https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/7605/why-hendry-ford-antisemitic-and-was-he
It's a bit muddled but the basic premise is a sound question: was Ford antisemitic?
-
I don't know why this question was downvoted, meta is the perfect place for these questions, and so I upvoted it.– ihtkwotFeb 8, 2013 at 14:26
-
1@ihtkwot Voting on Meta is often used to show agreement/disagreement with the premise of the post, downvotes here don't necessarily mean that it's a bad question to ask.– yannisFeb 8, 2013 at 18:15
Add a comment
|
3 Answers
I didn't vote on it or close it, but I can see several reasons why others did. First of all, any question that asks "why" is likely to be closed, because nobody can truly know why somebody did something or felt something. Secondly, the question seems to me as if it is more of a statement than a question. It goes way too far in trying to influence the way people answer. It seems as if the person asking the "question" is actually offering up his own opinion and asking others to agree with him. That in itself is more likely to spur discussion and debate, rather than elicit an actual answer.
-
2Also, the question itself was very badly written. Perhaps that shouldn't matter, but people do seem to be much less forgiving for such questions.– T.E.D. ModFeb 8, 2013 at 12:47
If you read through the comments on the question, at least a couple of people were quite up front about their problems with that question. Some of that (the lack of references) has been corrected now.
At over 2K, you should have enough rep to vote to reopen it. If you really feel that way, I'm curious why you haven't done that. If enough folks agree with you, it will get reopened. That's how our community moderation is supposed to work.
-
I am not sure it's really reopenable as it is. I wanted to get the sense of the community before I vote, as maybe I missed something Feb 8, 2013 at 13:00
-
The reason I didn't give sources is because there are too many sources and I thought Hendry Ford is very famous. Looks like I underestimate his famousness. This guy invented specialized worker system and lower production costs. ALL manufacturing is done his way.– user4951Feb 10, 2013 at 17:59
-
1@JimThio - Ford is famous. The fact that he is considered to be antisemitic is not.– DVKFeb 12, 2013 at 14:27
-
And that's why I want to ask. If I ask something too obvious somebody would complain again. I DON'T even know if he is anti semitic at all. Maybe he has some grudge to some people that happen to be jewish or something.– user4951Feb 14, 2013 at 4:17
-
1I didn't vote for closing the question (I don't think), but I must say that I grew a bit tired with @JimThio's dare-I-say lazy follow-ups on comments: It very much looked as if he just typed a quick phrase into Google and posted whatever came up (or even the link to "too many sources"). This also showed up on other Q&As. IMHO it is not how you can have a meaningful discourse, with all the (unfiltered) information out there. My personal choice is to abstain from further comments after some point, so as far as I am concerned, also this question could have remained open. (No big deal either way.)– DruxFeb 23, 2013 at 12:21
-
Somebody ask for sources and there are so many of those. I thought it's something most historians know. Most historians here know more about history more than I am. I wasn't aware it wasn't obvious. However, I did add many sources on the questions.– user4951Feb 24, 2013 at 12:33
-
Is there even a single historian on this website? By "historian", I mean someone with a Ph.D. in Modern or Ancient History or a related discipline and an academic track record with published work. My impression is that there isn't even a single one, and looking at the general level of questions and answers, I don't see how that could change. Apr 11, 2013 at 4:25
The way I would characterize the question is "incomplete." At one level, the OP answers his own question, by asserting that Henry Ford was not anti-semitic. Then why ask the question? The answer appears to be that he is trying to refute a particular allegation from some OTHER source. In order to answer the OP's question, we need to know who that other source is, what he allegedly said, and why the OP is trying to refute him.
