Most of these answers are incredibly in depth with sources far more reputable than wiki. It doesnt surprise me it takes a while to answer these questions. Its not paid so it doesnt really benefit the historian to answer other than personal satisfaction.

I think you are preaching to the choir a bit, unless this thread goes really up (Maybe add something about Genghis Khan's first week or somethng to the title?). Correct me if I am wrong, but I bet that most of the "what the hell, this sub sucks, no answers, pah!" comments come from those high trending questions that hit /r/all and people click, comment and rarely come back. Most regular readers would understand the fact that not everything can be answered, especially not within like an hour. It's a great analysis though and handy in case you need to link those /r/all readers....oh, carry on.

So I ran a similar statistical breakdown which I'll append to this. It was a little focused, as I only looked at the top 20 threads of the past month, but I went a little deeper in the statistics, as my aim wasn't just to see what was answered, but also how long it took for the answer to show up, as a complaint we often find ourselves fielding is the lack of response on a thread hitting /r/all, despite the fact that, as you note here, those threads are the ones that almost always get answered!

So anyways, sorting by "Top" for the past month (as of three days ago, now), I opened up the first twenty threads as a rough representation of the content of the past month, and a representation of what users most likely would have found via /r/All or their Frontpage. Of these, seventeen of the top twenty received a top level response. Two of the twenty never got one that met the rules, and one did not receive a proper response, but did have a top level link to a previous thread on a very similar question. Even discounting that last one though, we still have an "answer rate" of 17/20 (85 percent), considerably higher than the overall rate for the sub based on calculations in the past.

I also noted down the time the thread posted and the time that the answer was posted (or the first in the case of multiple) and stuck them in an Excel spreadsheet to run the numbers (with the non-answered 2 excluded, as well as the link answered thread). The results were that on Average, it took a tad over 9 hours before a top level response appeared which complied with the rules of the subreddit, while the Median was about 7 hours and 50 minutes. The Quickest time to get an acceptable answer was about 1 hour and 40 minutes, while the Longest wait was a whopping 31 hours (No others were over 24 hours).

Obviously this only applies to very highly upvoted threads, so how the numbers would bear out expanding the pool still stands to be seen, but as we are only looking at threads which were answered, I imagine we wouldn't see as much variation in the times as we see in whether there is an answer at all, when sorting by 'score'.

Anyways though, the main takeaway, which is what I was aiming to illustrate, is that popular questions almost always get answered, but it takes patience for it to appear. Always keep in mind, in most cases upvotes represent interest in the question, not presence of a response!

I think the issue with the questions that hit /r/all or at least get super popular before they get answered is an issue with the reddit algorithms and the response time mentality of users. In the past while at work I have seen questions that I might be able to answer once I get home and have some time to look into it. Let's say I see a question in the morning around 9am but I won't be able to answer until 5:30 or later. On most history forums if you don't get a solid answer within the first 8+ hours it's not a big deal, but by Reddit standards that post is already old and maybe even dead. The lifecycle of Reddit posts is generally much faster than the average history forum posts. It's just the nature of the beast.

There are two areas of history that I'm particularly interested in, LBGT history and post-war Nazi Germany. I've asked a few questions here and there, but most of them have gone unanswered.

However, of the ones that I have gotten an answer to were superb, highly sourced, and I appreciate the effort that was given to them.

I don't want to be annoying and ask repeated questions that may or may not get an answer, but if I may press the moderators some, what are your recommendations for getting my questions answered? Am I asking to broad of questions, or am I asking things that may so obscure that it's impossible to give a cohesive answer that will be compliant with the rules?

I really enjoy this sub, and I appreciate the hard work and research that goes into this sub, and I also agree with how strict this sub is compared to others so that only good answers are given. I just hope that if I ask the right way and at the right times I can get the info I want.

Thanks.

People always seem to forget that this is r/AskHistorians, not ask amateurs. I've posted a decent amount of questions and never get any answers. I just figure that a historian in that field isn't on and doesn't see it. That's just the nature of this subreddit.

If you want a lot of disparate opinions on a historical subject, go to Ask Reddit

MANY questions get answered and I have learned so much here, this is literally in my opinion the best subreddit on Reddit. Many thanks to both the contributors and moderators!

What I find tiresome is that like to sort by comments since I like discussion and its dissapointing that after you click one with 20 comments all read [removed]. I wish they were just entirely gone so they would not effect the sorting results but that probably can't be done.

I hope I won't offend anyone with the following statement: /r/AskHistorians is absolutely awesome but I wonder how we, regular redditors, could proselytize in order to increase the width of historians answering questions.

I say this because there is a very obvious - and justified, considering the site we're on - Anglo-American bias with a pinch of major history topics (Roman Empire, China, Japan, etc.).

What could we do to help /r/AskHistorians cover the long tail of questions? Not really obscure questions but things covering smaller nations and cultures.

I have seen questions that got up voted for the good answer, so more people are likely to see it. I am more likely to up vote a question that has been well answered than one that I want to see answered.

This is fantastic, thank you! A bit higher than I maybe would have guessed, but I didn't think it would be quite so directly correlative.

Any thoughts on why the % answered jumped up in the 201-250 range? Not statistically significant, or is it something to do with there being a certain ranged set of unpopular-but-interesting questions?

I agree that well written answers from experts are the best and jokes, insults and drunken rants should be removed

But, I would loosen the rules on personal anecdotes. Yes, they don't meet high academic standards, but they're not worthless either

Segregate them, mark them, color them or do something else to indicate that they don't meet the standards, but don't delete them

I don't think its really an issue of getting an answer, its an issue of getting an answer before the people have stopped caring to check for one.

Most of the top posts that hit r/all and grab people like me get mass upvoted for their intrigue, but then abandoned by anyone but the interested historians who plan to answer later and the more dedicated readers who back-read for answers.

In a modern entertainment world, an answer 4 hours after a question might as well have never existed.

I can't remember the last time I got drawn to this subreddit from r/all and found an actual answer. I'm there from r/all because I'm bored right now, and I'm not taking notes for later. If its not in r/all or on my frontpage or 2 when I get home, it might as well no longer exist, and I feel that's how most people experience reddit.

Are we sure about the cause and effect here though?

Isn't it possible that questions with answers are more likely to be upvoted?

This is pretty heartening! I think I maybe ask questions which are a bit too niche...

Regardless of the stats, as a casual reddit browser, there is nothing as disappointing as interesting question, and then seeing all of the responses are removed.

I wish the moderators could find a way to meet in the middle with the casual browser.

I stick around in high hopes of the occasional answer.

Are there many Soviet era historians? I am fascinated by the soviet commissar system but those questions are rarely, if ever, answered...

There should be a mechanism for Reddit to subtract [Removed] comments from the number of comments on the subreddits (or front page). The frustrating part is seeing an interesting question with (purportedly) tens of comments, only to click on it and find them all removed.

The frequency of reposted questions on r/AskReddit suggests to me that there is a bot that reposts popular questions (those with many upvotes or many upvoted comments) every few months (even weeks), presumably with the goal of garnishing karma.

Perhaps r/AskHistorians needs a bot that reposts unanswered questions (after a delay) in the hopes that someone with appropriate knowledge and motivation will eventually see them. It could employ exponential backoff to degrade reposts of repeatedly unanswered questions.

The Chinese plate armor question never gets a real answer.

At best we get stuck on "mobility" or some other factor, and are left wondering why that apparently didn't matter in Europe.

(To clarify, the question is "Why didn't the Chinese use plate armor like the Europeans did?")

I disagree strongly.

First let me say that I love this sub. It's one of the best on Reddit. I'm not here to bash /r/AskHistorians.

But I think the OP's analysis gives a very misleading impression of the number of threads that go unanswered.

OP looked at top-rated posts, which naturally get the most exposure and are most likely to receive a thorough answer. But that inquiry ignores the vast majority of posts, which do not reach the top few pages of /r/all.

Look at the top posts for today only. (I'll look at the top 25 posts for today (as of 5:45 pm est) because that's the first page shown by AlienBlue when I ask for today's top posts.)

Of those top 25 posts, 13 have no answer (frequently because 1 or more answers were deleted by the mods). Thirteen of 25! Over 50% of posts have no answer! Also, these posts range in age from 5 hours to 23 hours - in other words, these are not new posts.

For an informal Internet forum - not an academic journal - that success rate is abysmal.

I acknowledge that, if I check those identical posts this time tomorrow, the success rate will look much better. But frankly, this is Reddit - very few use Reddit like that.

A byproduct of this over-moderation is that there's a chilling effect on more obscure questions because there are fewer people sufficiently knowledgeable to provide an in-depth answer. This dynamic decreases variety.

I think that less moderation would not decrease, but indeed would increase, the quality of this sub. Instead of the strict current rules, we could adopt something like the following: "all answers must provide responsive, well-sourced information." That way, for example, if a commenter can't answer an obscure question but can link to a reputable source, the comment would not be deleted and the question would not go unanswered.

Like I said, I love this sub, and please don't worry about pushing back on me - I'm not going to drag anyone into a long back-and-forth argument. I just think that this sub could use a bit less moderation.