#TLDR: Click here, hit send to subscribe to the AskHistorians Newsletter.

Every day amazing content is created on /r/AskHistorians, but the nature of the site can sometimes get in the way of effective consumption. We all understand the frustration of seeing a popular question trending without an answer yet, but equally it can be sad to think about how many 1 or 2 upvote questions with incredible answers you might also be missing.

Over time we have developed a number of ways to try and help alleviate this, whether with the addition of the RemindMe Bot link in all threads, the development of the AskHistorians browser extension, /u/subredditsummarybot, or of course features like the Sunday Digest and the Monthly BestOf.

But we're always looking for ways to do even more. Some will recall last year that we signed up with the Admins to do Beta Testing of a Mass Mailer feature to subreddit subscribers. Feedback was mixed, but much of it related to the issue of opt-in versus opt-out, with otherwise mostly positive thoughts, and we got some excellent feedback on the broader concept of a periodic Newsletter. Best that we're aware, the built-in site feature went nowhere though, but the we still have been eager for it, so why wait?

#As such, we're excited to be rolling out the /u/AHMessengerBot! Thanks to the indefatigable /u/AverageAngryPeasant's assistance in bot development, we have our own personalized messenger bot for users of the subreddit to subscribe to.

Hows Does It Work?

If you are feeling lazy, click here, hit send. If you want to do the work yourself, then send a private message to /u/AHMessengerBot with the text !subscribe. If at any time you are sick of us, you can then send !unsubscribe.

What Will I Actually Be Getting?

OK, so the title is a bit hyperbolic. No brain-beaming. Yet. But you will get a mailer straight to your reddit inbox! We're calling this an Open Beta, because... the content isn't 100% decided. We'll likely take a few weeks to find just the right balance, but we intend to feature a few pieces of popular content from the week, a few pieces of overlooked content from the week, and notable features such as AMAs. This is what it looked like when we were doing the tests last year, and you can expect something somewhat like that. For a much more in-depth explanation of construction, check out the guidelines we followed there which will still be generally the case here.

The things we can say with most certainty though is that we don't want to get spammy. We don't want it to get too lengthy, and we don't want to get too many of these. Weekly is our starting point, and likely to be what we stick with. It is possible the frequency will be made longer, but we promise it won't be made shorter.

The first few weeks as we get our sea-legs, we're going to be very appreciative of feedback that we hear from you all about how it can be made even better, so please drop it in this thread!

Why a Reddit Bot?

We have been wanting to do something like this for awhile. Using a listserv or mailing list had come up in discussions, but we never much liked the idea. Many users browse /r/AskHistorians as part of their broader redditing habits, and we wanted a solution that could integrate into that.

What is Difference from the /u/subredditsummarybot I Get?

/u/subredditsummarybot is awesome, and we still highly endorse it! But it pulls content solely based on upvotes, and gives you the top ten threads and the top ten comments blind. Sometimes those threads don't have answers. Sometimes those comments are actually just a follow-up question, or something in a META thread that trended. Our intention here is to provide a more curated experience that helps users enjoy a slice of the best content of the week, regardless of popularity. But we definitely encourage subscribing to both!

I Signed Up. Why Didn't I Get It?

We've found that some users aren't getting the mailer due to having PMs turned off. If you have done this, please make sure to whitelist the bot account so they can still hit up your inbox!