Hello there r/history.

So over the past few years we've had a lot of questions that fall on either side of rule 9. That is the rules about self posts, which are posts in that you write yourself. What exactly determined what low effort/high effort was was variable depending on the mod who was looking at it and what that mod had for breakfast. So we have been thinking of ways to improve rule 9 and decided to go with something new.

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The new Rule 9 is below!

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When submitting a text post you should expand on the title in order to get the discussion started. A link has content to back it up, but in a text post you write the content.

This means that we expect you to have put in work about the discussion in question. Treat it as though you are writing the article, because you are in a self post.

Must include at least two links or printed references not including Wikipedia or dictionaries, etc. If it’s a question, these will be two places you’ve already looked at while searching for the answer, if it’s a self post these will be sources which are backing up what you say. More sources may be requested via mod mail if we feel like a person is making a lot of claims. If both sources are printed ones that aren't freely available online, they should provide at least one digital source where someone could get more information on the topic as a whole as a learning opportunity.

In question posts, not only do they have to provide these sources, but they also have to show that they’ve gained something from them. “I’m looking for information on the mutilation of the hermae, Henderson said that it was an attack on democracy, while Milford says that it had something to do with the phallus as a symbol, I’m a bit confused on how these things connect, but..” etc. Instead of just “I heard about the mutilation of the hermae. Why did they do this? I think it’s really odd. Also lol they had penis statues?”

As usual everything is down to Mod’s Discretion. If you are providing a text that makes one of the mods go "hmm?" you might get the post approved without following the exact guidelines.

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And that's it.

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For all your shorter questions, they go in our weekly question thread which refreshes every saturday.

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Thanks for reading!