Creating a FAAHQ: Frequently Asked Alternate History Questions

I'm not if something like this exists, but if not I was wondering if people would be interested in creating one.

It occurs on this website with a fair amount of frequency that certain AH questions pop up time and time again. Questions such as : What if Islam didn't exist? What if Christianity didn't exist? What if the Americans lost their war of independence? What if the Americans won the War of 1812? The list of course goes on.

Now, everytime one of these questions gets posted, someone invariably pops up and informs them to use the search button for older threads. This is not as easy as it seems.

My idea then would be to create a FAQ of common AH questions (a FAAHQ if you will) with some of the usual answers in point form beneath them.

Take for example Americans losing the ARW: The FAAHQ could cover some of the basic concepts always mentioned during a thread. Was the war averted entirely? Was it a military defeat early on (say at Saratoga)? Or was it a military defeat later on in the war? How plausible are each of these scenarios? How might Britain react to victory (would they be magnaminous or oppressive)? How might this reaction change according to each scenario? What American grievances would need to be addressed (either before the war to avert it or after the war to mollify the Americans)?

The idea behind the FAAHQ wouldn't be to stop these questions from arising, but instead to hopefully make more informed questions (at least more detailed ones) by newcomers and longtimers alike so that discussions on these topics don't have to retread stuff mentioned many times over.

So...

does anyone here think doing something like this would be a good idea? If so, what are some common AH questions that should go on a FAAHQ? Would anyone be willing to contribute?
 
The problem with a good part of these questions, is that they are awfully vague. Only with the WI : No Islam, it could go in plenty of different and contradicting answers, at the point we could as well provide an entiere TL that wouldn't be a definitive answer as well.

Finally, depending on who answer, their knowledge or interests, even a FAQ could only partially answer, or being wrong. Who and how manage an AH.com FAQ?
 
I think this is a good idea. Maybe the thread could be stickied?

Also, going to put this here: Native Americans with distant Viking DNA are not going to be magically immune to smallpox. So stop asking.
 
The problem with a good part of these questions, is that they are awfully vague. Only with the WI : No Islam, it could go in plenty of different and contradicting answers, at the point we could as well provide an entiere TL that wouldn't be a definitive answer as well.

Finally, depending on who answer, their knowledge or interests, even a FAQ could only partially answer, or being wrong. Who and how manage an AH.com FAQ?

I agree that the questions can be extremely vague, and that does make it difficult.

But I feel because of the vagueness of the common questions, a lot of answers get retread quite often, and even some stereotypes get pulled out of the hat (such as "Britain colonizing somewhere in New World is great way to make First Country [you see that alot in Argentina threads]). While a FAQ really couldn't give a complete answer to most vague questions, it could hopefully push people in the right direction (of say making their question more specific).

Taking a "World without Islam" Question as an example. As you noted, the implications of such a question are huge, and a FAAHQ would probably be unable to answer all of them. But it could try. And it could be more concise than four different threads spread out over the history of AH.com that people are told to go search out.

The FAAHQ wouldn't have to always agree on points, and it could make note of disagreements (such as the oft argued would Egypt stay loyal to Byzantium or would it rebel [please no one argue that question here:p]). It could also point to the various effects of no Islam. How would the preservation of classical knowledge procede? How would the history of science procede (for one, we wouldn't have the word Alchemy since it was based on an Arabic term)? Or the history of Mathematics (Arabic numerals... what happens to them. How long does it take for the concept of zero to travel to Europe from India with the Caliphate bridging the gap?)? The history of Empires, such as the Byzantines, Sassanians, Franks, and Visigoths? The history of religion (would Zoroastrianism collapse and be replaced by [what?] or renew itself? Would Christianity ever experience the Iconoclastic period without Islamic influence? How would the papacy evolve with a stronger Byzantium?)? How would the economics of the Mediterranean evolve without the split into Muslim and Christian (and how might this shape an Age of Exploration)? How would Africa develop without Islam?

If the FAAHQ could at least make people aware of these questions, I think it would be worth it.

I was thinking a section could be given to it on the Wiki if it panned out, and it could be communally edited, or a group could edit it. At least at the moment, I was wondering to see if people were interested.
 
The problem with a good part of these questions, is that they are awfully vague. Only with the WI : No Islam, it could go in plenty of different and contradicting answers, at the point we could as well provide an entiere TL that wouldn't be a definitive answer as well.

Finally, depending on who answer, their knowledge or interests, even a FAQ could only partially answer, or being wrong. Who and how manage an AH.com FAQ?

This is, I think, fatal to the suggestion.

Better would be a 'common questions' thread with links to previous threads on the topic. Most common threads are, at least to a point, on-going discussions on a subject, so trying to 'end' the discussion with a FAQ is harmful to discourse and real knowledge. A FAQ essentially lets one faction in a discussion claim their beliefs as the 'final word' on a topic. Not good, in my opinion.
 
This is, I think, fatal to the suggestion.

Better would be a 'common questions' thread with links to previous threads on the topic. Most common threads are, at least to a point, on-going discussions on a subject, so trying to 'end' the discussion with a FAQ is harmful to discourse and real knowledge. A FAQ essentially lets one faction in a discussion claim their beliefs as the 'final word' on a topic. Not good, in my opinion.

I wouldn't want that to be the point of the FAQ. The point of it wouldn't be to be the be all and end all of the discussion, but hopefully more of a primer for discussion, along with making clear a number of points that are always put forward.

Links to ongoing threads is a good idea (even to old ones so people don't have to search).
 
The thing is, we couldn't avoid having contradictory point of view. Let's take the exemple of no-Islam TL Egypt.

Would it revolt or no? What would we have eventually, a FAQ with two contradicting answer and how it would be different from arguing on it on a board thread?
Only one answer (then how select it, or avoid edit wars?

The wiki structure prevents, IMHO, to make such FAQ really efficient if it could be indeed helpful.
What we could do, on the other hand and as suggested by Maninthe, is to point the threads where the answers were interestings and helpful (not all the threads, for such questions, it would be endless) and resume these in the wiki page eventually linking or advising sites, books, studies, etc.
 
The thing is, we couldn't avoid having contradictory point of view. Let's take the exemple of no-Islam TL Egypt.

Would it revolt or no? What would we have eventually, a FAQ with two contradicting answer and how it would be different from arguing on it on a board thread?
Only one answer (then how select it, or avoid edit wars?


The wiki structure prevents, IMHO, to make such FAQ really efficient if it could be indeed helpful.
What we could do, on the other hand and as suggested by Maninthe, is to point the threads where the answers were interestings and helpful (not all the threads, for such questions, it would be endless) and resume these in the wiki page eventually linking or advising sites, books, studies, etc.

Maybe for a point of contention, we could just say that that there really isn't an agreement about it and link to a thread arguing it? It couldn't stop the FAQ from providing some other useful information about the question.

But really, I am all for ideas. My main concern about this FAQ was in part to stop people from telling others to use the search button to answer common questions when the search button isn't always the easiest thing to use.
 
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