Love this sub but it's so frustrating. 99% of the questions asked I'm fascinated in finding out what the answer could be, so I see it has several comments click on it only to find they all been removed (because noobs have been commenting).
I'm left frustrated I'll never get an answer to that question. I tried to save the question and check it later in the week but I ended up saving too many and it's too much of a job to go checking back through them all, it would just be easier and less stressful to see which have been answered.
The issue here is simple: Reddit is designed to run on what is getting the most activity while this sub is designed to run on the most logical answers which can take days even weeks to get an answer. By that time the question is no longer visible as more active/new questions bury it.
Why don't you use flairs?
You guys and your insistence on high standards of quality and accuracy...
Seriously, while it’s annoying to waste an entire click, keep doing what you are doing. The quality is what makes this place one of the flagship subs in my opinion.
The core of the problem is that Reddit is simply not an ideal platform for a high quality sub like r/AskHistorians. While it's true that finding an exciting question with nothing but deleted comments can be annoying, the fault in no way lies with the sub. For long-time lurkers like me, what I find frustrating is not the deletions, but rather how every single thread has comments written by Redditors who can't be bothered reading the rules before they post. What would REALLY solve this problem is self-regulation on the part of countless posters who insist on posting jokes, one sentence answers and links to wikipedia, followed then by the inevitable barrage of requests that the mods solve the cat-herding problem of typical Reddit behavior.
So yeah, finding quality answers to interesting question isn't always a smooth, easy, and instantly gratifying experience. But you're on Reddit, so what did you seriously expect? The mods here do an incredible job despite the unmanageable nature of the platform.
This seems to come up every few months, but the mods have already addressed the issue in some depth. To recap the most pertinent part:
The main reason why we don’t have an ‘answered’ flair (or tag) for questions is that – as has been explained above – there is no definitive answer to a historical question. An ‘answered’ flair suggests that everything that is to be said has been said. It also suggests an endorsement of the one answer that was posted, an implicit rejection of alternative views. It should be needless to say, but we want to avoid giving that impression at all costs.
Other issues with an ‘answered’ flair are:
It suggests an answer is free from errors, even though we mods can never be entirely sure it is; experts – and this includes flaired users – sometimes make mistakes. An ‘answered’ flair might discourage others from challenging apparent mistakes in an answer. It’s been mod-approved, so it must be correct, right?
Flaired users have indicated they’re less likely to post if a thread has such a tag. After all, anyone who has already seen the thread and read “the” answer is unlikely to check back later if anything has been added. On the other hand, if the thread isn’t tagged, people might come back later to read new additions. In other words, an ‘answered’ tag gives the impression – even to flaired users – that a thread is ‘closed’ or ‘finished’ in some sense, even though it isn’t.
Who would make the decision that a question gets the tag? OP likely isn’t qualified enough to judge if an answer is sufficient and meets our standards (we do see people posting “thanks for the great answer!” in response to answer we have to remove) and automod can’t evaluate answers either; it’d have to be mods, which brings me to my next point…
Work load! We get more than a hundred questions a day, with answers being posted – and removed – throughout the day. We’d constantly be updating flairs in addition to the work we’re currently do. Speaking of work…
Already we have people posting low quality answers “because there’s nothing here yet”. We’re afraid that an ‘answered’ tag would only encourage such behaviour. If there’s no tag yet, people might want to make one appear.
There have been suggestions to use a different type of flair instead of an ‘answered’ tag. However, many of the issues above apply to an ‘unanswered’ or ‘unaddressed’ flair as well. The wide range of comments we get, from high-quality answers to barely sufficient answers to not-yet-removed answers, and from clarifications by OP to follow-up questions by other users, means that any automated solution (a bot) is not workable. Constant manual updating of all threads is even less workable.
Which all make sense as good reasons to me.
I should also point out that there are weekly Saturday Spotlight and Sunday Digest threads to help focus on both answered and unanswered questions that might otherwise be missed.
Quite aside from the reasons laid out here by other mods, it's worth acknowledging that there is a larger issue here well beyond our collective control - the same issue that drives droves of "where did comments go???" responses on questions barely an hour old. The basic premise of this sub is that answers require time, both for someone with expertise to be available, and for them to write a response. Reddit as a whole runs on immediacy - the newest, freshest content getting delivered to your eyes as quickly as possible. The problem here is that the expectation of content is repeatedly subverted - popular AH posts are almost guaranteed to reach your feed well before an answer is written. As a result, reconciling the subreddit's purpose with Reddit's architecture is never going to be perfect.
An answered flair - leaving aside all the other issues - would be at best a bandaid to this bigger problem. Not all users would see it, depending on the platform they used. Not all would know to look for that matter, or would understand it if they saw it. Even if we had it and you knew to look for it, virtually none of the posts you'd organically see would have it in place. Quite simply, the only way to get the most out of this sub, no matter what workarounds get tried, is to change the way you browse it. We offer any number of tools to make this easier - the Sunday Digest in particular does an amazing job of keeping track of just about every decent answer each week. We appreciate that having to adapt your habits is annoying, and we'd love it if Reddit's algorithms were better able to accommodate content like ours. But until they do, there's no technical solution we can implement that will magically fix the underlying problem.
I just want to say that holy shit am I seeing some entitled people in this thread.
The mods and contributors here have a defined goal: to promote high quality, comprehensive answers. They do this for no pay, nor any rewards, simply because it's something they're passionate about. And people come in and are calling them lazy, and arguing about how it's being done.
To all of the people calling the mods "lazy" or suggesting "solutions" that have been debated and rejected, remember that this is a completely voluntary process. If you don't like the way things are run here, go to /r/history or /r/AskHistory - or better yet, make a subreddit yourself - after all, you know how best to run this, right?
In addition to what the other mods have said here, I want to point out: does anyone subscribe to /r/OutOfTheLoop ? They have answered flairs for posts.
...and when I click on a thread there, I entirely ignore the presence of that flair or not, because half the time, the flair is not on a thread with a great answer, and half the time, the flair is present on a thread with an answer that explains almost nothing. That inconsistency is also how it would end up being implemented in /r/AskHistorians even if we made it our number one priority, just simply because Reddit is not really designed for that kind of thing.
Let’s say that we had an answered flair.
Sometimes, you the reader simply see things before a mod does. And, as a mod, you look at a queue of things to moderate and there’s 30 things on the list, so you do it quickly and make mistakes because you have other things to do with your day - you might flair something wrongly or you might forget to flair something (or Reddit might have had a blip when you pressed the button and nothing happens at all). Sometimes, as a mod, an answer looks good...unless you’re flaired in that particular topic area and know that the author they based their post on is a really shitty scholar who stretches the truth. Sometimes a mod could remove a comment for this reason without realising the thread had an answered flair on it. Sometimes users would delete their own posts, even if we would have put an answered flair on the thread, because they’re freaked out by the attention. Sometimes nobody is around to mod for a few hours, in which case nothing is going to get flaired.
I’m sure these are a few of the reasons I find its implementation pretty spotty on r/OutOfTheLoop, amongst others - and they seem like a fairly well run sub to me, I’m not saying they’re doing it wrong.
The real issue here is Reddit’s algorithms, which screw r/AskHistorians, especially over the last 18 months or so. Reddit’s algorithms assume that you want interesting new content - or, more to the point, it wants you to spend a lot of time looking at a lot of different threads, because then it can serve you a new ad on each new thread (sure, you use an ad blocker, but Reddit still treats you as someone to be advertised to). If you clicked on a thread here pretty briefly, saw there was nothing there, and moved on, then you’re not interested in the thread any more - it thinks. So it stops showing you that thread, because putting it in your home page is a waste compared to showing you something that might result in you seeing an ad. So as far as you’re concerned you never saw an answer, and then you figure it never got an answer. Even though it did, an hour later. Which Reddit isn’t going to show you, because its algorithm won’t care about answered flairs.
agree very strongly. I do the exact same thing 'what a great question! oh look there are 14 comments" and then go there to see it is all modbot and deletions. So frustrating.
It doesn't even have to be an "answered" flag, how about a flag that just notes that there are actual responses instead of 20 [removed].
How about a flair that means "a person has posted a comment with more than 50 words and it hasn't been deleted".
FWIW I would just like to say, that based on the responses provided by the mod team, I agree with the approach, and thank you for your efforts and discussion around this topic. Cheers!
This subreddit has become more strict compared to half a decade ago, and the quality of content has only gone up. Anyone can post an answer here, that's one of the amazing things about this sub, but it has to withstand academic scrutiny.
Most complaints here have been answered so many times, over so many years, you can't help but feel sorry for the moderation team, that has to deal with a dozen new people not reading the rules every day. This sub is one of the most unique and high quality collection of crowd sourced history digests in the world.
If you want a way to browse threads from this subreddit that have non-deleted responses (other than the browser plugin the mods have already mentioned), it already exists: r/HistoriansAnswered. That sub consists of link-posts to threads at this subreddit which that sub's bot has identified as answered. I think their criterion is based on there being a non-mod comment of at least a certain length that has stayed up for at least a certain length of time.
If you want a higher-quality manually-curated place to check for threads that have quality answers but may have been buried behind new questions, that also already exists, right here on this subreddit. Every week, there's a "Sunday Digest" of "Interesting & Overlooked Posts" where the mods (and other member of the community) call out links to interesting questions with good answers which may have gotten buried from the front page by the time the answers were posted. You can find a compilation of the Sunday Digests here. There's also a link under the "Weekly Features" menu in the subreddit's header.
This is one of the few subreddits that actually provides properly cited, factual, and well spoken dialogue. IF IT WERE thrust upon to some utterly GHASTLY youngsters to moderate this subreddit, THEN IT WOULD BE rather quickly reduced to the common standard of utter nonsense that is the progenitor of this subreddit, that is, /r/history.
I FOR ONE, am glad to have this rather discriminatory channel of discussion available... It is nothing better to have the nonsense filtered out, and have the knowledgeable ladies and gentlemen contribute.
I've notice that most of the people asking for an Answered flair are ignoring or not understanding the point of AskHistorians. This subreddit exists to provide answers of an academic nature. The people who frequent AskHistorians know this and are quite happy with the moderation, the set-up, and often times not getting answers to certain questions. We recognize that answering requires knowledge, time, and effort in order to provide something valuable. The people who complain seem to be doing so from the pov of reddit users coming in from /all. These are not people looking for academic answers that reflect current historic or historiographic discourse on the relevant subject, as clearly demonstrated by their inability to read the rules bot post that is at the top of every thread. Why should the mods here provide extra labour for a task that benefits those who aren't interested in the kind of answer provided here anyways? If someone isn't interested enough in a question to look back on their upvotes or to use the remindme bot to check for updated answers, then they weren't really interested in the question in the first place.
Besides all this, the problem isn't actually created by the mods but by users. 99% of removed comments would not exist if people simply read and followed the rules of AskHistorians. It's very easy to not post something.
I don't think that's bad. With the amount of disinformation in the internet and the use of history for political motives, it's the best to do if you want a proper accurate response and not baseless facts or conspiracy theories.
This thread I posted a while ago that is tangentially related might also provide additional insight into this topic for you
Since I know you mods filter by new comments often, I know you’ll see this and I just want to say that I’ve basically dropped most of reddit outside of this sub and the reason I’ve kept coming here is the quality and intense moderation. Which, in my opinion, contrary to what I hear a subset of the population say seems to be very transparent and logical. I do appreciate the transparency of the moderation here and the amount of effort put in to engage with the community in constructive dialogue even if it seems like a chunk of people just want to complain (but hey, people). Honestly, I respect the patience that is required to repeatedly engage in the same conversations over and over again about why it’s modded the way it is. So, no complaints from me just thanks. I’m trying to be better about expressing my thanks because I know that most of us that enjoy this sub and the moderation have a tendency to be quiet and carry on and so it oftentimes seems like threads like these are just filled with complaints (though this one less than normal). Also, I understand the problems with an answered flair and a few useless clicks is a price I’m willing to pay. I will say that the idea of auto-deleting unanswered archived posts is a good one because I have run across the problem of searching for a topic finding an old answer listing several comments and finding out that really it was never answered. Sadly, I can’t code and I know you guys are busy but I think it’s a solid idea. Also, I do routinely run across old >4 year old comments that don’t meet the currents standards it would be great if there was some way to clean some of those up and if I can help let me know.
For anyone else that bothers to scroll far enough down to see this late comment instead of wishing for an answered flair which I don’t think would really help the underlying issue that much check the Sunday digest it’s great and there’s generally lots of good posts there. Also, there’s /r/historiansanswered which is a bot sub that collects answered askhistorians posts. It’s unaffialited with this sub and it’s not flawless but it’s something.
What about instead of a flair it's an award like 'Interesting answers' award. It would reward questions that led to in depth answers and would mean it's more up to the readers than the poster. If it's quite cheap like silver it could work. Fascinating tangents or a Down the Rabbit hole award could be cool too.
Did something happen to RemindMeBot recently? It seems like the perfect solution to OP's problem but I'm not seeing it suggested anywhere.
I have a suggestion that sidesteps a lot of these issues. What about a counter that simply shows undeleted *responses* instead of answers per se? So when a mod goes through the thread, the counter the mod updates the counter to show how many comments are still standing. It would essentially be the same as the "x comments" link that's under a thread, except the flair would be the same thing minus the deleted ones. Maybe you could have a bot do that. It just looks at the amount of comments, subtracts the deleted ones, and updates the flair.
Edit: End section moved to the front for better visibility
###What We Do Have!
Trust me when I say that if we thought it would work, we would implement it. If nothing else it would get y'all to stop asking! We really do take it seriously though, and probably once a year, at least, we have a discussion on the matter to see whether anything has changed, but for better or for worse, little does.
The perpetual request for "Answered" Flair. We hear this suggestion probably more than all others combined, but despite this... it is unlikely to happen at least until there are serious changes to the site infrastructure.
While it is a suggestion that seems self-evident to many, unfortunately, it isn't quite so straightforward an idea. And while we aren't opposed to it per se, we are opposed to implementation of such a scheme in a way that wouldn't be fair and equitable in application, not to mention something which can be administered easily and in a uniform manner. As such, there are a number of impediments, both practical and philosophical, that prevent us from putting such a flair into effect.
####There is Rarely One Answer
One of the biggest issues facing such a scheme comes down to the historical method itself. Different historians can look at the same evidence, and come to different conclusions. Neither one is necessarily invalid, and the debate between those competing positions can tell us just as much about a topic as the answers themselves, sometimes more even as it can help suss out details and thoughts on the process itself. In a space such as these, we generally do not want to endorse one perspective over another. Ideally, an answer on a topic which is subject to hot debate within the academy should make that clear enough itself, but we, as moderators, not only don't want to take sides there, but we simply shouldn't be seen as favoring one academic interpretation over another.
Just as we remove comments in a thread because of how the first comment, whatever its quality, can so often become the 'hot' comment of a thread, we likewise don't want to be crediting as 'answered' a thread because the first comment which meets the rules has arrived. Put simply, we aren't endorsing anything here as the definitive answer. Responses which are not removed meet certain criteria which reflect fidelity to the historical method, but history is a process, and rarely do we end up with so definitive a picture that we can reject any and all alternatives with certainty.
####Stifling of Contributions
Closely tied into this is what such a flair would potentially do to the quality of content in the subreddit. We aren't simply speculating, but know well from many discussions with Flaired contributors, that the presence of "Answered" flair on a thread would make them less inclined to contribute further. An answer in the thread might be decent and just enough to justify being left up, but there is a ton more to say, or another important angle to offer. With 'Answered' flair there is simply less incentive to do so. It gives the thread a sense of finality that disincentives further contributions.
####Workflow of Moderation
Moderating is often like being a grad student TA, assigned to a class that isn't actually in your focus. We can evaluate a lot about an answer using general principles of the historical method. We can consider the construction of the arguments, and how well the piece communicates its information. We can check sources and see whether they a) exist b) are well reviewed and c) make mention of the topics at hand. But we aren't all experts on everything. Between the whole team, we have an incredibly wide coverage, but we necessarily must do triage at times.
Say a question about 12th century France is posted. I, knowing nothing about the topic, can evaluate an answer on the criteria noted above, and decide is passes the smell test. Or maybe I think there is something fishy, but can't quite put my finger on it, but either way, I decide that there isn't justification for removal based on my reading but in either case, while not removing it, I'll flag it to the attention of the mod team's medievalists to have a look. When they are able to, they will also give it a look. Maybe they decide it is fine. But maybe they pick up on something that I wouldn't be aware of. From there, we have several approaches. If bad enough, obviously, we'll remove and warn the user. If it is missing something major, we might remove it with DM explaining the issue and suggestions on how to fix it after which we review to reinstate. Or maybe the issue is kind of in that grey area, in which case we would leave it up for now but with some pointed follow-up question to try and suss out a bit more from the user, and only remove if their response indicates that they are already past the extent of their knowledge.
So the question is... at what point does the "Answered" flair go up? Is it when I first decide "smells OK"? But it might still be removed later! Is it after the 'in-field' mod makes their first assessment? Still might be removed depending on the latter stages. For some cases, it can easily be several stages over 24 hours for a response is definitely there to stay. Even beyond standard workflow, there are plenty of other things that might happen. Perhaps it turns out a response was plagiarized, so must be removed. Perhaps a respondent refuses to provide sources after request, so must be removed. And of course, because it was originally noted as "answered", other potential respondents already decided not to bother!
####Mechanics of the Flair
Even if we are able to work through all of those issues, which is easier said than done, just how is this being applied? In the end, it needs to be applied manually by the mods. Although there are ways that flair can be automated with bots, those are "dumb" solutions, which is to say, a bot can know there is a comment in the thread with at least 700 words or something, but it can't know if they are good words.
Likewise, although the creator of a thread can add flair themselves, beyond the fact that it isn't something we can assume will be done consistently, it also isn't up to the OP to judge the quality of the response as it is in some other subreddits such as /r/AskHistory. A response may be posted, they may read it and add the flair before a mod sees it... only for the mod to quickly see glaring issues that might not be obvious to a layperson, but utterly sink the quality from a more informed view.
So in the end, it would have to be something the mod team does manually, only after evaluation of an answer. This places a burden on us beyond what we already carry, as it creates a number of pressures, including to act quicker than we currently do, and also to be more accurate in our assessments of answers than we already are.
####Pressure on the Mods
We know that this subreddit can sometimes be frustrating. We wish every question could get a great answer immediately, but that just isn't so. It takes time, and not every question will get a response in the end. And while this impulse in large part drives the desire for 'Answered' Flair, there are knock-on effects that must also be considered, and a big one is the pressure it puts on the mods to get it right. This builds off of the issues already addressed, but the long term impact of that needs to be considered. There is a difference between passive and active approval. Allowing a response to stand is passive - "read through, checked sources, looks good" - whereas stating that a thread is answered is active. All else being the same, it must be kept in mind that the presence of 'Answered' Flair would almost certainly result in fewer questions being answered simply due to the pressure on the mod team to ensure that flair is deserved.
In the end, moderation is a holistic consideration, where we weigh different factors to arrive at a decision, and this would simply be adding an additional factor to that calculation, and one which is always in favor of removal. Going back to the issue of workflow for instance, there are number of different points where the "Answered" flair could maybe be applied, but many of them might result in it being taken down, which is absolutely the worst case scenario, but it might very well be 24 hours before we feel confident enough in putting it up there!
###Unanswered Flair Though!?
"Ok, ok, ok," you are saying. "But what about something else?" Alternative suggestions such as "Unanswered" have been made in the past, but that essentially has the same problems as before, just inverting how we view them. Whatever issues are present in giving "Answered" flair are basically the same in removing "Unanswered" flair. Similarly, while "Content Present" or other suggestions which attempt to offer a more neutral description that "Answered" to lessen some of the issues, they don't erase them entirely.
Here's a suggestion to the mods:
Instead of giving an "Answered" flair to threads, why not an "Active" flair.
Something to suggest that there is an ongoing discussion in the thread and that there are comments which although might not hold correct answer (relinquishes liability) has comments which the mods deem worthy of not deleting.
Basically, you aren't endorsing any comment as right or wrong. But you are giving a stamp of approval stating "If you click on this thread, there is additional content for you to read in the comment section"
Seems pretty easy to partially fix this. Just have a bot refresh "x comments deleted" flair every couple hours.
If I see a thread with 42 comments and "42 comments deleted" next to it, it saves me a click. Mod deletion reason responses could be added to the number.
Honestly if they can't even have features like that I'm just gonna leave this sub is frustrating and it's mostly Reddits fault
Instead of answered, there could be a "likely unanswered" tag. That would probably be easier and could be done with automoderator. Basically every thread would get the tag when it's created, and when there's a top answer with a lot of characters it gets removed. It could just be a ø symbol so it's unobtrusive.
Because the mods seem to be obsessed with the idea that a 'high quality' sub should be inaccessible. Their approval procedure is already so strict that any comments not removed after a few hours is de facto approved by them. They have claimed before that manually adding such a flair to each thread would be manually intensive which is ridiculous, given that they already scour every thread.
This sub is the most frustrating sub on all of Reddit.
What about a tag in the other direction: start all posts with a "no worthwhile responses" (or some different and better) tag, and remove it when a mod looks at a response and decides to leave it up. That way it gives readers a notion that there is something there that at least passes the bar for non-deletion. It gives no hint at quality or thoroughness, besides passing the bar to remain up as a comment.
How about a flairs for lesser answers that are just a best attempt by regular folks? Like Amateur? That might at least give interested folks some bunnies to chase and reduce the zero answers problem.
" 99% of the questions asked I'm fascinated in finding out what the answer could be, so I see it has several comments click on it only to find they all been removed (because noobs have been commenting). "
100000000000000000% same. Thought about unsubscribing for awhile because of this user experience. Great suggestion to have an answered tag!!
I wanna see answers right or wrong, so I can get a general idea, thats all im looking for, STOP DELETING COMMENTS!!!
It seems to me like the current system works great for people providing answers, but not for people seeking answered questions. Instead of changing /r/AskHistorians in any way, it might make more sense to create a new sub like /r/AnsweredHistorians where users (or bots) repost questions once answered with at least one valid answer.
I've asked this question before, privately. I got the same answer, and I still don't buy it. The mods say it's not straightforward, and that it's unacceptable level of work, but that makes no sense at all. This sub is possibly the heaviest-moderated on the site. The idea that adding flair is an onerous task is ridiculous. It's also very straightforward - simply apply the flair the first time you let a top-level comment, any top-level comment, stand. That lets users know the answer they want - there is at least one mod-approved answer - and it takes seconds at most. Given the number of deleted comments, that extra labor seems trivial.
Maybe have a ghost town flair, when every response has currently been deleted
Perhaps a middle ground like “plausibly answered.”
Knowing the academic nature of historians, questions marked as “plausibly answered” would invite historians to confirm the answer wasn’t bs based on their backgrounds.
Have you ever met a historian who hasn’t called BS on something within their area of expertise?
What we’re asking for is USER experience based. Yes, it’s not perfect (nothing in this world is)... but it would relieve some of the disappointment/sadness when you check a question with 100 replies and all of them are deleted!!!!
Wiggle room, guys, wiggle room ;)
Also, don’t let that take away from the fact that this sub is great and we could not have a better mod team. Especially “the general Zhukov .” Keep if up!
I'm pretty frustrated with the moderators of this sub over this.
The key problem is that for almost all of reddit if something has more than 2-3 comments there will be visible comments for users to read. This is not the case on r/AskHistorians. So, r/AskHistorians is breaking a fundamental assumption most people on reddit are operating with about how posts and comments work.
Meanwhile, the moderators of the subreddit keep acting like other things are more important than addressing this inconsistency. If it's not the word used in the flair, then it's moderator workload. If its not moderator workload its "we like what we're doing!".
If you don't like the word used for the flair, find a new one. English has a crazy number of words and exact shade of meaning is easy to convey with a word or two.
If you need more moderators, add more moderators. They don't really need to be historians. I understand if you think there is some value in highlighting historians, but you can have non-historian moderators...
If you don't want to change the existing flair system: Tough! We're telling you it's broken. Fix it. How many comments do you get about this? It's my experience that if you're even getting one message a month about this then it's a likely an issue. Redditors are lazy.
Same here......I've given up. It will say "43 Comments" then scroll down & everything has been deleted with the moderator's robotic response. It's as if we're 5 year old children & need someone to tell us what is relevant, or not. Seems to me that if were interested in such a topic, most (although not all, of course) would be intelligent enough to take the answers with a grain of salt or with what would be considered creditable. I'm thinking, my mistake.
Thank you! I hope to one day stumble across a question that has actually been answered on this sub.
Agree. Other thing is why moderators delete perfectly fine answers that add something valuable to topic if they are short? I get concerns about quality and I love no tolerance for bullshit, but why the hell are responses deleted if they are just good?
This is why I'm more likely to browse /r/AskHistory . Half the answers may be conjecture, but it's a lot nicer to read than [deleted].
It's incredibly dumb that there isn't some kind of flair indicating that the comments aren't all deleted. I get that you don't want an "answered" flair but surely there is a middle ground to be found.