Let's also take a moment to recognize the incomparable /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov for the work he puts into making sure the best of AskHistorians gets to the readers.

Every time there's a trending thread, the sub gets criticized for "never having any answers," and every time, we can point people to our weekly Sunday Digest showing off not just any answers, but the best answers. Other people pop in and out, but /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov is there EVERY week, WITHOUT fail. He highlights answers from his field, from adjacent fields, from fields he's probably not even interested in. He highlights answers from mods, from flair, from the community at large.

Most of us have our favorite "best answers" that we love linking people to. /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov essentially makes a new list of favorite "best answers" every week. He puts together the weekly highlights, and then he assembles out of the best of those the nomination slate for the monthly awards.

So thank you, Zhukov. And CONGRATULATIONS to the winners! You know now that you really do represent the Best Of AskHistorians, not just the best of some of it.

I love that the motto on the cup is [removed]

This is one of those things where I genuinely think there were so many great answers I’m absolutely confident I’d not put myself in the top three!

If I can give my own bestof, I don’t generally think in terms of individual posts but in terms of users who consistently give these amazing answers who often give me insights even about things I think I know. I just want to say that my favorite askhistoriansniks to read are often /u/mikedash, sunagainstgold (who will win /r/depthhub’s “goldmind” this year because no one else came close to you in terms of quality or quantity), commiespaceinvader, /u/kieslowskifan, and Georgy. The non-pinged people are mods (who I assume will find this on their own) and they weren’t in the running for best of, but many deserve credit for not just their behind the scenes contributions but for their answers particularly to difficult but popular questions. I am limited by Reddit to three pings and limited myself to only three non-pinged mods but the list could go on.

I saved my last ping for this: if there’s one post (rather than person) I want to highlight though it’s fucking How did Indonesia and Malaysia become majority-Muslim when they were once dominated by Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms by /u/PangeranDipanagara which has to be the most in-depth answer of this year or any year.

Congratulations to all the winners. Excellent contributions all! Hoping to see much more from all of you in 2018!

Also, as per u/sunagainstgold's post, a big thank you to the moderators and everyone else for tirelessly volunteering time and effort so as to keep this most excellent of subreddits afloat! Good on yer!

That mug is pretty great.

I miss so many good answers I should check these ones out.

Also thank you and the mods for their hard work keeping this place high quality. <3 Ya'll need mugs too.

Thanks again for everything you guys do around here. From the mods, to the experts taking the time to answer questions, this sub is the best on reddit. Thank you!

I really do appreciate the honour, and the support of this community. In all honesty, though, I think that practically all of the nominated posts could have won - the quality was that high - and all the nominated contributors deserve our thanks as well as hearty congratulations.

Is this the one time of the year I can comment?? Yay! Love this sub! Signed, a happy lurker

I’d like to thank all the mods in this sub for all their hard work. I might not agree with all decisions you have made at the time but you have showed me that the results are superb. Keep up the good work and don’t be afraid to piss me(or anyone else) off again for the sake of maintaining the quality and impartial motto that this sub has.

Feel free to delete this too since I base this on personal empirical studies without showing you my non existing stats ;)

Wow, I missed the Dead Sea Scrolls thread when it happened. So glad I finally caught it. I wonder if we could do top questions of the month or semiannually!

Is there any way we can purchase the mug directly online?

Congratulations to all of the nominees! Great work, all year long!

Quality contributions and tight moderation continue to make AskHistorians the best subreddit. Congrats to the winners and the mods for another great year!

Long-time lurker, first time poster.

I just want to say that I love this subreddit and think the work that the mods and top contributors do is nothing short of fantastic. Thank you all for sharing your knowledge.

Amazing stuff.

Never ceases to amaze me, the knowledge many responders in this thread possess 👍

I consider myself a fairly active r/AskHistorians lurker and yet all three of these best answers passed me-by. A function of the sheer quantity of brilliant answers on this sub and a credit to all the contributors and mods. Thank you very much for putting together this thread, for me and others like me who would otherwise have missed out.

Absolutely fantastic work from everyone! AskHistorians is truly one of the greatest places on the web.

The nominees and the mods of this sub are doing such a fantastic job. Thank you thank you thank you for creating this great environment!

Wait, can we actually buy this mug somewhere? My Arecibo Observatory mug recently bit the dust and I need a suitable replacement.

What great answers. I see I have several hours of reading material ahead of me! Loved the analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls!

Reading in depth askhistorians answers is by far the best way to procrastinate. So many wonderful posts out there, it's especially fun to learn about some of the lesser known parts of history that you don't encounter much in Anglophone popular history.

I live this sub

This was the first Ask sub I found and you all set a nearly unmatchable example across the site. Also, that mug is hilarious. Congratulations to all the top picks, and thanks for keeping it amazing around here