This is a common request, and while the use of link flairs in this is something we have explored, we are mostly opposed to "Answered" or "Unanswered" flairs. We've discussed other options, and continue to do so, but finding a system which works well is unfortunately not as simple as we might hope!

This is explored in much greater detail in this META thread by /u/polybios.

The current system recreates the frustration of real historical research: finding an interesting question, thinking it has been answered, taking the book off the shelf and realizing all the answers are unsatisfactory or don't even exist (oh, you books with deceptive titles!).

You can either get frustrated, or get a PhD.

I agree with several other objectors to this idea (from previous discussions):

1. Such a tag might unintentionally discourage further answers.

2. Most of the best questions on this sub don't admit of binary answered/not-answered status. This makes it hard to figure out when to add the tag.

So I don't support any change.

But one change that might be interesting, at least as an experiment: Mods could add a tag that simply stated how many non-deleted top-level comments a question has. Big problem: I'm not sure whether this would be possible to automate to save time (I can't into computer).

This obviates the need to judge whether a question has actually been answered to anyone's satisfaction. While it doesn't quite meet OP's desires, it would at least solve the "comment graveyard" problem.

But even this would probably be costlier (in effort and time) than for readers to simply open threads and check for themselves. It's not that hard.

Honest question meaning no disrespect: what's wrong with just clicking the back button on your browser?

If anything else, this question is a FAQ that needs its own flair ;-).

I never understood the staunch opposition to this sort of flair in this sub. It gets extremely repetitive when you're browsing multiple questions to click into threads only to find that there are no good answers. I find myself not clicking on interesting questions with low comment counts because I don't want to waste time needing to check whether or not it has been answered satisfactorily (further exacerbated because the chance of a satisfactory answer is so low).

As an analogy, imagine if reddit never gave any indication of the number of comments in a thread at all. When browsing questions in this sub, it would quickly get tiring checking every thread you're interested in for comments.

What OP is saying is that due to the strict requirement for satisfactory answers in this sub, the number of comments is no longer a useful metric for "is this thread worth clicking on?" (although it's better than nothing), and it would be so amazing to see at a glance what threads have at least one satisfactory answer.

It seems to me that the crux of the problem seems to be that the reddit comment counter ends up being totally incorrect due to deleted posts.

Supposing it was technically feasable to do so, would it be an acceptable solution to have a bot which automatically flairs each post with an accurate comment count?

Wouldn't that prevent other people from possibly answering? After all, there's often more than one interpretation or answer.

This is ridiculous. The mods already do so much work; readers can spend a few minutes clicking on links to see if there are any good responses.

As an aside, maybe half my time in /r/AskHIstorians is spent marveling at the quality of the moderation and commitment to academic integrity in terms of both demanding well-defended and -researched answers, and allowing controversial responses to stand if they meet those criteria.

This is a solution looking for a problem.

If a thread has comments that means it has acceptable answers because the mods are great at deleting useless posts. If you want to know the answers just read the comments.

I agree with the mods that this is not needed. Part of the fun is coming to a topic that looks intriguing only to find all comments (or most) have been deleted. I then get to imagine the carnage that took place earlier.

It just seems like such a huge sense of entitlement to say 'oh no, I had to click the back button because there weren't any 'good' answers given by people volunteering their free time and expertise'.

I think a big thing people also aren't discussing is would this have negative impacts on volunteer reward systems? Why does "flair" matter? getting cited on best of the week posts matter to people? it's a collection of nudges that create positive reinforcing cycles.

This sort of suggestion strikes me as most likely to create the wrong sort of feedback. if you're not going to flair everything that has a post that has not been removed you're going to have to essentially make a determination every time of "this post only has mediocre/bad answers." So if you had a decent post mod neglect/lack of affirmative praise is a way of saying that answer isn't good enough. does that get people to not engage as much or feel that their contributions aren't being respected (especially if they see flairs posting the same acceptable level of content and getting the tag switched)?

I don't see the additional layer of incentives being discussed.

If it really bothers you so much to click a thread, see that there's no good answers yet, and then click the "back" button on your browser, well, then maybe this isn't the right subreddit for you?

I don't think that's really fair. For a lot of people it's a persistent annoyance and fits in as part of the big complaint about this sub by people who like it: too many questions go unanswered. there may not be a good solution to this but it seems like a valid complaint.

i originally made this as a comment but decided a top level reply was better. hopefully this doesn't lead to any confusion

Since you're taking requests, can you delete questions asking for 'answered' flairs? If OP's casual internet-browsing time is more important than the time the moderators volunteer to work on making the sub usable for half a million users, I conclude on the same unfounded basis that my time is more important than OPs, and now having wasted my time, I demand justice.

This is a common request because nonsubscribers like me find it irritating to click on an empty post. I feel like I have been suckered into wasting my time.