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What are the guide lines for historical questions to be on topic on this site?

This is clearly inspired by the Story from “Hagakure: Book of the samurai” question. Where do we draw the line?

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The question was not about a technique in martial arts, a strategy that shapes martial arts, nor a philosophy or historical context that shapes techniques or strategies. It's also not a historical tradition that ties into current practices ("Why do we wear our sash this way?" "Why do we bow 3 times?" etc.)

I mean, there's lots of interesting questions we can ask if we move away from techniques, training and strategy, but stuff like, "What effects did the silver crash have on Chinese martial arts?", "What ways did piracy contribute to the intermixing of martial arts techniques across east and south Asia?", and so on, are actually a better fit for history sites or historical martial arts journals with an academic focus.

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  • Actually, I like it… However, I feel this is widening in scope which will need broad approval. Seeing how few questions are asked, I think it is a good idea. Thanks. On a side note, we should stop agreeing with each other all the time. It's getting too close for comfort⸮ ☺
    – Sardathrion - against SE abuse
    Oct 26, 2016 at 7:31
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    There's two problems if you do open it up: 1) What do quality questions look like? 2) what do quality answers look like? We'd probably do well with looking at previous questions around "history of Shaolin" to see what might be good/bad things to watch out for from current Q&As here. Right now, very few sites go deep for what I think of as good answers/sources in martial arts history, like this: chinesemartialstudies.com
    – Bankuei
    Oct 26, 2016 at 16:04
  • Also, one of the things that makes asking questions tough after a point is that you end up with more direct sources for answers - for example, I could ask about a specific style of silat, or I could just contact the instructors directly. And if they can't answer it, then I have to go train and experiment on my own and figure it out.
    – Bankuei
    Oct 26, 2016 at 16:06

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