We’re thrilled to share some really big news! In January we were approached by the American Historical Association (AHA) to submit ideas for a panel about AskHistorians. The proposal we produced was a (very) solid one, but AskHistorians is such a new beast in the historical scene we thought it would likely be rejected (hence no announcement). “But wouldn’t it be cool to try?”
The proposal was accepted in every regard.
The good news? Hey, we're famous! The great news? It's thanks to each and every one of you. We're the largest and most heavily trafficked history forum in the world, bar none. Now we’re going to strut our stuff at one of the largest and most heavily trafficked traditional history spaces.
The event will be from January 7-10 in Atlanta, GA. We are currently looking into having our presentations recorded (in a way we can distribute on multiple platforms) so that everyone will be able to watch the panel and see how it goes. We will also be posting the presentation abstracts in their own post shortly.
Since acceptance, we've been running around behind the scenes on top of our normal moderating to get everything together. There is about 4 months until the event, and our last hurdle is funding. We've been working with the Reddit admins, who we cannot thank enough; they have been supportive and positive throughout. Reddit, Inc. has generously agreed to cover half of our projected expenses, and have given us the go-ahead to crowdfund the remainder. Which is where you come in!
This presentation is entirely about AskHistorians as a community and how it is reshaping public history. No one is presenting on their own personal historical work. This is not really about us, it will be about you. We’re excited about heading to the world’s largest historical conference, but we’re going to Atlanta to represent you and we take that seriously. None of us are presenting within our “field” - it is entirely about AskHistorians. We really think something special is happening here, something that hasn’t been replicated anywhere else in academic history or in traditional public history venues like museums or documentaries. We’ve all together flipped the traditional method of transmitting history on its head. Normally an exhibit or a book or blog post is just thrown out and people hope to find an interested audience. Here, the audience itself starts the historical conversation and the experts respond to that. We’d like to tell other historians, other humanities fields, and more people who could be part of our community, about what we’re doing.
We are not the “ivory tower academics” that usually present at conferences. Two of our panelists are currently affiliated with universities and are applying for grants with their schools. Our other three are the most disadvantaged animal in academia - “independent scholars.” They have no access to university funding that usually sends people to conferences, and are ineligible for most external travel grants. It is projected that it will take about $7,600 total to send our 5 people to this conference. We come before you to apply for The People’s Grant.
If you think this AHA panel is something that needs to happen and would like to contribute, click the link below! Every contribution is appreciated; please only give what you can afford; we totally understand that not everyone will be in a situation to contribute financially. For those who want to there will be opportunities to help by spreading the word on social media at a later point.
Thanks again for everything from all of us, for reading, posting, upvoting, (judiciously) downvoting, and especially for submitting your questions. We hope that you're as excited as we are about this incredible opportunity for our community!
Neat, i'll buy you all a beer when you show up
I don't contribute here, because I don't have the knowledge of history needed to make useful comments (history interests me greatly, I work for a genealogy software company, but I simply don't have the necessary knowledge - I'm a programmer, not a historian), but I love reading this sub and it's well moderated comments. Kudos to everyone that takes the time to share their knowledge! Ya'll are awesome.
I will be donating what I can.
ABSTRACTS
#"AskHistorians": Outreach and Its Challenges in an Online Space
Reddit and AskHistorians: Introduction and Contextualization
This talk will serve as a grounding and a guide for the internet forum AskHistorians, with the aim of providing context for an audience seeking to interrogate methods in digital outreach, but unfamiliar with this panel’s specific case study.
Specifically, presentation will detail what AskHistorians is, providing information and statistics regarding internet traffic and readership demographics. It will also detail the “game-layer” system that the community of AskHistorians terms “Flair”. Especially key to this presentation will be the rules of the subreddit and how they have evolved, focusing on how they are intended to both force and allow people to construct good and specific questions and answers within the forum. As part of this, the introduction will also include a brief history of the host-website “Reddit”, along with a description of its structure; there will be a discussion around how such hosts influence and shape their subaltern forums (of which AskHistorians is only one of many). This presentation will end with a brief history of AskHistorians itself, focusing on concrete changes in policy which took it from a small forum with a handful of readers to a powerhouse of 350,000 regular subscribers and millions of casual visitors.
This introduction will focus closely on what AskHistorians is and how it operates, and it is conceived that anyone listening to this presentation will be equipped with enough information to fully understand the following presentations.
An Institutional Model for Public History on the Web
AskHistorians is difficult to explain for those involved in conventional outreach through museums and institutions, because it doesn't really fit into the mould of "outreach" as it has usually been understood. This talk contrasts the outreach model of museums and public history sites, to the education model of universities and graduate studies programmes, to the "mediator" model of AskHistorians, in order to extract lessons about what engages members of the lay public on the web. Crucially, the goal of this talk is to explain the ways in which AskHistorians (AH) is not doing public history nor history education as they are understood, but rather something new.
AH works on a system of approximation and mediation, trying to attract both laypeople and experts to an open space where they can interact and share knowledge. The goal is to give lay users not only the product of the historical process, but a glimpse at that process itself; AH readers come into contact with working historians, graduate students, and experts in related fields (Linguistics, archaeology, social sciences) who volunteer to expose how their field actually works. Notably, AH is a space in which laypeople can be exposed to abstract discussion of historiography as well as specific discussion of historical events and people. Allowing readers' curiosity to guide discussion has produced unexpected results that would not have come out of a conventional outreach model where the agenda is set entirely by the institution.
The talk's goal is to clarify for the audience an abstracted model of how AH operates as an institution, and how institutions of its kind might be classified together into a new media form of public history.
Creating a Diverse and Inclusive Space
The purpose of this talk is to situate the challenges of creating a diverse and inclusive space for all history enthusiasts. AskHistorians has become tremendously successful in its ability to connect historians to the public and foster enthusiasm for the study of the past. However there are significant challenges to creating such an environment, notably the traditional lack of accountability on anonymous internet spaces, as well as larger challenges of integrating social and subaltern history in a public forum.
Just as the historical establishment has begun to include voices from outside the mainstream, AskHistorians has likewise embraced a model that prizes diversity and inclusivity. One of the primary challenges of a space like AskHistorians a greater popularity for certain aspects of history (namely Western political and military history.) Although we pride ourselves on being a space where anyone can ask a question about anything, we strive to make sure that there is space created for those who pursue historical interests outside of the mainstream. We make a concerted effort to recruit experts in under-represented fields, and to use their knowledge in ways that brings their area of study to the mainstream of AskHistorians. We also create weekly threads that allow for diverse discussions of historical topics outside of our usual user-generated questions.
Because we want AskHistorians to be a space where anyone who loves history feels safe and included, we maintain an extremely strict code of conduct that insists on civility and respect from all users. We hold our users accountable in a way that is rare for internet spaces. Users who make use of oppressive or offensive language are banned immediately. Maintaining AskHistorians as an inclusive and diverse community is integral to our mission, and ensures that we will continue to grow as a unique form of historical outreach.
"A Culture of Curiosity": The Challenges of Growing Your Audience from Scratch
Much has been written about the potential of “new media” for disseminating research and providing historical information – but making good content available is only one half of the equation. As important to the process of diffusion is creating an appreciative audience for the work. This ‘ideal’ audience - a curious, creative, tolerant audience - will actively seek out and explore all aspects of the historical information provided, broadening their horizons along the way. AskHistorians, the world’s largest online historical forum, has created such an audience. The forum today is well established, with over 365,000 subscribers. But despite its large size, AskHistorians boasts refreshingly positive social expectations between its users; above all, those users seek to ask good questions and provide quality answers, while maintaining a safe atmosphere. This ‘ideal’ culture was also grown from scratch. Throughout the three years of its existence, the AskHistorians volunteer administration team, along with the users themselves, either took advantage of, or put in place a range of social and architectural strategies which encourage and reward the desired curiosity.
This presentation will focus on how the volunteers and audience of AskHistorians instilled and promoted their “culture of curiosity”. It will address the multifaceted nature of such a culture – how it was born both out of repeating social practice, but was also structured and guided by a hierarchy. It will address problems of authority and credibility in an online, democratic space and how those factors impact on curiosity. It will also discuss anonymity and the effects that has on approachability.
Overall, it seeks to highlight how AskHistorians created its large, engaged audience and draw lessons from these experiences, illustrating the challenges and rewards of online engagement.
Creating a Space for Lay Practitioners
AskHistorians is an outlet though which non-professional and amateur historians can share their knowledge and love of the subject with those who are equally interested. While our audiance is neormous, only 12% of our experts actually work in history or a related field. Fully 35% of our certified experts are self-taught, non-professionals or amateurs - this represents a significant portion of our knowledge base.
For these expert users, AskHistorians validates their years of self-study by not only allowing them to teach others, but also to meet professionals in their field and discuss issues with them one-on-one. It is an opportunity to expand their knowledge, obtain new source material, and test hypotheses in a safe environment. This kind of interaction can inspire non-professional and amateur historians to engage with history at a deeper level than ever before, and make history more a part of their life; specific activities seen so far include returning to school for a degree or by changing their career to be more in line with their interests.
In this talk, I will be looking at the different ways in which AskHistorians creates a space—which is otherwise lacking—for lay practitioners of history to express and develop their interest. I will also look at two case-studies in which interacting with the forum eventually led lay experts to make history more a part of their lives, in the one by returning to school for a degree, and in the second through the recognition that history was indeed a subject they loved.
#Questions?
Are you suddenly planning on being at this conference and want to meet your “favorite” mods? Meet-and-greets can be arranged for a modest fee. Lol, just kidding, if you’re going to be at AHA 2016 please come after the presentation and say hello! Aside from the 5 presenters, several other mods are planning on attending, for a total of 10 AskHistorians mods from all over the world. Some members of our community of Flairs have also already stated they’ll be there. This is the first time so many have ever been in one place! Time depending, we may also be able to arrange a small Atlanta meetup outside of the conference to get a drink and talk history in likeminded company.
How were the panelists selected from the mod team? A combination of volunteers, and an internal vote by the mod team. This took into account the quality of the presentations, administrative factors (including the cruelty of geography), and taking into account experience in academic public speaking.
How do I know what you’re doing with this money? There will be a tangible product produced at the end - 5 conference papers and a recording - so you’ll know we didn’t just make this up. We are listed in the official conference booklet. This is really happening. And we’re going to have more creative use of transparencies than a grade-school math class. We’re already trying to figure out the best ways to do that. We will at minimum do a financial report at the end of the conference showing how your money was spent. Transparency is going to be a keyword when it comes to this funding.
What happens if you get more money than you need? If by incredible generosity we get more money than we need, we will put up a selection of historically-minded charities and let you vote on where the leftovers go. Frankly we have kept our goal modest in order to make sure we don’t collect anything more than what we need for the bare necessities. The Tilt should automatically cut off after we reach our goal, ensuring we don’t collect too much. If we’re quick and clever we literally will not collect more money than we would need.
I am so excited to be a part of this! I am going to be one of the five on the panel, specifically discussing diversity and inclusion and I need your help! I would love to hear from folks about their feelings about diversity and inclusion here at AskHistorians.
By "diversity" I mean two things - the more "traditional" sense of diversity centered around identity (race, gender, sexuality, etc) and also diversity of kinds of history. I want to hear from folks who focus on cultural history, gender history, subaltern history, etc about your experiences here on the sub.
I want your feelings and feedback on our features and other events that have highlighted different kinds of history, outside the popular mainstream. Have you learned new things about gender and sexuality? Did you get a new perspective on Chinese social history? Have you had a great interaction with folks around an obscure part of history you thought no one else cared about? I want to hear about it! Feel free to respond to this or shoot me a pm.
Well, this is neat.
Thanks to all the mods who worked so hard to put this together!
I've never been so happy to donate. Education is such a passion of mine and this sub is one of the best examples of education in the 21st century. It takes a new platform and technology and uses it to its utmost to expand knowledge and educate the public. Keep up the wonderful work!
So is there a place where I can see detailed times, address and other information pertaining to this? AskHistorians is my favorite sub and I live outside Atlanta so this is supper exciting to me.
Congratulations on hosting such a successful community!
Which contributors specifically are planning on attending?
Donated :) have fun guys
Good luck. Don't get arrested.
This is one of the only posts where I've been able to throw in a non-history comment: congratulations! This is one of my favourite subs, specifically because of the high quality answers by people like you, and the very tight moderation. I feel very fortunate to have daily access to expert opinions like all of yours, and I hope this conference allows you to share your passion with others in the same field(s). If you guys have a PayPal that supports you while you're there, lmk: I'd be more than happy to buy a round.
Naturally in about ten to fifteen years, I will ask this subreddit about the conference.
It is projected that it will take about $7,600 total to send our 5 people to this conference.
Is this counting Reddit's assistance, or is that in total (meaning Reddit are providing $3,800)?
Many congratulations! As a proud member of the AHA and the community here at /r/AskHistorians, I am happy to contribute to this effort :)
Donated :) have fun guys
I remember chatting with you guys about what a new and interesting beasty was being cooked up here a long time ago. Its wonderful to see the academic mainstream recognize this new kind of outreach.
Closing in on half a million subscribers? That's far more than even the most optimistic of us were at the beginning. Good work guys, its not often we see something truly new take off and reach such heights.
Aww yeah, look who finally got a seat at the cool kid's lunch table
Excellent, you guys definitely deserve the recognition
Gave what I could. I hope you have a good time!! Bring the good word of 21st century interactive digital history learning to the good AHA folks!!
I also think that it is super cool of Reddit to donate towards the trip. Of course it makes them look great, but it is nice to see them supporting a great academic cause.
Oh I'm from Atlanta
Any chance the presentations will work their way into the podcast? Or interviews from the conference into the podcast?
I'm really enjoying the podcast, by the way...
Congratulations, this is a terrific achievement! I everything goes to plan and you guys have an excellent time at the conference!
I contributed US$3. It's not a lot, but it's what I've got to offer.
Very exciting stuff, really glad to see the community's stepping up to the plate on the funding.
Maybe I'll be home by the time this ends up happening!
I just want to say: I have contributed, and I appreciate the meager points that this reluctant sub has granted me for being on topic and cited.
Thanks for making a layperson with an eclectic, Norm Peterson knowledge of History feel both welcome and entertained.
AHA is a pretty neat feather in your cap. Congrats.
Donated. Good luck! At /r/CFB (college football) we've started being credentialed as media for events. It makes absolute sense for you guys to be attending conferences. I'm so happy to see the good, high-quality subs taking things to the next level.
Congratulations! Just donated. Enjoy the conference!
Congrats and thanks for an excellent sub :) I donated a bit to help :)
Grats/good luck.
I just donated 10 bucks! This is one of my favorite subs and to see you guys do such cool things is amazing!!
I've never been so happy to help fund an extended academic piss-up. And I'm very much looking forward to the outputs (of the presentations).
I'm relatively new here but this is really awesome news!
Congrats! Always loved this sub for its strict moderation against racism and the focus on giving a good, factual answer :D
Congratulations ! Recognition is more than deserved for such a great place on the vast steppes of the Internet !
This is great news. I have a panel under the CLAH umbrella, I will be there to see what you folks have in store.
Congrats !
This is great, even though I'm thousands of miles away :'c will chip in!
Good luck guys! I'd swing by, but it's not exactly in my backyard.
So, the end goal is to get some more sweet historian info-bombers into the subreddit?
I'll be there.
Congrats!
This sub had always fascinated the hell out of me, and the mods commitment to keeping things on topic has always been impressive and respectable. I definitely donated and hope this conference goes super well for y'all and we get some good video and/or write ups!
What the mods / panelists think about the possibility of "recruiting" experts that attend the presentations and become interested in contributing?
I just want to say this is a monumental honor for /r/AskHistorians! I'm just a reader, and I feel so proud!
Congrats guys to finally stepping out of just telling history and becoming part of it.
Hey
I think this forum is probably the best I've ever read for popular history. I'm also constantly impressed by the academic level of the contributions. Hence I'm happy to give you a bit of money for this expedition.
Who will be going?
Congratulations! Hey, I looked on the AHA site but couldn't find any specifics on the number of presenters/participants. How big is this thing?
I start both of my new jobs on Monday so I actually have some extra money to go around and will be proud to help cover The expenses of our eminent AskHistorians delegation.
Also have some friends who live down in Shermanland so I may actually be able to attend.
This is definitely one of my favorite educational subs that I lurk on. I am very happy for you guys and I learn a lot from all the great questions that are asked on here. CONGRATS!!
So I live in Atlanta - is this conference open to the public?
Congrats mods, removing poor comments like this one is finally paying off! Sincererly though congratulations. I can't think if where to put the second comma so spread this congratulatory message while you van.
As the all-time top post on Ask Historians, I think we can all safely agree I should represent the entire community at the conference.
Pics or it won't have happened.
Donated! As a layperson I refrain from commenting around here, but I do throughly enjoy lurking this sub. It is definitely the only of my subs that achieve such a high level of discussion and academic rigor, but manages to retain its accessibility to laypersons. It is probably the only sub of the social sciences that I subscribe to (hey, what can I do, I'm STEM), but at the same time it beats all others out of the water. I even pick up some of the book references for general reading from time to time. So congratulations on your achievements and do have a beer (or a few!) on my tab!
Congratulations, all! Glad to help you get there.
Who knew historians could be so forward - thinking?
Will there be a ball pit?
I am very happy for you guys right now. Congratulations!
This news is awesome. I'll try to chip in, but am very, very short on funds right now. But i'll see if I can toss a dollar or two in.
Good job guys, nice to see the power of the internet manifesting in the real world in such a way!
Starts today!!!!
Congrats guys, you deserve it!
Awesome! I want to contribute but not sure about this tilt.com site...is there a bitcoin option?
I'd gladly chip in, but although I enjoy this subreddit overall, I won't give a single penny to anything related to /r/askhistorians as long as a Mugabe apologist like /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov continues to be a moderator.
I think the sub was much, much better 1 or 2 years ago.