##Meta on the Meta Thread Several days after the events in Atlanta, GA, AH mod u/historiagrephour posted our first META thread related to current events since the roll-out of our newsletter. We thought frequent visitors to AH might be interested in learning more about the process, the response, and the consequences.

We’ve posted META threads on the history related to current events before (more on that here) and followed a similar structure this time: one mod volunteers to take point, does research, and starts an outline while other mods and flaired members offer feedback and input in a Google Doc. Within moments of it being posted, it was reported for soapboxing. Over the course of the next 24-hours, it was reported dozens of times by users, including those who used the custom response field to type racial and sexist slurs at/about the mods.

Users also used modmail to express their opinions on the thread. And they had opinions. Many were about being banned for posting something racist and/or sexist. Some wanted to quibble with the title. Or argue about the title. Or say something sexist and/or racist while demanding the title be changed. We responded to every sincere question about the title, our reasoning, or the sub itself. We are still receiving and responding to such questions this week.

All told, there were 294 comments posted to the thread. We removed 156. (To give you a frame of reference, our post on the events on 1/6 in Washington, DC had 689 comments. We removed 32 for breaking our rules. 832 comments were posted on the META about the protests following Geroge Floyd’s murder. We removed 84 for breaking our rules.) Of the 156 comments we removed on a META thread about the history of anti-Asian racism, most were one or two lines long and offered nothing of value. While a few were extended responses looking to challenge a historical claim in the post, they included text that broke our rules about civility or offered unsubstantiated claims.

It’s difficult to summarize the impact of such a post. We received several thank you notes from AH community members. The mod who posted the thread had to take a step back from Reddit as all those racist and sexist comments we mentioned ended up in their mailbox if we were unable to remove them quickly enough. At the same time, there was an emotional toll on them around writing an extensive, carefully researched post and seeing how many Reddit users were eager to parse a single word, rather than reflect upon what it meant that they were so eager to tell a stranger their thoughts on a single word. Such posts are rarely planned far in advance. They typically come about because the mod team are all talking about the same event or a flair reaches out to draw our attention to something. We recognize our North American biases and we’re always open to feedback about such threads and our modding practices so please feel free to reach out if you have questions, wonderings, or thoughts!

I must confess I don't really know anything about Sean McKeekin, but this review of his latest book that came across my feed doesn't make his work sound particularly great.

"McMeekin wants to do more than just right the record and dispel popular misconceptions. He is also a crusading prosecutor intent on building a case to convict the guilty. Churchill for one: he might have been able to stop or at least limit the war by coming to terms with Hitler in 1940. The British could have kept their empire and western Europe remain free while Germany and the Soviet Union slugged it out in the east. Given Hitler’s record of broken promises, perhaps Churchill was wise not to trust him."

Yeah, perhaps.

"Was the Soviet war against Finland in the winter of 1939-40 really a key turning point when Stalin’s march to world power might have been halted, perhaps Hitler’s in Europe too? While there was much sympathy around the world for the tiny country battling the Soviet colossus, the likelihood of France and Britain leading a coalition to wage war on both Germany and the Soviet Union and in partnership with Spain, which had just ended its civil war, an Italy firmly in the fascist camp, a Hungary tilting to Germany, and a still isolationist US — even the adherence of Turkey was “far from fanciful” — is, to put it mildly, improbable."

If McKeekin is seriously arguing for this, I am almost more suspicious than confused. This basically sounds like exactly what Hitler wanted (minus the "going to war with Germany" part).

History-related griping, ahoy! There are many good parts about going absolutely feral over the history & culture of pre-Columbian Mexico (the Aztecs, specifically).

...Until you realize that a ton of sources & important scholarly works are only available in Spanish, cost $$$$$$, don't have an ebook version, or all three at once. Also, because the English-speaking world does not generally go feral over Aztec religion or the Triple Alliance beyond "lol didn't they rip out hearts and eat people??" finding media that uses it as a setting and doesn't suck requires either considerable digging or equally considerable lowering of my standards.

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