we attempt to keep them as narrow as possible. The two rules of thumb that we follow are A) *Does the question require a counterfactual scenario to get a response?* and B) *Does the question require a time machine to set up?*
For the first, what we mean by that is what would a conclusion look like? Would it be something that is citing historical fact, or at least supportable inference based on the evidence of what *did* happen? If so, we'll likely give it an OK, but if not, we'll likely remove it. Or put another way, are you asking about what a group *planned* to do, or asking to speculate what those plans would have looked like in reality? We can know the first, but not the second.
For the latter, questions such as "*Who would win in a fight, [Period X Army] versus [Period Y Army]?*" are the most obvious kinds of examples, but in sum, if you are having things compete across time periods, it almost certainly would be removed.
If it is a question you really want to ask anyways, the best thing to do is to consider the underlying question that you are asking. "*If I want to imagine what might have happened, what information would help me do so?*"
One of the most common questions we see here which I'll use as an example is "*Would the USSR have beat the Nazis on their own?*" It is interesting to think about, but to answer it requires *so* many assumptions! Why are they on their own, for starters? Did the UK make peace, did they get invaded, did they never even declare war? Does Lend-Lease happen? Does Japan act differently? I could go on and on, but the point is that you can't evaluate this in a vacuum, and you need to answer a *lot* of questions to even arrive at a scenario where you can work through the matter.
But there are obvious questions you might ask which gird such an inquiry and are well suited! Asking, for instance, about the impact of Lend-Lease on the Soviet war effort is a popular one, or asking about how Soviet and German industrial capacity compared in the lead up to war could be another. The *answer* to that first question is one we can only speculate on, but you can ask about the kind of information that helps you speculate about it better.
If you are unsure how you might modify a question to be less 'What If?', you are always invited to reach out to the modteam and we're happy to help as well.
And of course, if you quite explicitly want to ask an Historian 'What If?', there are two great communities for it which we recommend you check out, /r/HistoricalWhatIf[2] and /r/HistoryWhatIf[3].
2: https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoricalWhatIf
3: https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryWhatIf
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You can find the rest of this Rules Roundtable series here
Comment by Gankom at 05/04/2020 at 17:10 UTC
11 upvotes, 1 direct replies
What Ifs are *really* popular questions sometimes, but the thing is, with a little work most 'what if' questions can actually be turned into really good, really interesting questions that match the rules. It's all about the angle and perspective you have when asking the question. If you never need a bit of help phrasing things, let us know!
Comment by DerbyTho at 05/04/2020 at 17:10 UTC
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
What is the difference between /r/HistoricalWhatIf and /r/HistoryWhatIf?
Comment by Libertat at 06/04/2020 at 06:29 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I began to see more of allohistorical propositions in academic publishing these days, as in a recent book on Schiefflen Plan musing for some pages about it. It's less a trend than "rules" being relaxed enough, but is it observable in other academias?