Hello everyone and welcome to the 21st installment of our continuing series of Rules Roundtables! This project is an effort to demystify the subreddit and also to gather your feedback to help improve it! We aren't just covering the hard and fast rules though, but also looking at other aspects of the subreddit, with this week focusing on the community as a whole, and non-flair participation!
##The /r/AskHistorians Community
/r/AskHistorians has been growing for five years now, and we are continually amazed at what we have managed to build here. But we can't take all the credit. Aside from the 400 or so Flaired users who we are ever indebted to for their time and commitment, it is all of you, the readers, 'askers', and lurkers of /r/AskHistorians who make the AskHistorians community what it is. We know that sometimes it can be a little hard to feel connected though, as the bar for posting is quite high, and in META threads or other instances where we loosen the rules, it is always great to see the lurkers come out of the woodwork. But we don't want readers to feel like they are on the outside, so aside from using this thread to give all of you guys a shout-out, we also want to talk a little bit about the /r/AskHistorians Community, and how to be a part of it even if you don't have flair.
###Asking Questions
Perhaps this seems a little obvious, but we can't stress it enough! /r/AskHistorians couldn't exist without the inquisitive minds out there who ask dozens of questions every day. Thoughtful, interesting questions are the lifeblood of the subreddit, and help to make it a better place. We even recognize users who have long-running track records of asking great questions with the Interesting Inquirer flair.
But don't just limit yourself to posting new questions. I think I speak for almost everyone who has answered a question on this subreddit that nothing makes us happier than getting follow-up questions! Upvotes are nice, gilding is cool, but follow-up questions are the kind of engagement that all of us nerds crave. And don't be afraid to ask ones that you fear might be stupid or obvious to others. This is stuff that, in many cases, we have studied for years, if not decades, and love the opportunity to teach others.
###Say "Thanks"
Even if you don't have a follow up question, even a simple "Thank You for the Answer" can make writing an answer with 2 upvotes seem totally worth it, so don't be afraid to post that! I will note though, that while it doesn't break the rules to say Thanks, we do prefer that if someone else already has, just upvote that one. When there are a half-dozen replies to an answer all saying "Thanks", we'll remove all but a few to keep the thread from getting too cluttered.
In addition though, don't forget about the Sunday Digest threads. Submitting your favorite answers from the past week there is a fantastic gesture that respondents always appreciate, and also the best way to nominate answers for the 'Best of the Month' contest we run.
###Upvoting Questions
As I already noted, it is the thoughtful, interesting questions that really make this subreddit tick. Not to say that learning what brand toothpaste Hitler prefered isn't interesting to someone, but we know that there are a lot of topics and questions which are consistent in their recurrence, and we do now and then hear complaints about the balance of topics, or requests to implement moratoriums. While this doesn't really fit with the mission of the subreddit per se, you can still make a difference! Checking out the New Queue and upvoting questions you see there that are interesting and unique can really help shape what ends up trending, and getting the most attention.
There are only so many mods, and we are only able to devote so much time to monitoring threads. We catch a lot of the chaffe pretty quickly, but some always slips through. Reporting comments or submissions which break the rules is an invaluable service that helps us keep the subreddit clean and on track! It is an invisible service, but know that we deeply appreciate it!
###Participate in Discussions!
Just because you don't feel qualified to answer a question about 17th c. Swedish basket weaving doesn't mean there aren't ways to participate. The occasional META threads which allow for 'tomfoolery' are always amazingly popular, but what many people forget is that we have one of those every week! While we don't want it to devolve into nothing but pun chains, the "Friday Free-for-All" threads exist to allow for a more relaxed space to shoot-the-shit and let our hair down. "Thursday Theory", "Monday Methods", "Saturday Sources", and "'What's New' Wednesday", also offer great opportunities for more free-wheeling conversations.
###Answer Questions!
We know a lot of people just read the subreddit, and don't think themselves to be qualified to participate on the answer side of things, but don't sell yourselves short. We've seen many fantastic answers prefaced by "First time posting" or showing surprise that a question fell within their purview. Plenty of questions come out of left-field, and present opportunities for the most esoteric displays of knowledge you never thought you'd have the chance to display in a history subreddit!
On top of that, we run the weekly "Tuesday Trivia" feature very much with the intent of getting wider participation. You might not feel qualified to write 5,000 words on a topic, it is the kind of space that you can share that little tidbit you remember from history class!
In addition, we also have been trying to increase the rate at which we hold "Floating Features" (and are always looking for more topic suggestions there), which allow for more free-flowing discussion about very broadly defined or open topics, and welcomes responses of all kinds.
##Back to Where We Started
And that is the long and short of it. Just because they might not be able to write 10,000 words to answer some obscure and esoteric question doesn't mean a reader is any less a part of this community that the most answeraholic flairs. Everyone contributes in their own way, and we really appreciate everyone who helps make /r/AskHistorians great! If you have any questions or thoughts that you'd like to share, please let us know here, as we're always looking for ways to improve the experience on the subreddit for everyone!
I have answered exactly one question on this sub, and the fact that my response was not deleted gave me a lovely warm glow inside. Just thought I would share that.
I'll just offer one big heartfelt thanks from the "askers" and readers for all the wonderful answers you guys provide as well as the tight and transparent moderation, which keeps the sub so enjoyable to be a tangential part of. Of course, the ultimate question of "What would Hitler think if he was a historian in your area of expertise around 2008?" remains to be answered, but we can hope for the future.
No, but seriously, thanks so much.
I just want to thank the real heart of this sub, the snitches. They say you should get stitches, but here, you get cold, swift love. Its you who help the mods keep the trains running on time! Some days I keep reading new threads until I feel I've reported enough comments; those deserving it, of course. Thanks to the flairs and posters who produce quality posts that rob me of a good reporting.
One thing which I love about this sub is that how much effort I have put for 3 of my answer comments. I had some practise as I have been using Quora for quite some time so writing in depth answers was not completely new for me. I would also add that the quality of moderation has actually improved quite a lot which is actually surprising. If you look at questions from say 2 or 3 years back, a lot of answers are standing which are not quite in depth and they most probably would have been deleted if they were posted now.
Like [u/descriptivetex] (https://www.reddit.com/user/descriptivetext) I was quite delighted that my comments were actually considered of being upvoted by the experts on here. I even managed to get a compliment by u/commiespaceinvader (who is one one of my favourite commentators here) for my questions. I smiled for quite some time after that :).
I really, really like the fact that the vast majority of readers don't post. I've been reading this subreddit for four years now and I've posted in it twice. I think that it's the reason for this sub's quality- comments are of legitimate value and contribute to the conversation, instead of being 5 people all saying the same thing with slightly different variations in phrasing. Most of Reddit is an awful place where misinformation and patting yourself on the back for sharing a common opinion abound. Could we avoid encouraging people to reply 'thanks' to every question that gets answered? Not because those who put the effort into appropriate answers don't deserve it, but because no matter what caveats you add to that encouragement, it'll result in more instances of an 18 response thread being one actual response and 17 mid-20's American white males replying to it saying thanks without any followup question or additional information.
I'm new in this sub, so I once tried tp answer some old questions; but I couldn't because the time period for answering had expired. Is it posible to change that rule so that older archived post can be modify? I understand that the actual rule may have to do with the imposibility of moderating all conversations at the same time.
This is a great Reddit, and I appreciate what the Moderators have built here. Sometimes I feel like the moderation rules are a bit too strict or intolerant of dissenting opinions. In particular, the intolerance of geographic/environmental determinism, even when it is listed as a factor and explicitly disclaimed as a "monocausal" answer. Before, this subreddit had a Bot that automatically posted anytime Guns Germs and Steel was mentioned, and I think that was a better solution than the overt censorship and deletion of any reference to it. Moreover, I have been disappointed when there were articles posted to questions about esoteric material which could have answered the question, but were then removed by moderators.
