That's a nice theory.

However, as a former mod of AskHistorians, I disagree. Most people who post low-quality answers fall into a few main categories:

• The ones who heard something once and think their half-remembered scrap of data is just as worthwhile as an expert's years of study in the subject. This is the "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge" group.

• The ones who think that every question must have an answer. It's bad if someone asks a question and noone answers, so these people's half-baked answer is better than no answer. They sometimes even justify it by saying they're "kicking off the discussion" - as if the experts here need help getting started! These are the "graffiti" group - when they see a blank thread, they just have to scribble on it!

• Occasionally a question will be on a sensitive topic, and there will be people who have an agenda to push regarding that topic (a good example is the repeated question about why Africa didn't develop as much as the other continents - to which some people will rush to answer that it's because Africans are stupider than normal humans). These are the "crusaders".

The "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge" group and the "graffiti" group are both, like you say, trained by reddit to write their opinions everywhere and anywhere. And, when they're in AskHistorians, they follow the same habits: I have to write something here, because it's empty and I think my answer is suitable.

Yes, some of these different types of people do it for the prestige of having their answer posted in an academic subreddit like this one. But, even though that prestige is measured by the upvotes their answer gets, it's not about the karma - it's about being the person with the "best" answer (where "best" means the one at the top of the thread). It's a subtle difference, but important. I really don't think people post answers here to acquire karma. They post here to acquire prestige and approval and renown (which can be measured by upvotes), but it's not actually about the karma itself.

EDIT: Thanks for the gold, anonymous donor person! :)

A lot of people, including myself, have very little (if any at all) knowledge on most of the things that are debated here. I still love to read the questions though, and whenever I find an answer that isn't from a flaired user, but seems to have some coherence, is decently sourced, and includes a rather logical (in my layman eyes) conclusion, then I usually upvote it. My ignorance forbids me to recognize if it is indeed a well written post or something that looks like one.

I do not think there is a way around that, unless you only allow flaired users to post replies, which I think would pretty much kill most discussions.

To sum up, I do not think that "terrible top-level comments" are done on purpose "to get on the karma train". There are WAY better forums for you to do that by posting a cat doing something silly. I believe most people here just want to help and learn, and sometimes one person will make a good-natured comment, get some upvotes from the laymans like myself, offend the sensibility of more educated posters. As long as those posters take the time to point out the mistakes, I think the learning process is worthwile. I've learned more from my false premises here than from my good posts.

EDIT: typos and my horrible english for which I'm sorry.

So as someone with a bachelors degree in History and a general knowledge of a few subjects of interest, is it frowned upon for me to attempt to answer an unanswered question through research with reputable sources? I'm no expert, but I'd like to think I could provide some knowledge.