They're a good starting point, nothing more or less. What the course is brilliant at is introducing the basic concepts of a given topic. Thus you have terms you can search for more information on: mercantilism, Indian Ocean Trade, Mogadishu city state, and so on. Also, you get familiar with some topics as they turn up again and again in differing contexts, and after watching all of them you start grasping even some idea of where the gaps are.

John Green has his own biases, obviously, but quite frankly that doesn't matter so much for this (in my opinion) as he's giving enough that you can find out more and make up your own mind. Also, everyone has bias.

Don't, however, go quoting new facts you learned from the show to seem clever. It's a starting point, not its own education. Several topics are over-simplified and have skews and large holes of missing information, which will let you down if you try to use it to seem clever. Like a corkscrew, if used as intended it's great.

I would adore to see him doing another history course. He is genuinely engaging and good at presenting a large amount of information in an easily grasped way, and there's definitely more than enough history left to go around.

It's as reliable as it can be for a 10 minute video covering the basics of some complex topics. Keep in mind that it's aimed at kids in high school and early college. The facts are broadly correct, though you'll always be able to find more detail and depth by asking specific questions to specialists, e.g. /r/askhistorians.

The main goal of the show is, I believe, to avoid the two major biases found in classrooms: euro-centrism and "great people" history. You will get other biases instead, but just by avoiding the big two, they're encouraging many young members of their audience to think about the topics presented in a more thorough manner than they would otherwise.

Its a useful tool. I wouldn't consider it comprehensive enough to quite call it reliable, however that isn't what the Green brothers were aiming for. Going by the Kahn Academy method of open-source lectures, Crash Course is intended more as a gateway into tangential learning about as many viewpoints of specific periods in history as is possible.

Due to its nature, the science and social sciences covered on the channel are a much more informative source of information, yet the history and literature subjects are incredibly subjective. The best one can do with it is watch an episode on a culture or time period that is of interest, then do your own investigating on the places and names, or reading material that is cited over the course of the 10-12 minutes.

Anything is going to be biased. I quite like them overall though. They're generally a pretty good starting point/overview. I use them as a teaching tool in my own classes to give some extra context/background or to touch on things I would otherwise skip due to curriculum or time constraints.

Certainly some value in the series but I think that's been covered enough in this thread, not really much criticism going on when (IMO) there is plenty to be had. I think there is a pretty low standard for it because its short and any attention given to history that's not horrible is seen as a good thing by the community.

Because I'm not a fan I've only seen about a dozen of the videos (which isn't that much compared to the total) so I can only draw criticism from what I've seen:

Dark Ages Video had some serous problems with his comment on how social mobility was low and his generally strict drawing of the difference between peasants and nobility contradicts the evidence. There was also a failure to engage with the substance of why historians avoid value judgments in periodizations.

His "Mongols are the exception" bit is sometimes inaccurate and I'm not a fan of that sort of "quirky" history act since is sacrifices accuracy trying to be weird in a good way. For example he perpetuates the "Afghanistan is the Graveyard of Empires myth" that's been addressed in this subreddit a few times.

He also has a bit of a noble savage thing going on when talking about hunter gatherer societies and civilization.

Those are from the videos I did watch. Since I didn't enjoy or learn from them I avoided the rest so I can only say so much but I would give a word of caution to those who take them too seriously.

I think it also depends on your view of casual history, how stringent should we be considering its better than nothing? What standards should we have for pop history?

That being said I enjoyed his economic videos a lot more so its not like I hate the guy too much.

I like it. It doesn't necessarily go in depth but it gives a good basic overview. I appreciate the fact that Green goes out of his way to point out his own bias.

But it would be nice if he put contemporary sources in the video description.

Well, the material is far better than what you get in school.

I posted about a specific episode 9 days ago. If you want to read it here it is: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2apiem/in_a_recent_crash_course_the_famous_john_green/