Authors of posts retain the copyright to their content under Reddits TOS, so that would seriously complicate matters.

A collection of questions and answers (even the best ones) seems likely to be just a sprawl of information (and opinion) about topics scattered across time and space (but weirdly concentrated on a few areas and topics).

A more interesting book might be some sort of thoughtful analysis of the questions and answers in the sub, with reflection on what this indicates about the emotional connection between the reddit audience of today and the events of the past?

What causes questions or answers to be popular and upvoted? What leads to long multi-answer discussions, vs what is ignored? What seem to be the most common misperceptions about history? etc.

Also, a history of this sub-reddit might be interesting. How have the questions and answers changed over time? Has the provision of the FAQ altered the questions at all? How has the readership waxed and waned? What has been the impact of granting flairs? etc? etc?

I think a book based on analysis of this sub reddit, looking at what can be learned or deduced from our experiment in "Crowdsourcing History", might be a better book than a collection of r/AskHistorians posts.

Re: a collection of work by different commenters, others have addressed the copyright issue. If we could get past that issue, I would love to read whatever would result. This sub is an embarrassment of riches. An analysis and/or history of /r/AskHistorians itself would be fascinating because it's developed so uniquely, and I'd argue that the model is one that other communities online should examine if they want to maintain both quality and growth.

Re: individual commenters, I'll admit I've given some idle thought to turning my pompous, insufferable, and long-winded explanations of North Korea's history and issues into a book. There are a million reasons not to do this, such as:

• I'm not a real expert.
• Lots of people out there know way more about it than I do.
• Lots of people out there are much smarter than I am. (Much, much smarter.)
• I am guaranteed to make several dozen mistakes.
• Most of what I write about NK outside of /r/AskHistorians is bitchy and dismissive of Kim il-Sung, who should be treated with a bit more gravitas given the number of lives he ruined.

And reasons #1-1,000,000 as to why this is A Very Bad Idea are mostly what occur to me whenever the thought appears.

But then there's that small voice that says, "What if a pompous, insufferable, long-winded, bitchy, dismissive book about North Korea is what the people want?"

Well, I own the text to every single thing I've ever written, including my AskHistorians answers. Under Reddit's user agreement, Reddit the company has a perpetual license to display, make copies of, and make derivatives of what I write for Reddit's own purposes. In all other cases outside of Reddit, I own the copyright.

Therefore, if something I've written on AskHistorians is going to show up in a book, the editors would have to ask me for permission for it to be published.

Sure! Let's just talk about what the publisher will pay me. I'm thinking $1 a word for my posts?😉