I swear to god, every single time I come to this subreddit, 95% of the posts have no comments because the mods removed every single comment. It is always because the comment is "Off Topic" or "Not of high enough quality".
Well hey mods, not sure if you have heard, but there is this handy-dandy little thing called the DOWNVOTE BUTTON!! People will simply downvote the bad answers and upvote the good ones. You don't need to come in and literally destroy the post with you "Remove Comment" hammer.
Another issue is that the mods don't just remove bad answers, they will remove ALL answers, no matter how good or accepted they are. The answer could have 300 upvotes and tons of sources, but the mods will remove it anyway. I have no idea WHY they do this, but they do. My theory is that they get some sick kick out of removing an answer that clearly had a lot of work put into it.
That is why I propose that the subreddit be renamed to "AskHistoriansAndRegretYouEverDid" Because the moderators will do exactly that!
This is a study of the top 50 posts every month going back to the beginning of 2016. It evaluates the likelihood of responses to the 50 most upvoted threads of a given month, which roughly approximates the threads most likely to have hit the top spot in the sub for that month, and thus be visible on /r/All, or /r/Frontpage. It also evaluates the time in which it took answers to arrive. The sum of it is that threads which become popular do get answered in almost all cases, and if you are not seeing answers, the chances are that you simply are seeing a thread initially and then not returning later to check on the thread.
| Month | Response Rate^1 | Answer Rate^2 | Average Time^3 | Median Time^3 | Max Time^3 | Min Time^3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-01 | 98% | 94% | 4:41 | 3:41 | 20:32 | 0:19 |
| 2016-02 | 98% | 96% | 6:59 | 5:50 | 21:40 | 1:07 |
| 2016-03 | 94% | 92% | 5:45 | 4:40 | 19:14 | 1:21 |
| 2016-04 | 98% | 90% | 5:35 | 4:55 | 19:09 | 0:42 |
| 2016-05 | 94% | 92% | 6:10 | 5:21 | 15:08 | 0:15 |
| 2016-06 | 98% | 96% | 6:12 | 5:37 | 19:13 | 0:46 |
| 2016-07 | 96% | 90% | 7:46 | 5:53 | 22:04 | 0:50 |
| 2016-08 | 96% | 96% | 6:14 | 4:47 | 2:01:19 | 1:18 |
| 2016-09 | 96% | 92% | 6:44 | 5:39 | 18:16 | 1:34 |
| 2016-10 | 94% | 86% | 7:24 | 6:17 | 23:11 | 0:18 |
| 2016-11 | 92% | 88% | 6:29 | 5:49 | 21:45 | 0:33 |
| 2016-12 | 96% | 88% | 7:19 | 6:05 | 20:54 | 0:31 |
| 2016 AVERAGE | 96% | 92% | 6:26 | 5:22 | 20:06 | 0:47 |
| 2016 MEDIAN | 96% | 92% | 6:21 | 5:38 | 20:43 | 0:44 |
| Month | Response Rate^1 | Answer Rate^2 | Average Time^3 | Median Time^3 | Max Time^3 | Min Time^3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-01 | 94% | 92% | 7:27 | 6:23 | 1:06:58 | 1:31 |
| 2017-02 | 98% | 94% | 10:51 | 8:10 | 6:07:22 | 1:32 |
| 2017-03 | 92% | 90% | 6:58 | 6:06 | 14:57 | 0:35 |
| 2017-04 | 94% | 90% | 7:19 | 6:48 | 1:00:01 | 0:44 |
| 2017 AVERAGE | 94.5% | 91.5% | 8:08 | 6:53 | 2:05:36 | 1:05 |
| 2017 MEDIAN | 94% | 91% | 7:23 | 6:23 | 1:03:29 | 1:07 |
Well hey mods, not sure if you have heard, but there is this handy-dandy little thing called the DOWNVOTE BUTTON!! People will simply downvote the bad answers and upvote the good ones. You don't need to come in and literally destroy the post with you "Remove Comment" hammer.
That's the ideal. In reality people tend to upvote whatever conforms to their expectations and downvote whatever doesn't, excepting flaired users.
The answer could have 300 upvotes and tons of sources, but the mods will remove it anyway. I have no idea WHY they do this, but they do. My theory is that they get some sick kick out of removing an answer that clearly had a lot of work put into it.
The last time this happened to me it was just because the thread had had so many poor quality answers that the mods had set the thread to automatically remove replies until mod approval, and it just got lost in the chaos. Just ask the mods to review the post and they'll either restore it or explain why it wasn't acceptable.
If you're not seeing content in threads, I am going to hazard a guess that it's because you're checking into a thread from r/all and not checking back when it's had some time to have an answer written. Something to keep in mind is that a good answer here can take a day or two to write; we're not really set up to feed the Reddit hive mind of OMG I NEED SOMETHIGN RITE NOW LULZ. I've personally spent over a day writing an answer, and have one that I'll need to PM the questioner to re-ask because I've been researching it off and on for more than six months. So this type of post is really quite orthagonal to the point of the subreddit.
Anyhow.
If you're looking for good content here, we would recommend the Sunday Digest, which both contains unanswered questions which I'm sure you'll be happy to rub in our face, as well as answered questions that we found to be quite good. You may also be interested in our monthly Best Of threads, which I regret to inform you have only answered questions, or our FAQ, which is also, sorry to say, all answered questions.
Thanks and best wishes!
The answer could have 300 upvotes and tons of sources, but the mods will remove it anyway. I have no idea WHY they do this, but they do. My theory is that they get some sick kick out of removing an answer that clearly had a lot of work put into it.
That is where you are wrong, from time to time Mods will give breakdowns of removed comments, and the VAST majority every time are single sentence answers, joke responses, blatantly speculative, or commenting on the lack of comments. None of which are what top level responses are required to be.
AH isnt the environment for everyone, but it has cultivated a reputation for standards in both content and conversation, and is in no hurry to change that. There are plenty of cesspools on Reddit already most of us arent interested in that. While if you want your History with a little less rigor and a bit more hoi polloi, R/History is right there. Its fun! Im on there almost every day seeing whats up, but it isnt AH.
there is this handy-dandy little thing called the DOWNVOTE BUTTON!! People will simply downvote the bad answers and upvote the good ones.
Popular doesn't mean good, or correct. Anyone who's spent any time in the default subs can attest to that. The reason people come here is because the sub is well curated and can be relied on for quality answers, as opposed to incorrect information being upvoted and long strings of unfunny jokes.
there is this handy-dandy little thing called the DOWNVOTE BUTTON!! People will simply downvote the bad answers and upvote the good ones.
There is plenty of data that support our belief that upvotes are not a trustworthy system of vetting responses. /u/minimaxir has done a great analysis of the most upvoted comments in threads here. As you can see in the first chart, the first comment, is the most upvoted comment in 17% of all threads, with 56% of all top comments coming from the first five, and 77% from the first 10. Good answers take hours to write, and by then a busy thread will have received dozens of responses.
Well hey mods, not sure if you have heard, but there is this handy-dandy little thing called the DOWNVOTE BUTTON!! People will simply downvote the bad answers and upvote the good ones. You don't need to come in and literally destroy the post with you "Remove Comment" hammer.
You clearly do not understand the purpose of /r/AskHistorians. Downvotes and upvotes will never be the main arbiter of quality or adherence to the rules in this sub. Not ever. In fact, /r/AskHistorians is known for its quality of answers and moderation quite literally because it doesn't do what you suggest.
People come here for good quality answers, not for jokes, unverifiable anecdotes or answers that someone quickly Googled.
My theory is that they get some sick kick out of removing an answer that clearly had a lot of work put into it.
[Citation needed]