The upvotes suggest how good of a question it is, and it is quite ridiculous to find a 5k thread with no replies...

Unfortunately, the rest of the mod-team won't allow me to flog our flaired users or to use some other type of compulsion to force an answer out of them, the lubbers.

But to seriously answer your question, the upvotes reflect interest in a question, not the presence of an answer.

High quality historical answers take time to write. Allowing low quality answers to stand means that high quality answers never get seen, because the average Redditor will drive by, upvote the top comment and move on. So the system we've settled on is to purge low quality and inaccurate answers so that good ones can be seen.

If you don't like that, that's fine -- there is literally the entire rest of the internet to post on, and adjacent to us on this very website we also have r/history and r/AskHistory. But comments of this nature are like going into a fine dining restaurant and complaining they don't serve chicken nuggets, when McDonald's is next door.

I realize that it looks like we're being huge snooty-snoots by removing posts, but you should be aware that by the time there are six or seven removed comments (sometimes less), people begin shitposting about the lack of comments. Which makes it appear that we're removing dozens of reasonable attempts at answers in our zeal, but in fact it's other impatient users causing all the frustration.

Let's look at a current top thread, Did the nazis that fled to South America influence post-war politics in South America?

Of 128 comments in total, 80 are people complaining about the lack of an answer or related to that. More than half. Ten are from the same person (who is now permanently banned). 18 more are extremely low-effort posts, a sentence or two and/or a link to a video. You would get the same information with a Google search, so if you want to see that kind of answer ... just google the question yourself. 8 more are better attempts of at least a paragraph, but are based on Wikipedia (again, if you want that sort of information, feel free to look up any question here that you're curious about), or are about African apartheid, or are built on anecdotal evidence/what someone remembers from having read a book or spoken to a tour guide. The rest are responses to those of the previous that were up for a while before we got to them.

The reason these threads are so frustrating to users is that other users choose to add to the problem by posting without reading the rules or while actively disregarding them.

This subreddit is a space where people can get answers from users who have done actual research into the question and can offer a real dialogue to explain the issues involved - we're not going to lower our standards to allow someone who's found some information on a random website to post an answer, because they are not going to be able to answer follow-up questions or give an informed take of their own.

I want an essay-sized answer. That's partly the point of this subreddit: depth and comprehensiveness. That's been the point for years, so I think you'd do well to adjust your expectations. It's a little baffling to see this complaint so often when there are numerous history subreddits of various quality standards and moderation styles.

Tbh, I like seeing that so many comments have been removed. Reddit is replete with noise, disinformation, speculation and one-liners. That's why this forum is my favorite on Reddit.

Based on your post and response you seem to be thinking we are removing a large number of decently written answers for... what, shits and giggles? Trust me when I say that the reality is far from that. Or don't trust me and have a peek yourself. The META section of the FAQ includes a few examples of surveys and screenshots done of removed comments. You seem to recognize upvotes equal interest in the question but then are making an illogical jump by assuming that a good question inherently means a good answer has been written, which in almost all cases takes time, and in an unfortunate few never arrives for a variety of fairly understandable reasons.

While I agree that it can be frustrating to have an awesome question unanswered, the rules are what make this sub awesome and keep me coming back.

I'd much rather experience that frustration every once in a while than have responses on this sub just be stuff I could google myself.

While this may seem unintuitive, a popular question is not necessarily a good question which someone wants to spend 2-4 hours answering. What it will do is attract a lot of attention and low-quality responses.

It's not like being an AH panelist is something we do because it's an easy way to make popular posts that get us a lot of karma. This is the most popular answer I've ever written. You'll notice that it has fewer upvotes than you can easily get by posting random screenshots in some video game subreddit or whatever. But also, note that it is a question that literally spans Eurasia in its extent - Europe, the Middle East, the Steppes, and China. This makes it an interesting subject a lot of people have heard something about in some context, but also one that is very difficult to write an answer for unless you are a specialist in Manichaeism. I had to mostly restrict myself to Iran as well as doing some comparative theology.

This subreddit is a sanctuary of actual good history, the vast majority of the time. Loosening the restrictions on a platform like reddit is asking for the devolution of the whole thing.

AskHistorians isn't supposed to be a place where people should just ask random curiosities on their mind, questions ought to be thoughtful.

Since this is a meta post I just wanted to say that contrary to the OP's opinion I think the mods are doing a splendid job.

I have seen the quality of many different subreddits plummet because standards got watered down over time, often in favour of appealing to a wider audience, and it makes me sad whenever that happens.

I'm not going to repeat what has been eloquently said by others and can be found in the FAQ and the subreddit's description.

I just want to thank the mods (and all the dedicated historians whose well-researched replies I've had the pleasure of reading) for keeping a tight leash and upholding a high standard. That's why, after many years of lurking I still enjoy coming here tremendously.

Edit: grammar

I think what you should do is leave one really popular thread untouched, so that people can see for themselves the number of dumb jokes and unsourced pulled-from-the-ass answers. They will want you to go back to the old way real quick.

(Source: have made dumb jokes in this sub and rightly had them deleted.)

Keep up the good work mods and contributors. I'd hate to see this sub end up like some of the other ask subs. Take a look at any /r/askacience thread, a sizeable minority of answers are just wrong. The policies of this sub are working to preserve its quality in comparison.

I wish there were a way to enjoy the good quality historical takes without all the circlejerking that comes with it. And some of that, I’ve sadly concluded, is endemic to history as an academic discipline, more so than other humanities. I don’t know why that is but I wish it didn’t have to be that way.