I always see great questions on here but every time I go to see the responses they are mostly removed. What gives?
Hi there, thank you for your question - we get variations of it periodically, but it never hurts to reiterate the basics from time-to-time:
AskHistorians is a relatively heavily-moderated subreddit. Unlike general subs like r/AskReddit, we require answers to be in-depth, from folks who know their subject matter and can answer follow-up questions.
A lot of the comments that are removed are either comments that don't meet our standards for whatever reason - this can include simply being too short, too general, or having too much speculation; it can also include answers which are partially or wholly wrong, use poor sources (like wikipedia or pop history books, podcasts, and youtube documentaries that are meant for a general audience), or include links to sites that contain or cater to hate speech or Holocaust denialism.
We also remove jokes, hate speech, soapboxing/modern politics, and generally useless comments like "Why don't you google that" or "Why are all the comments removed?" A lot of the comments you see removed quickly are of the latter variety - you're not missing much.
It is, unfortunately, the case that sometimes we remove a comment which happens to have the right answer but doesn't meet our other standards as far as being comprehensive or the poster not having the expertise to answer follow-up questions - but the whole point of the subreddit is that the folks who answer questions should be informed enough that they are able to communicate their knowledge effectively.
Which is why really good users are encouraged to apply for flair in their specific area of expertise. Flaired users are those who have demonstrated the ability to answer questions in their area to our standards, and we tend to lean on them whenever a question comes up in their flair area. In this way, by pairing up flaired users with appropriate questions, we try to match answers to questions. We also have some great FAQ finders who find previous answers from the same or similar questions who do a great job of providing pointers.
Unfortunately, with the really popular questions, we tend to get a lot of non-subscribers on the subreddit who aren't familiar with the rules - and that's when we tend to get a rush of low-quality comments. We remove these, but they still show up in the total for the post, which is when you get the "comment graveyard" effect of dozens or hundreds of comments but none of them to read. This is especially the case with popular questions which take a day or two to answer.
But, we would much prefer no answer to a bad answer. If you're going to get an answer on AskHistorians, you can trust that it's going to be a quality answer. That's what we aim for: quality.
I hope that answers your question.
The moderators remove comments that are, in their eyes, low effort and speculative. Here on r/askhistorians people post questions they want answered with certainty, otherwise there wouldn't be any reason to ask on here to begin with. The moderators, and the people seeking answers, expect answers to be provided by people with a background or at least proficiency in the subject they are answering questions on, when people who lack the knowledge answers questions they often base their answers on heresay or speculation which isn't inherently a bad thing but it doesn't fit it on this subreddit so it is removed. Another problem is that personal opinion factors in too much in peoples responses, it clouds the truth and makes it hard to distinguish fact from fiction.
In short, r/askhistorians has standards and far too many unqualified people are answering questions nowadays.
I'm not sure if this is the place to ask, but could this sub get something like a tag on posts like in out of the loop where they are marked "answered"? It's hard to tell which posts have anything other than [deleted] comments. As great and amazing as this sub is, it's almost impossible to know what's been answered well.
Answers in the subreddit are expected to be in-depth and comprehensive, as laid out in the subreddit rules. There is no hard and fast definition of that, but in evaluating what a potential respondent knows on the topic, and what they are planning to post, we ask them to consider whether the answer will demonstrate these four qualities to a reader:
The moderators then are using that in their own evaluation.
So the reason things get removed is because people aren't following those rules, especially in popular threads. To get a sense of what is generally being removed, a few past examples where we have provided screenshots or rundowns: I, II, III, IV.