Holocaust/Nazi/WW2 trivia questions - what to do?

Question

It seems to me there are a lot of low-quality questions being asked about the trio of topics above.

I'm not referring to holocaust denial questions, which should obviously be killed with fire. I mean questions like this one. This user asked, apparently in good faith, whether Jews in Nazi Germany got electricity.

With no disrespect intended to the asker, this is a silly question. It doesn't take account of

1) the fact that electricity was used by relatively few people before the postwar era

2) the fact that Jews in camps or ghettoes obviously did not have electronic doodads, nor was that a major concern for them, given that they were being murdered in one way or another.

Someone who knows enough about history to know what the holocaust is ought to know both of the above things. It seems like asking a question about the Nazis for the sake of asking a question.

I feel we should discourage questions of this kind, and the current rules and sanctions aren't adequate for the task. I'm not sure what the solution is.

Am I imagining this problem? If I'm not, what's the solution?

Edit: Here is another example of an extremely weak question about the Nazis...

Answer 1

I'm the author of one of the questions that you linked in this meta post.

I completely realize that it was a silly question after doing some more research, and that's why I deleted the question.

Someone who knows enough about history to know what the holocaust is ought to know both of the above things. It seems like asking a question about the Nazis for the sake of asking a question.

I'm actually a middle school student who certainly doesn't know enough about history and we were learning about the Holocaust (since school ended).

We got a project to do about writing a diary entry from a ordinary German citizen's point of view, and my character was classified as a Jew. Even though it wasn't necessary, I still wanted to get as many factual and accurate historical scenarios into the diary entry, and while writing I stumbled upon the question of how much assets did a Jew in Nazi Germany get, especially electricity. Of course I could have went to Google and/or ask my teacher, but I automatically went to History SE without thinking probably because of the higher support rate here.

I certainly realize that I did not put enough details in my question, leaving it vague and unclear.

the fact that Jews in camps or ghettoes obviously did not have electronic doodads, nor was that a major concern for them, given that they were being mudered in one way or another.

I didn't specify, but for the sake of this answer I'll just say that my character was classified as a Jew but not in a camp.

I just decided to assume that electricity was accessible and continued writing.

===========

Don't mind me, just a newbie here on History SE passing by.

Answer 2

As someone who doesn't participate in close votes, its been my observation that this site is already doing this unofficially^*. Questions on Nazis, Hitler, Jews, and the Holocaust seem to have a higher bar to clear in order to not get closed. My personal theory for this is that longtime users of this site have had to put up with so much illogical nonsense and cynical propaganda on these subjects from various stripes of racist and supremacist (and usually new) users, that they don't feel they can afford to be as forgiving of slop on them.

So if you were posting this question because you want to be harder on these questions than on most others and thought that might not be kosher (pun intended), don't worry. You don't appear to be alone.

For example, of the two questions you linked, one got closed in a bit less than half a day, and the other was self-deleted the next day with 3 close votes gathered.

However, this is sort of an unofficial (perhaps not even conscious) moderation policy on the part of individual users. So there's admittedly no warning about this to new posters. This means they have to figure it out by getting their fingers burned.^**

Perhaps it might be worth editing the tag wikis for those topics to mention the raised standards for these questions?

^{* - I can say for a fact that using your first posts on this site to post racist material is a really great way to get your account destroyed. I'm one of those called upon to do the destruction, and few things I do here bring me more enjoyment...}

^{** - Honestly not sure if this is a problem or not, considering who usually falls afoul of this.}

Answer 3

As long as a question is not a clear attempt at holocaust denial or blaming the Jews for what the Germans (and the Soviets, but that's another story) did to them I don't think it should be treated any differently than questions about say the Japanese treatment of Europeans in the Dutch East Indies and Malacca, or the treatment of Ukrainians by the Soviets under Stalin.

All are valid questions, but can easily drift into shouting matches, so tread carefully and watch with an eagle eye.