So there are a couple of things to keep in mind:
By far, most of the posts you see that are removed in popular threads are people asking why all the comments are removed (or some version of "what happened here" or the ever-hilarious [removed] as a comment). They aren't serious attempts at an answer that we're removing for being off base.
We don't require sources for answers, except if they're requested. So putting an "unsourced" flair on comments doesn't do anything, even if we could flair comments, which we can't.
Allowing low-effort comments to stand means that they will be upvoted and drown out the longer, researched answers that take a long time to be written. This is just how Reddit works -- people drive by and upvote the first comment that looks cromulent, even when it isn't, which leads us to ...
"most of us know enough to see through unsourced bs."
Respectfully, you don't. Check out the amount of misinformation that's on r/history or check out some of the threads on r/badhistory about that.
This subreddit exists to provide high-quality answers to historical questions. If you don't like the heavy moderation, that's fine! And it's why r/askhistory and r/history exist. But that's not an argument for us to lower our standards.
Thanks!
most of us know enough to see through unsourced bs.
I'd just like to tackle this a little bit because, and no offense to anyone, but frequently it's just not how it shakes out. Reddit hugely favours whatever is posted first. That's what'll get upvoted, and what will end up dominating the conversation. Sometimes it's BS, but just as frequently it's jokes and memes. That kind of garbage then buries any real talk and discussion. Why would someone spend four hours checking sources and writing an in depth, high quality response if they know it's going to get buried under Hitler jokes or personal anecdotes?
There's another big problem as well. What if someone pops in before that in depth post gets put up? They read the little shitty blurb on a sub somewhat famous for it's accuracy and quality, and there's nothing saying its wrong. They read it, think its right, then click off and never come back. Instead of educating people we've not literally spread false information. The fact of the matter is that people actually have a really hard time seeing through unsourced BS.
Ill see if I can dig it up, but some previous meta threads have actually had screenshot examples of what's been removed. Heck, maybe I'll pop into a bigger thread and take some screen shots. 90% of the time it's not attempted answers getting removed. It's jokes, memes, insults and some one or two line sentences going "I think it's because..."
Edit: Zhukov beat me to it, but check out this glorious example of what your missing. Real quality stuff eh?
This comes up with a certain frequency - usually when a thread hits front page and many users who aren't familiar with the rules just post whatever, or complain about the deleted posts.
In itself this is not a big deal, as most people who like the place seem to like it the way it is run. I want to push back a bit on this one though:
I'd like to know what is being said, and most of us know enough to see through unsourced bs.
Because I don't. It's actually pretty easy to put together unsourced bs that reads like somewhat informed and coherent stuff. It's also possible to be genuinely attempting to provide a good answer and being wrong in such a way as to be misleading the readers who may or may not be able to make the distinction.
I certainly don't agree with the "make your own call" argument; I don't think it's easy at all. We have the entire internet to exercise our critical thinking, and we don't always excel at it, regardless of our personal experience, formation, education and qualities. It's just not that easy.
With that said - which is my own opinion on the matter - it's not that the moderators (nor the users) ignore the issue when it appears. See for instance this rules summary, with various examples, this meta thread and this meta thread or this one.
Which is to say that, if you want to have an exchange with the mods - a civil one of course - that's perfectly fair. But I think we should start from the observations that the rules exist not only because the mods impose them, but because the regular users kind of like and appreciate their work.
Contributions being deleted because they are lacking sources is generally a misconception. Rule #3 states: users should be able to provide sources on request. The truth is, most responses that are deleted don't even get to the stage of being scrutinized for sources, simply because they generally aren't replies that seriously try to give an in-depth and comprehensive answer to a posed question in the first place. The mods might wish that answers lacking proper sources is the main problem they are facing, but it isn't. Instead it's puns, soapboxing, profanities, wiki links and other types of clutter that do little to provide the information the community values and expects at AskHistorians.
So two things I would point out.
The first, admittedly, is a real pet peeve of mine. People suggest the "just put 'unsourced' flair on things" a lot, but this is annoying to hear because it reflects a basic lack of knowledge about how the site works, lot alone the subreddit. To be sure, we wouldn't do this if we could as the reason we curate content is specifically to reward and encourage the creation of answers which wouldn't need that, but the site does not support flairing of comments. It simply cannot be done.
More importantly though, as to your last point, this unfortunately really isn't true, and while I don't want to sound overly dismissive, the simple fact is that there is plenty of incorrect information posted every day that wouldn't be obvious to a layperson.
This thread is a great example of this. All of the initial comments were about the Midatlantic/Transatlantic Accent. This is the one fact about mid-century accents people seem to know. As such, some people were writing answers about it, and because it sounded right to all those people who knew that fact, they then upvoted it. At a glance, at least 50 comments give that as an answer, and many were getting upvoted before removal by the mods.
But that answer is objectively wrong. And it took the better part of a day for someone to drop in there with an an answer that actually recognized this and took a different angle. If we hadn't removed the objectively wrong answers they likely would have been upvoted into the 1000s by that point. This gets exactly to the heart of the incentivization that we aim for with the rules. In removing the bad and incorrect answers, however truthy they may sound - or more specifically because they often can sound truthy and laypersons don't recognize the difference - we curate a space where people will want to put the time and effort into writing the quality answers that we are known for.
Trust me, we would LOVE to have no posts which are a see of removed comments, but that is a problem nearly as old as the Internet rather than one specific to our subreddit.
most of us know enough to see through unsourced bs.
Can you though? Others have already explained why this is not quite accurate for most viewers but as an example which of the following statements is "true":
Humans relied on chariots for combat and transportation until horses could be bred large enough to bear a rider upon its back.
Riding and chariots coexisted as technologies, though it is highly likely that riding does predate chariots.
Which one is "unsourced bs" and which one is supported by archaeological and historical evidence? If you are not familiar with the evidence yourself, then it will either be a guessing game or you will choose the one that best matches your interpretation of history.
In this case, you probably chose the first one as you'll take one look at the prevalence of chariots in the ancient near east and the "smaller" stature of horses to draw a conclusion that horses were too small to be ridden. However, if I show you this (dated to around 1900 +- 100 BCE) and this (dated to around 640 +- 5 BCE), then you'll realize that what you assumed to be correct isn't actually supported as well as you thought.
Just my $0.02.
No! If the mods aren't strict this place will devolve into the shitholes that most other subs are!
Personally, I'm not a historian and I'm not the best at figuring out what is true and what is just well stated. I deeply appreciate the mods for being so thorough,as it must take a lot of time and effort on their part and it means I can reasonably trust what I read in this sub. There are not a lot of forums out there that deliver on accuracy as well as this one.
No
Mods,
Open question: What kind of responses are being deleted? Snarky and obscene? Or self delete after the poster thinks for a bit?
