Funnily enough, the problem is actually the opposite. We have a bunch of fantastic flairs in all sorts of niche topics (check out our range!), but many of them tell us that they never get any questions in their field and are losing interest in the sub. Meanwhile, a few flairs in the most popular subject areas (Ancient Greece and Rome, Medieval Europe, WW2) don't have enough time in their day to answer all the questions they get.

And then there's a couple of really mainstream and obvious fields that get loads of questions (US presidents, US labour history, 20th century US history), but for some reason we haven't been able to attract or hold on to our flairs in those areas. We have a system to alert flairs of questions in their area of expertise, but for some questions that rise to the top, we know they're just not going to get a good answer. So if you know a person who works in these areas, let them know that we would really like them to apply for flair!

Perhaps the best way to get more questions answered is to ask a wider range of questions, especially about niche areas; and, if you have an underserved area of expertise, to message the moderators to make relevant questions appear. We are always happy to help!

1. Think about women.

Okay, yes, reddit as a whole is a deeply sexist place and any woman on this site has to deal with that. But despite strict, strict rules against bigotry and unwavering dedication to enforcement, our last few censuses of readers and flairs have placed the number of people self-identifying as women at around 15% of the sub.

Fifteen percent. That's atrocious. Somewhere around 45-50% of new history PhDs every year are women; 45% of high school social studies teachers are women.

From my informal observations of the flair community, our problem isn't necessarily attracting women in the first place--it's keeping them. And I get it. I really do. Because you don't see the real problem with AH being a user-driven history sub until you've monitored it for awhile looking for questions to answer.

The questions in this sub almost invariably adopt a male perspective Two of our absolute most-asked questions are:

• "Did medieval babies all have fetal alcohol syndrome from their mothers drinking during pregnancy?"
• "Did ancient and medieval soldiers have PTSD?"

Women as baby incubators damaging their children! Soldiers with PTSD from looting cities, raping women, and selling women and children into sexual slavery!

I could keep cataloguing these questions on and on. /u/mimicofmodes is a fashion history flair, and will tell you that 90% of clothing-related questions we get involve men and neckties...

Meanwhile, I've answered questions like:

• "Wouldn't a visit to a brothel in pre-antibiotic days almost guarantee transmission of an STD? Maybe not with a single visit, but say after several? How is that sustainable?"
• "In medieval Europe, was prostitution available to most men or only the emergent middle class? How widespread was prostitution?"

These both take an extremely woman-centric topic--in the Middle Ages as well as today--and turn it into questions about men. Questions that don't just neglect, but actively erase the experiences of women.

I'm not saying "ask women's history questions." I'm saying, "when you ask questions, realize that women existed and try to think about history from their perspectives, not just men's perspectives of them."

~~

2. Think about women of color.

For absolute heaven's fecking sake: Stop asking questions about enslaver men raping enslaved women. Women of color around the world have SO MANY STORIES. Heck, enslaved women of color in antebellum America have so many stories. Yes, a sickening amount of them involve being raped. But notice: "she was raped" still puts the focus on her and her experience. The questions we get are, "How would the enslaver treat any potential children?" and along those lines.

I could easily be making this point about men of color and about peoples of color more generally. But I think it's important to highlight just how NOTHING AskHistorians has in terms of content about women of color.

~~

And that's what it is: a thousand paper cuts every week; not one gushing wound. (That's for the mod team to absorb the shock of, remove on reflex, and ban their ass with glee). It's relentless.

And it's a great way to signal to WOC, white women, and (although I didn't discuss them here) MOC and NB people of all races that they are not welcome here--not part of history at all.

Because remember: women don't just answer questions about women's history--in fact, most women are NOT women's historians. When you lose the work of women historians, you're losing history. Period.

Yes, I realize the number of repeat questions we get about ancient PTSD and FAS mean that newcomers to the sub are asking them, and are not going to be reading this post. It's an entire way of thinking that we need to change.

So maybe, when talking casually about history on other subs or in your life, empathize with women of all races, with POC of all genders. That doesn't mean think or talk exclusively about them, or even at all. Just realize that they have existed in history as people with thoughts, beliefs, motivations, and actions.

And when you ask questions, think about all the people who are involved in the situation you're asking about. Think about them as people.

I think the problem may rest on not having the appropriate questions to ask. Why not have these historians post what they think is interesting from their fields anyways? Kind of like a TIL, but the historian would title the post in the form of a question and then respond to themselves? That would also get other people to ask them for more details.

I love this subreddit and am always fascinated with the knowledge contained in many posts.

Niche historian here. I’m completing my PhD in African History focusing on soldier experiences of the South African Border War and I rarely see any requests for African history in general, let alone my field. And by the time I do spot it, it’s either already answered super well or it’s weeks later and not worth adding to.

I would love to share my work (and the work of my colleagues in our history dept who have super in-depth studies on African history) but no-one asks. And when the showcases happen they’re usually flooded by more “mainstream” studies that overshadow ours. So I’m not sure how to resolve this but open to suggestions?

I must admit I have yet to post anything in the showcases but maybe I should.

So I'm a little late to this party and I'm deep into writing the Digest for today, but I have a special place in my heart for META threads so I wanted to at least drop in. I think it's GREAT seeing the community come together like this.

On to the matter at hand, I would love to keep flairs more interested. I'd kill to get more non-flairs and flairs alike answering questions, and to be able to spread those answers as far and wide as possible. There's already been a number of great ideas shared in this thread so I'm going to leave those and touch on something else that I think is very important, and unfortunately rather forgotten.

Saying Thank You. Well not just saying it either. It's incredibly sad when someone puts in 5+ hours of work for a stellar post and it gets 2 upvotes. Now in many ways I get it. Someone posting their answer 7 hours after the thread hit the top, well it's not going to be seen by the same number of people. But the thing is I know from watching other threads, or even the discussion in thread, that people are reading it but not always remembering to upvote. It's such an easy thing to upvote (the thread and the answer!), and say thanks. Answer writers are people to and no matter how much they like writing history for histories sake I know for a fact that it's real nice for them to see their work get appreciated.

Which leads me to the second part of my Saying Thanks rant here. Another great way show them how much you appreciate it? Share it. Post it in the Sunday Digest. They see that you liked it enough to share it, maybe that you liked it enough to remember it a few days later, and now more people can see what a great job it was. Share it with friends maybe. I can't begin to count the number of threads I've dropped into my various discord servers going "Guys check this out!" Anything we can do to spread the word builds the community that much bigger. More readers, more people who might try to write answers, more knowledgeable people, more great stuff!

They're all such simple, easy things to do. Yet they make such a huge difference. So that's kinda what I'm asking everyone. Best way to get/keep/train more flairs and answer writers? Just show your appreciation. Everyone's gonna smile when they see that sweet answer they poured hours into hit 300+ upvotes and counting.

Edit: Thank you anonymous redditor for the gold!

I used to post here quite a bit and was involved as an user with a flair. I stopped posting for two reasons:

1. less time due to work/personal life. but mostly..
2. very rarely did people seem thankful with the answers. I am not asking for a ton of respect or money or anything. But a simple thank you would go along way. It felt like a lot of work for basically no reward. Just my two cents. I am not sure what could be done to make the experience more rewarding but I made some friends here that felt the same way I did. Just my two cents.

A few other things like Tuesday Trivia and Saturday Showcase have been mentioned, which are great, recurring resources for people not always seeing that perfect question. I would add on a bit about bringing in people in the first place, as having places to talk about your niche topic, but we need those people to show up in the first place!

Outreach is definitely something we've focused on in different ways. One big thing we've been wanting to do is direct recruitment at conferences. We've presented at a few which is great, but mods and existing contributors attend many conferences through the year, talk with their fellow historians, and can be a great resource for evangelizing. We have had some success in pure word of mouth, but what we'd really like to be able to do is the utilization of handouts and the like , which any community member going to a conference can distribute to, well, anyone they talk to! I bring this up, and use the vague future because I do want to slightly throw reddit under the bus here as they have been something of an impediment. You used to be able to get fairly quick approval to use Snoos on non-commercial stuff, but they scrapped the old policy almost a year ago, with the intention of rolling out a new one, but... it still hasn't happened.

Last January we were able to work with the Admins to get one time, special approval for the new mug design that we sent to the Best of 2018 winners, which we're quite appreciative of, but nevertheless, it has been fairly frustrating to have been in this holding pattern since last fall. And to be sure, we could have cone with non-branded material that didn't use the Snoos, even though a big part of the reason we commissioned a slate of new ones was specifically with this in mind, but as it didn't seem like the kind of thing that would take a full year to happen, we just decided to wait, which then of course just means more waiting, and more waiting when it doesn't happen.

So anyways, the point is, outside recruitment and finding ways to bring people to the sub is something we have put a lot of thought to, and hopefully in the near future will actually be able to roll out soon...

I'm going to step in as an outside, casual observer here -

​

This place is structured very oddly, and that leaves a very high barrier of entry. Historians are expected to go on this forum and write sourced, extensive essays to answer questions for internet points - all for free. The standards to which you hold these entries make sense, but the expectation is nonsensical. Not to sound accusatory, but it almost feels as though the rules are the way they are because the moderators don't want to bother with actually reading or verifying the comments and their sources - so the barrier of entry is set high, and anyone who violates it (e.g. the Chinese History major below) has their comments deleted.

​

So, for instance, if I were a Historian of Ancient Greek Culture, I couldn't make a one or two-sentence answer that's entirely verifiable, factually correct, and answers the question at hand - it would have to be an essay, and god knows, a lot of Historians would rather be paid in money rather than internet points.

​

My suggestion, then? Either strike up, or strike down. Lower the barrier for entry by allowing more casual answers from verified Historians (not just 'anyone' - force flairs to actually matter) OR raise the bar and become more of a publication, where you answer fewer questions, but the answers are all there.

​

I will say this - as it stands? There is nothing more frustrating than going on such a cool subreddit, clicking on the five questions I want to see answered, and seeing every last comment in those questions be deleted. That's contrary to the nature of an internet forum.

​ ​​ ​​ I agree with others that lots of fields are covered here - but it also feels like some regions are less well-covered by flairs than others. As someone flaired in a more "niche" area - colonial Latin America - I've noticed over time how quite some questions on regions of the so-called Global South, when they do come, go unanswered. E​.​g on​ huge areas like​ ​(​modern​)​ Argentina and especially Brazil for Latin America​​. We do have very active experts on regions ​including Africa and East Asia; but then again it always seems sad how many questions on the South Asian subcontinent get short or no answers.

On the one hand I get this is ​in a big ​part down to​​ reddit demographics, with people asking about/focusing much more on "the West" (Europe/US), and about history that is taught in school in the US especially. And of course it's really important to have history discussions on those regions, here and in academia.

On the other hand at least to me it seems crucial to counter Eurocentric views by turning to the histories of other parts of the world - again also in history writing, with post-colonial studies and later developments, as well as before the current political climate. ​Also I do think that the format of AH is actually great for highlighting less well-known histories and cultures, and moving outside of the more traditional historiography.​

I know that the mods can't ​recruit flairs for those areas​ in any simple way​, and that they're already doing really a lot to in​clu​de different regions, ethnicities, perspectives etc.​ I've been thinking if it makes any sense to e.g. share the call for flairs on other, related subs (like r/AskAnthropology) or regional subs? The problem especially with the regional ones would probably be the major difference in moderation and practices with AH. I don't have other great ideas but just wanted to throw this out there for the debate.

(And just to be clear again: not meant in any way as criticism of the sub and/or mods; but rather as an impulse on non-Western perspectives.)

((Kinda long way of saying: can we please get some more Latin Americanists up in here :))

I feel like part of the problem is the detail required to answer questions for something niche. Like a historian may have a lot of mental knowledge on a subject but then they have to take a lot of time out of their day to find out where it was they read that tidbit. It's not that someone can't answer the question it's that it's a pain to do a bunch of research for a post that maybe a handful of people will see.

I guess this is a good a place as any to ask the mods for some feedback. Over the past few months, I've posted several questions where I've tried to target more niche areas. Two of them got very interesting answers (Question about the Chimu and divine right in Persia) but for the most part they have been unanswered:

My questions have been on Islam in Benin, Nostalgia for Austria Hungary, impurity in Japanese warfare, 20th century art movements impacting music (this one had one very short answer but it mainly focused on saying my question was a flawed premise) and right to rule for the Shoguns.

Are these just bad questions that no one wants to tackle? Am I just unlucky? Or do we not have users that can answer these?

Apart from attracting those with academic knowledge in a specific field, a second possibility is for users who see questions pop up in topics that seem underrepresented to themselves dig into academic works on those subjects. This isn't always possible; sometimes there are huge language barriers, the few books available might be extremely expensive, etc, but tracking down the biggest names in a subject areas and some introductory works and working from there can actually be quite feasible.

This, in any case, is what I did in a subject area I had some personal connections to and a general interest in (first Zoroastrianism, then branching out to a more general history of pre-Islamic Iran and its surroudnings), having seen many questions go unanswered or being stuck with subpar answers. Obviously, it requires a significant time and possibly money investment, and it can be difficult without university library access.

But if there's an area you see questions pop up in that you think ought to be covered... it might well be worth it to dig into it yourself!

One thing I’ve thought of doing is re-posting and then answering old questions. I’m not sure if that would be kosher or in the proper spirit of the sub, but there are so many questions that go into “archive” mode unanswered. Even if the question isn’t at that point, anything over a couple days old won’t be viewed by anyone besides the OP and possible future searchers.

While searching, I’ve come across a good few old questions that I could have answered had I seen them. If it was allowed, I would re-post that question, with a tag back to the original post and user. Then, in the comments, I’d answer that question. This method would still involve user-generated questions, they’d just be time-shifted. And it would solve the usual AskHistorians problem, in that you’d immediately have a single acceptable answer rather than 20 unacceptable ones.

I’m not saying that this should replace the usual posting method, but it might help get more answers out there. It might also help with the problem posed by u/sunagainstgold by allowing people with less popular subjects to find a great question that they can answer, and go answer it. There’s a real cycle effect here, where one good or popular question can spawn countless others in that vein (ie “I’m a hot-blooded X in Ancient X”). Seeing some good answers about less-popular topics would hopefully help generate more questions in that vein.

If I were to make the rules up, I’d possibly limit this to only flaired users, and definitely only to questions that do not have already have a suitable answer. Another possibility is to make this a part of the flair application process. Rather than using answers they’ve already written, a user would have to answer a certain number of previously unanswered questions in a satisfactory way.

Either way, this would make more work for the mods, but would probably lead to more quality content from lesser-known fields.

Honestly I just love reading about history, but I don't have specific questions. Like I don't know or understand a lot of Middle Eastern or African history, and because the history is so old it's a little overwhelming to find one specific topic. Would it be ok to ask broader questions like "what was the most interesting time in ancient Africa or the middle East?".

As a flair in one of the more niche areas, I have been thinking about this for the past 5 years. I've tried a few different tactics to attract Africa specialists to become more involved in the sub.

• If I see someone who is providing good answers on an African topic, I have PMed them to encourage them to apply for flair.

• I have asked the mod team to make specific appeals in Panel Of Historians threads, asking for applicants for African, Oceanian, South Asian history.

• I have made appeals on subs like /r/Africa and /r/Afrique asking for people to apply for flair.

• I have asked mods to approach academics who deal with African topics to come do AMAs.

• I tried asking more questions on African topics, and have asked friends to try to ask questions on African topics, so there are more possible questions to answer.

But, right now on the list of flaired users there are 6 Africa flairs, which is down from 13 Africa flairs we had 5 years ago

Ditto, I mentioned that the mods asked specifically for South Asia flairs in one or two of the Panel of Historians threads. 5 years ago we had 3 India/South Asia flairs. Now we have 1.

In my opinion, the culture of AskHistorians is already established, there are already over 30 North America flairs, over 100 European history flairs, and over 50 Military history flairs, outnumbering other flair regions/topics. Those topics tend to be more popular, getting threads more upvotes and more visibility. That in turn gives knowledgeable people greater opportunities to answer questions on these topics. It is a sort of positive-feedback loop where popular topics get more flairs, and less popular topics don't.

I'd also note that if you look at the results of the 500k subreddit census, topics like Western European history, Military history, Ancient Greece/Rome, Medieval history were the most popular topics. Africa, Gender and Sexuality, Oceania, Central and South america were among the least popular. It is difficult to say how popular Indian history is, because it seemingly gets lumped into Asian history.

I'd also mention that there is a noticeable difference in how questions about different regions are asked. For instance, on the sub right now are questions about Chester A Arthur's yard sale, sexual adventurousness in Weimar Germany, a 1994 concert by Rod Stewart, and whether Britain could have invoked allies in the Falkland islands wars. Or a question about Julius Caesar and the pirates who abducted him.

In contrast, questions about Africa tend to ask about "Sub saharan Africa" and not about a specific kingdom/society unless it is Mali or Ethiopia. Questions about African history almost never ask about specific individuals and their actions.

In my opinion, this is because the people who ask questions on this sub tend to get a lot of information from pop culture or from personal reading about Western historical topics. We get an enormous number of questions about how medieval history compares to Game of Thrones.

On the other hand, the users of this sub tend not to know very much about African history, but the sub does repeatedly get questions about African topics that have sneaked into pop culture. We get the question "Was Mansa Musa the richest person in history?" regularly. Or "how did Ethiopia manage to be the only country to avoid colonization".

So, in general, questions about African topics tend to either be repetitions of a popular question, or else are extremely broad questions like "what did Africans think of Europeans when they encountered them". At worst, they are questions like "what did Europeans think about African religion when they encountered it" or "was colonialism profitable or unprofitable to colonizing countries?", which IMO unduly put European experiences and attitudes as the arbiters of African realities.

There can be good and interesting questions about Africa or about other niche topics. But, I wouldn't be surprised if many people who could write answers to questions choose not to because they find the questions flawed or uninteresting, or even obnoxious. I personally find the perennial question "why is Africa less developed than Europe" to be obnoxious.

I could be wrong. Perhaps there is a way to recruit flairs in these niche topics. But, IMO, that would be a long-term process of months or years. And for it to be successful, it would need to be a high priority for the mod team and the AskHistorians community at large do things to foster more questions and encouraging more informed answers about niche topics. It would be a lot of work for a lot of people.

I think it's just a function of the board. My own specialty is medical experimentation of the 20th century, which, outside of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the Holocaust, is not a particularly well-known topic.

Maybe if people were interested in engaging with the sub and having conversations then more people would post asking questions.

I understand wanting top level comments to have strict requirements, but that doesn't mean the comments need to be so draconian.

Would it be that hard to have a stickied comment posted by automod on posts that allow for discussion below that comment? You can keep the strict requirements for top level comments and also allow normal people to discuss the subject.

On a possibly related note, who decides what is a great question? It seems very arbitrary.

I hope we find more asap. This sub has helped me a lot with my history subjects. I even got the inspiration to be an archaeologist here.

This is actually very relevant for me since I don't have a lot of time (will?) to check every single question asked here and when I do sometimes look up topics within my field of expertise they're usually empty and weeks old by then.

What would really help, I think, is an elaborate system of tags or otherwise implemented keywords users could attach to their question coupled with a fairly simple bot pinging users (historians) who opted into one of the keywords via reddit pm to let them know that something of interest showed up.

A lot of our questions are inspired by popular media - shows like GoT or Chernobyl, Paradox games, Ass Creed. What if we did a weekly spotlight that had a look at a particular game or show each week?

It'd be highly collaborative, might see niche flairs getting a look in, and would attract a larger audience.

For instance, I'd love to take a swing at EUIV's approach to Australia.

Honestly, looking at the wide range of flaired users, I'm not sure why I've never asked a question before? Well no, I do know why, it's because the answered questions I've usually seen on here are on a relatively narrow range of history, which while enlightening, aren't really what I'm interested in knowing.

Now it seems I've been doing the historians a disservice by not going ahead and asking anyway. Will correct this post-haste

I feel the solution is asking the right questions. I exist for the niche of equine history but there are relatively few questions that I feel I have the sources and expertise to answer...partly because I'm still building up my history library. That being said, have you ever heard of Operation Cowboy? How about Sergeant Reckless? People say that dogs are a man's best friend but it seems like most forget just how much our horses have done for us. Empires have risen and fallen from the backs of our mounts. Admittedly, some questions I've seen regarding horses lean more towards anthropology, like this or this. Others are sometimes not given specific enough time periods so I've had to select it myself such as the trained mounts of the American Civil War.

I'm technically a historian because I got my degree in it, it's just not my profession. But I love talking history

Maybe have a flair with speciality, for example, my expertise is in anthropology and never answer anything because I'm not am historian. With a flair of anthropologist I'd feel less impolite to answer.

I'm pretty good at ancient Chinese history but I'm not a pro

Maybe get some academics to host AMAs here?

One thing that I've noticed as a long-time lurker here is there are copious amounts of questions every day about WWII and Rome. While there are questions asked of other topics, time periods, and places, those two are extremely popular and it can make it difficult to sift through to the other types of questions. This means less of these other questions are being answered with acceptable content, and it probably means less historians/researchers who are invested in these other areas are seeing questions that pertain to their field. I would imagine this also contributed to less of those researchers staying on this sub and answering questions.

This is all conjecture, and I'm not sure what the solution here is. Can we somehow make specific tabs or flares for the extremely popular time periods and have them sorted? I'm not familiar enough with what the reddit interface can and can't do, so apologies if this isn't helpful...

I know that I haven't studied History or can spent much time researching new topic, but I spent nearly 10 years in web and print design, so if you lads need any graphic work, would be happy to help. PM me for my portfolio or assignments.

What about a rotating weekly thread to highlight questions for some of the niche flairs? "Ask your questions: Mesopotamia" or ancient China, or whatever

Just two cents from a history master's student. Reddit is great, but not nearly as rewarding as reading books, journals, articles, and actually supporting the historians who make kickass discoveries. Unfortunately, many of these people are slow to come to the online world and on the other end, people on this subreddit don't always realize history can be dynamic. For example, for centuries Catarina Corner the last queen of the Isle of Cyprus was depicted as an atractive humble quiet woman, who out of love and patriotic duty to her home Venice, happily turned control of the isle over. Dr. Holy Hurlburt of NC State published a book recently with substantial evidence that Corner was not super attractive, and may have nearly betrayed Venice by marrying Spaniards to hold onto her throne, and even after used her former position for political favors for her friends. Or Dr. Micheal Gomez recent work on Medieval West Africa, which challenges the historiography of what agency and how much power African civilizations of Mali and Songhai had. In it, Gomez argues Mali was not just a regional, but global power looking to participate in global political religous and economic spheres. History is factual, but that doesn't mean its simply a collection of truths. Historians could certainly improve their mediums and online presence, but we should meet them halfway too. Reach out to your local universities to see if there is any expertise, most are happy to help and their email is often published online. Daughter of Venice by Holly Hurlburt https://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Venice-Caterina-Corner-Renaissance/dp/030020972X African Dominion by Micheal Gomez https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073RSVFYF/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

You can’t.

Reddit don’t know how to ask niche historical questions.

I read you guys/gals like the morning newspaper. I personally think its fine. The majority of "lesser/known/niche" subjects usually have their own subreddit. Actually what this sub needs is its own youtube channel and then sell out to become a tv channel. Kind of like Vice.

Anyone have a question of US rapid transit history or railroads? I know a lot about those

Could we possibly set aside a thread once every set time (say, a week or month) where we simply ask "What story in your subfield are you dying to tell?"

I admittedly don’t spend a ton of time in the sub but it seems to be that a lot of questions fall into the same categories. I would be happy to answer questions on the early development of computer science/logic throughout the 1900s but there just doesn’t seem to be a demand for those answers

Slightly unrelated; for those who claim the deleted comments are a form of censorship I would suggest looking at answers in new questions before the mods get there. Usually they're deleting things like 'yeah Hitler would agree with [OPs question] because I googled Mein Kampf and read something there just then'...

How do one connect to be on the list? Asking for myself. I have some broad and some nieche areas of expertise.

I've got a degree in fine art and work in preservation. I doubt my knowledge will be needed very often though.

Also, side idea, is there a AskHistoriansTLDR? If not it might be worth making. It would give people a nice quick taste on subjects and entice them to come and learn or share what they know as well.

This post should have the meta tag

When I find a good answer on here I post it on my Twitter and put the hashtag #twitterstorians in there.

​

I found that when they respond to it, they do so assuming that only incels and neo-nazis frequent the forum...they're completely oblivious to the kinds of things that go on in this subreddit.

Could there potentially be a sister subreddit or maybe one day a week where people with niche topics can do a write-up on something interesting about their topic? It will keep this reddit the same but will allow a larger pool of disseminated knowledge. “Write-Up Wednesdays” maybe?

Edit: I’m not a historian but I really like this subreddit and learning more about history. Thank you for your hard work, everyone!

There has to be somewhere in the middle of truth and fun though. If I wanted to get 100% serious, like for a research paper, I would think the only real way to do that is full blown, sourced, research. Maybe the mods need to ease up on the guidelines. Either way I am only submitting my best guess as to why more people are not submitting their answers.

I would never really comment here because I assume that even if it's in my area of knowledge and I write a detailed answer it will be deleted because I don't have a flair or a mod disagrees or something.

Excellent point.

This sub can be painful to browse. Find an interesting question, open, see 50 deleted responses. Expecting niche experts to be interested enough in browsing this sub isn't reasonable.

Tag publishers to Wikipedia, historians.

Consider me onboarded :)

My own personal perspective. I have a degree and a master's in history, and considered going down the postgraduate research route (before discovering I could be paid a heck of a lot more in other fields). I love this sub and often ask questions (sadly rarely answered but on the occasions they are I'm always grateful-bordering-on-delighted). But I rarely ever comment and wouldn't try for flair because it's just so much investment of time and effort to prepare a proper answer with access to good sources (some of which I no longer have access to as I don't have an academic library on hand, and am not exactly current with the scholarship), and because so few questions fall into the niche area I know a little about compared to the areas I know less than the average history student about. I think people like me are probably not well suited to participating here and the aim should really be to target students, especially postgraduate students, who might be interested in contributing and will have the time and resources to do so.

Hi, friends!

I want to highlight a few features of AskHistorians that you might not know about.

• Every other Tuesday, we run a Tuesday Trivia thread. This provides a loose theme--"A day in the life"; "People & Animals"--and invites responses from anyone with a story to tell. This thread is especially meant for people who don't feel like they have the expertise to answer a regular question--we relax our standards and welcome shorter posts.

• Our Saturday Showcase, every week, is completely open season for anyone who has an in-depth, up-to-date historical story to tell, data to report, original research, a book review that goes into some detail regarding what the book is about...basically a blog post.

• We also run a successful podcast every two weeks. It's an interview format, so basically, an expert gets to talk about a slice of their field. We even host outside guests, such as academics or museum professionals.

For those of you who are looking for more diversity in your history but (a) "don't know enough to know what I don't know", and (b) have a full enough r/home that AskHistorians posts don't show up unless they're super popular--these three are great opportunities to improve your experience with AskHistorians.

I hope some of you will check these out, and maybe contribute!

Well, when I see an interesting question and actually click to the see the responses nine times out of ten the comments have been removed. There seems to be very strict guidelines. In reality it is our responsibility as readers to decipher true from false. Just a thought.

You’d get more questions relevant to historians’ fields (and more participation in general) if the mods were a little less zealous about deleting comments.

I understand this is a thread for serious, academic, and in-depth posts, but it’s extremely discouraging to ask any questions or even read them when a post with 200+ replies has zero remaining comments. It seems like this is the norm, not the exception.

I specialize in ancient Chinese history, and I am fed up with this sub. We are not credited with being able to judge for ourselves or discuss issues. It's always deleted, deleted, deleted, cover your eyes children somebody had said something the censors don't approve of, deleted, deleted, deleted.

How can you attract people when they aren't allowed to judge for themselves? Healthy discussion is not permitted here.

If you want good, in depth discussions with lively give and take, go to Quora instead of deleted, deleted, deleted.