Hello, I've been browsing this fantastic Subbreddit for months now and I always love reading the incredible detailed and fascinating answers that mods regularly produce but I was wondering (as the title suggests) as there ever been an instances of flaired mods disagreeing on an event or answer in the comment section?
From what I've seen, mods are typically very friendly to each other here but as Historian often has many points of debate and 'camps' so to speak I just thought it would be interesting to ask if these disagreements have found their way into a debate here.
Apologies if this is a silly question and I'd completely understand if this is to be removed. Regardless, thank you very much for your time :)
We don't disagree on anything, mainly because, well, might as well admit this, we're all alt accounts of the same 73 year old white guy.
Imb4 post is removed to violating the 10 year rule /s
More seriously, their was a bit of a tiff when one flaired user asserted that the incident at wounded knee was a massacre and another flaired user asserted it was a battle. Their was even a bad history follow up post. That's some subredditdrama level hijinks right there.
Also, there was once an extended exchange between two flaired users over whether the atomic bombs or the soviet invasion of Manchuria was more important to convincing the Japanese leadership to surrender. I'm pretty sure that ended amicably though (the debate, not the war)
As for drama between actual mods? I can't think of any times that spilled out in public, which makes this subreddit pretty unique. The cabal is very good at keeping its internal workings shadowy. If they ever fight over something like how to dole out the shill money I assume that they go to bad history and settle the matter Churchill vs Stalin style: with absurd amounts of alcohol at ungodly hours of night
So, to provide a serious answer to your question, we thrive on the diversity and knowledge of our flaired users. When scholars approach a subject from a different background (history, anthropology, archaeology, etc.), or as you suggest different 'camps', there is a chance that different approaches conflict in their interpretation of the past.
What separates /r/AskHistorians from other more volatile forums is the dedication to civility and respect in debate while maintaining a solid grasp of the limits of your expertise and a teachable attitude.
The vetting process for flaired users intentionally selects those scholars with a proven background of maintaining civil discourse. When we disagree we still maintain respect the work, dedication to the field, and wealth of acquired knowledge of the other party. We know we can learn from a constructive debate, and welcome the chance to explore other interpretations.
I'm still new to modding but I can't remember any "big crisis moments" because when there is a disagreement there isn't a major explosion, or drama, or fighting. If you read a thread with a debate, it is almost always civil, respectful, and a great opportunity to learn about the different facets of the question. You may not even notice you are reading a debate on a potentially heated topic. We approach the other party with respect, ask questions, willingly acknowledge we don't have all the answers, and see it as an opportunity to learn.
This environment is only possible because we trust and respect each other.
Well any conflict is resolved through ritual duels at which hundreds of flairs will gather and watch the spectacle baying for blood.
To be honest, I can't really think of much in the way of major disagreements between flaired users--there have been a few, but it is rare. Part of the reason is that the questions asked just don't really lead themselves to much in the way of disagreement. From an academic standpoint, they are often pretty basic--which certainly isn't a bad thing! The other reason is that although there are a large number of total flairs, this is a number that covers the entirety of human history, and so there aren't all that many overlapping specialties. So for example, there are quite a few people flared for Greece and Rome, but nobody besides me really does the Roman economy, and so if I make a contentious statement I probably won't get called out.
So the question seems to be about differences of opinion between the flaired users (i.e. the subject matter experts, most of whom are not mods) on history topics, rather than scraps between the moderators (all of whom are flaired, most of whom are also experts) over subreddit policy.
The example that comes to my mind are some striking differences in opinion on how to approach Jared Diamond's pop history book Guns Germs and Steel, which range from blazing rage, to firm recommendations against, to ambivalence, to one flair who actually recommended it in some particular context. But these tend to happen in separate threads, rather than several flairs in the same thread challenging each other.
There has been disagreement over the Holodomor between several flaired users and rusoved, who is a mod, so that almost fulfils your criteria.
Ive been around a long time, and I've seen flaired users give answers that are just too short, or even plain wrong. Thankfully, these comments were then deleted by the mods indiscriminately.
In every instance, the said flaired users were commenting outside of their expertise.