Is it time to update our custom close reasons?

Question

There are three slots of custom close reasons. Currently, we only use two:

• Questions on social sciences other than History are off-topic here, unless they also involve history in some fashion. While ethics, archaeology, etc. are all connected to history, each field has their own experts who are better equipped to answer such questions.
• Requests for trivia or basic historical facts are off-topic if they can be easily answered by looking up the relevant topic on Wikipedia. We're trying to complement common historical references, not duplicate them.

It's not uncommon to see people say there's a limited choice of close reasons, so an approximate one had to be used. Should we revise our existing close reasons, and / or add a third one?

Note: there's a 400 character limit on the close reason. Please be judicious about the use of links and try to be concise in general.

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Answers should explicitly state if the close reason is a replacement for an existing reason or a new reason so there is no confusion on what exactly an upvote on that answer means.

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2018/03/19 Update: Based on the top ranked answers, push questions has been now added to the close reasons list, and the trivia close reason has been updated according to this post.

Future discussions regarding custom close reasons should be made in a new thread.

Answer 1

New Close Reason

One option for the third custom close reason slot is a "Push Questions" close reason. This is adapted form Politics.SE, and was first suggested in a previous answer by @yannis:

The primary purpose of this question appears to be to promote or discredit a specific idea, theory, cause, group or person. It does not appear to be a good-faith effort to learn more about history as defined in the help centre.

Answer 2

Update the "trivia or basic historical facts" reason

The trivia close reason is used, in practice, for closing questions that are apparently answered by Wikipedia. However, the word "trivia" is rather nebulous. Many perfectly fine questions regarding factoids could be considered "trivia", for instance. On the other hand, questions on complex subjects may still be closed if Wikipedia happens to have an exact article.

So, I suggest we modify it by adapting the old "general reference" close reason. Moreover, since many of our best questions arise from users challenging Wikipedia's claims, I also suggest including a clarification on how such questions should proceed.

Basically, something like:

This question is too basic; it can be definitively answered by a single link to the relevant topic on Wikipedia or another standard reference source. If you are instead questioning the correctness of a reference source, please edit the post to supply a link and explain what you find unclear, or why you believe it to be wrong or incomplete.

Answer 3

New Close Reason

Another option for the third custom close reason could be:

This question seems to be based on a false premise. That is, the question is based on one or more "facts" that are not supported by the known historic record nor in the generally accepted historic interpretation of events. Alternatively, facts have been cherry-picked in a manner that misrepresents the accepted historic record, resulting in a false premise.

We have had quite a few questions in the last few months where I've really wanted this as a close option (it'd be useful for a lot of the Holocaust "questions" too).

Answer 4

New Close Reason

Alternative, more general language

This question does not appear to be a good-faith effort to learn more about history. Please consult the help center for information about the kinds of questions that are appropriate for the History Stack Exchange.

Answer 5

New Close Reason

Since this is the wording people have been voting on for a week, I thought it ought to be included as well:

Push Question - The primary purpose of this question appears to be to promote or discredit a specific historical theory, group or political cause. It does not appear to be a good-faith effort to learn more about history, as defined in the help center.

Answer 6

New Close Reason

"No preliminary research has been done"

Often some questions are basically a homework pasted on the site. Or are answers easily found on wikipedia.

Answer 7

New Close Reason

Since we are restricted to only three custom close reasons, it may be a good idea have a more generalised wording. I suggest a "good faith effort" close reason for questions that show no preliminary research ("effort") or appears to be a push question ("good faith").

This question does not appear to be a good-faith effort to learn more about history. It may be a homework-style question that shows little to no effort in preliminary research, or it may appear to be primarily soapboxing rather than asking an open minded question. Questions should not be used to promote or discredit a specific idea, theory, cause, group or person.

The main difference with the other general wording suggestion is that this lists examples. The reason is to give newer users hints for when and where to use such a close reason.