Honestly the issue is the fact that the default setting for viewing a subreddit is by 'hot', and this subreddit with its excellent quality control is not conducive to quick responses to questions.
I believe you never see questions answered because the 'hot' filter pushes threads out of the front page relatively quickly, often before an answer can be made. There's obviously a greater demand than supply to answers to questions here, so more recent interesting questions supplant slightly older also interesting questions before they can get answers.
My personal solution has always been to take note of interesting questions on the 'hot' filter, and then immediately switch over to 'top this week'. I've found that 'top this week' posts often have the quality answers we're all looking for to enjoy. Each day I'll check back with that filter and notice some of the ones from 'hot' the previous day making it on to there, while they still might not be visible on today's 'hot'.
I'm concerned that the 'hot' filter's rapidity is also worsening this feedback loop by pushing out older questions before people qualified to answer those questions can see them because to the 'hot' filter, that content is already stale despite not having been answered.
Just my two cents.
I've also seen an increase in very, very specific questions with extremely difficult answers to parse like "I'm a left-hand dominant nineteenth century farmer-accountant with a twitch in their left eye and an aversion to boiled potatoes. What would I have thought about eastern Persian Empire philosophies on taxation?"
There's a point where some questions asked are just far too micro to ever get an answer that matches the standard set by this sub, and I appreciate that the preference is to hold the standard.
I haven't seen a single question get answered
We do have a way to track that. For lo, there is u/Gankom! Bot of Bots! Keeper of the Sunday Digest! Fuelled by maple syrup and unrelenting optimism! Unsullied by the dangers of dealing with Nazis, denialists, and Nazi denialists! He who posts every Sunday that all may bask in the glory of answers!
The Sunday Digest of 5 December 2021 collects all the answers from the preceding week. I count 130 (-/+ 2) answered threads, which means a bunch more answers, as some threads have received multiple answers.
That's just the previous Digest. If you'll consult further previous Digests, you can see more.
(Oh, and u/jelvinjs7's also there with The Real Questions. First of the month, after all.)
As with all things, please do note the AutoMod autopost sticked at the top of every thread for other channels to get already-written content. To save people the trouble, here they are as well:
May Gankom and Automod remain forever robotic!
I use the “remind me later” feature of the pinned comment
Totally resolves this issue
It's because in this subreddit it is much easier to ask a question than answer a question. It's unrealistic to read a book or an article, ask something that pops into your head, and expect experts to be waiting by their keyboards to answer!
So there have been answers. AskHistorians Twitter each day does a small selection of answers (9 in last 24 hours), the Sunday Digest each week highlights the answers we get as u/DanKensington highlights the one last Sunday was able to highlight 130 threads that got answered in a week. I am not one of the most active flairs (some manage 4/5 answers a week at times), my subject of expertise isn't one of the areas that gets the most questions but last few months: 0 this month due to life, four in November (you can see the slowdown starting as three very early on), 14 in October. As Dan also pointed out, there is a lot of stuff we do to try to highlight the answers that are made and I would recommend the Browser Extension (and given proper answers take time, not clicking on threads only a few hours old)
So we get a lot of answers each month. So why the sense of no answers? Some of it is about the way Reddit works as u/HiemalWinds and others following on have mentioned. Some of it may be that while we answer over a hundred questions a week but there are more than a hundred questions a week seeking the expertise here. OP for example has had four questions in the last 5 months (Pinochet, Napoleon III, changes in political ideology since 1900, life in the second French empire) none answered
Why don't all get answered? Some questions are too broad or too narrow to answer or in a subject where there might not have been researched, sometimes the question is going to be beyond the ability to answer. More often for an answerable question to get answered, someone with expertise in the subject (not just the era but that branch of the era or culture) has to see it (or be pointed towards it) but also have the books on hand to research and the time to answer (answers can take hours to research and write).
We have families, people fall ill, have work, inability to access their usual resources due to pandemic, get burned out, life gets in the way. I have a house move coming up for example thus the lack of activity here. So an expert in a subject may not be on or if they are, may have to choose which question they have the time to answer.
The deletions: So we do ask for a higher standard than most reddits. We don't ask for academic standards but we do ask for on-topic, accurate and in-depth. We don't allow "I found this on google/wiki" or "random article" yet as u/CoeurdeLionne points out we get a lot of ones that fall foul of the rules even before we get to the answers. It would be great if say the 13 off topics, 11 asking about comments, 1 remind me didn't happen as it means people obeyed the rules and would be both less work for the mods and less sense of "why all the comments deleted". Even more so is the usual Nazi and racism that mods have to clean up when questions on certain subjects get asked.
So what about the answers? 3 remained, 3 low levels and 1 bad answer got removed. Why not keep the removed ones for more answers? There are other history reddits with more a free for all policy, it works for them. You go to those, you may well be more likely to get an answer but will be accurate or just sound right? What AskHistorians is committed to is that any answer you get will be a proper one. I.e accurate and that it will explain the answer so you come away with a better understanding of history not just a "yes that happened/no it didn't." but a how and why.
In history there are a lot of myths that get floated about. Some extremely damaging like the Lost Cause, the downplaying of women's roles, the clean Wehrmacht myth. Others are less damaging but why spread inaccuracies? People get influenced by video games, movies, novels, what they heard or misremembered, what "sounds right " and it spreads. Sharing a wiki article leads to that, a person getting answers influenced by those means they don't get an accurate proper answer, the myth spreads and gets repeated so why leave it up?
My era means working through ideas created by video games (Cao Cao the calm), the novel romance of the three kingdoms (how wars were fought, Nanman with elephants and tigers oh my), the anti-novel backlash (particularly towards Shu-Han figures), propaganda of the time (Yuan Shao greatly outnumbered Cao Cao at Guandu and all around that), it doesn't help give an accurate picture and proper answer if any answers about the 3kingdoms falls into that. It doesn't help understand the era, the people, history if those are spread around and left up.
So people come here hoping for an answer that will be accurate. It won't be something someone read on the internet but a researched answer by someone who knows the history of the era/subject. Some people come here to answer because they know their answer, which took hours or even days to work on, won't be at the bottom of a list and ignored because there were "here I found on google", a "I heard on the internet" got the attention since it was quicker to type up then delving into the texts to ensure a proper answer. The rules demanding accurate and comprehensive answers are there to ensure proper answers, good standards and to give space for the work to create proper answers.
Alas, too many don't even attempt to give answers and well-meaning people can spread myths or errors which is not what we want so those will get deleted as well.
I personally prefer unanswered questions to badly answered ones, and that's why I'm here. There's also /r/history for more pop-history answers if that's your jam. But I really enjoy that I can come here, enjoy a nice well-researched answer, and avoid seeing the tired "reddit jokes" and uneducated opinions that are everywhere else on this website (and social media in general).
I just go to historians answered. Saves the frustration.
I've finally finished my work and have a chance to throw myself into the META thread. (I love meta threads) but alas, it turns out other people have, repeatedly, already said everything I can say! So I'll just add a voice to shill the digest, twitter, newsletter and everything.
Plus a big shout out to the lurkers and rest of the community that loves it here as is. You're our biggest strength and its humbling to see the support from you.
You need to come back later. It takes time to produce an answer.
Ow dear, here we go again with the Redditors who don't know this sub is the single most precious sub on this entire site and aren't aware that quality answers take time to produce.
I realize not every question gets answered (although I've had good luck on a few), but I wanted to thank those who take time to provide answers. This subreddit is truly incredible in how much knowledge it contains and how organized it is, with many different digests/newsletters highlighting questions. Thank you all!
Insane how many people read this sub without understanding the basic conceit behind it
When I see a question I'm interested in that hasn't had an answer I save the question, and check my old saved questions for new answers. I think I've had three or four questions I saved this way that never got answered, but the vast majority were eventually answered.
Hey gang, remember me? If you do, please be kind.
In ye olde days of this sub, yeah, questions got answered a lot, few went without notice or upvotes. Maybe no answers but they would get a few dozen upvotes. Now days, this sub is HUGE. I mean HUGE. A million and a half subscribers. I remember when there were less than five thousand. Back in those days you got maybe ten or fifteen questions a day on a busy day.
Now? Now were talking in the area of 100 a day. 100 hundred questions each and every day. One factor a lot of folks just aren't taking into consideration, is that questions that can be answered by an expert are getting caught up in the volume by questions that expert can't answer and they will completely miss it.
The moderators for years have tried to work out a way to connect an expert with a question in a way that worked for both the mods and the expert, but it has either required running a bot that is hugely massive and clunky and of course wont run right, or either having someone do it manually which is a ton of extra work that the person simply can't do. Add onto the fact that sometimes an expert isn't available (it's the end of the semester which means tests and papers to grade), or there isn't one on that particular topic.
Sadly, some questions just wont ever get answered for one reason or another. The moderators are just as frustrated with it as you guys because it defeats the purpose of this sub and also, quite often, they want an answer to it to.
I just desperately wish that more subreddits had the curation / moderation standards of this one.
I find I can only come here once a day or week and sort by "top". Even then, some top posts won't be answered.
I've often thought about responding on a topic where I know a thing or two, but stopped myself because I just assume it will be deleted. If the mods are reading this, it would be interesting to have an example of removed comments that aren't completely shitty and what changes could have made them better/not deleted. Obviously you folks take down the meme posts and other garbage, but sometimes I feel like all I see are posts that start with "I am currently doing my phd on this topic" which can be intimidating and leave me to think an average history enthusiast can't contribute to this subreddit. Though perhaps that is also the point?
People often complain about the mods being strict and overbearing, but they have been extraordinarily patient and amicable with providing and repeating answers to this question which has been asked many many times.
I acknowledge we cannot expect every visitor to this subreddit to understand how this community operates and works, but my goodness if people just dug around a little bit they would find that yes indeed, /r/AskHistorians does actually function properly as a history forum and somewhere out there people are actually taking the time and effort to make quality and worthwhile contributions. Somewhat ironic so many people are willing to read and upvote lengthy responses, but gloss over subreddit rules, guidelines, explanations, etc.
So you can't find a single answer to any of the posts on this subreddit the past 7 days?
Responses deleted usually dont follow community rules, like answers with no evidence or that are clearly opinion.
I just saw a great response on the rise and perceived fall of brutalism as an architectural style
The one thing I'd like to see changed, but that we probably can't have, is the way Reddit will show a bunch of comments in a thread you haven't opened yet, making you think an answer is already at hand, when of course there's just been a bunch of deleted comments, which still show up in the comment count. This seems baked into Reddit, and is probably unsolvable by the mod team. It probably accounts for a lot of frustration.
I do appreciate the different way this sub operates, but it means understanding that a day or more may need to pass before a proper answer appears, if ever. After all, a qualified historian must somehow be pinged, and then find time away from professional and personal obligations in order to then retrieve and review relevant reference work before finally placing fingers to keys to craft an answer. This is wildly different from the rest of Reddit, where any given post will receive some sort of reply, if not thousands, within seconds. There seems to be a steady stream of non-subbed occasional browsers who don't get the difference.
All you can really do is make sure to upvote your questions of interest, since I imagine that people's limited time will most likely be spent on those questions that seem to be riding high, and maybe try not to ask about WWII for the umpty-millionth time, since we users are the ones responsible for keeping historian interest in the sub fairly high. Ain't nobody makin any money, here, but if somebody finally asks about, say, 16th century court practices, a given historian's specialty and passion, then they may answer very quickly indeed.
There's a browser plugin you can use so that the comment count will show only comments that haven't been deleted.
I think it may only work with the old reddit format but you should be using that anyway.
Here's the link for chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ask-historians-comment-he/jdkfbkogojpmdmpnkgjcgpngkkmhdfem
I would just like to say that I appreciate the high quality moderating that this sub has. It's a little different from how the rest of reddit works, but when there are answers to questions they're always a great and informative read.
Thanks mods!
Personally: when I see a question I find interesting, I save it and check back a few days
While I do hate when these threads pop up and whiny pricks populate the comments to complain about something they have literally never contributed to, it does warm my heart seeing the mods occasionally getting a chance to let loose and rip them new ones.
By the time someone reads this comment, the thread my have lost steam and be dead, but I am hoping for a serious answer.
I LOVE this subreddit and I actively participant in it by asking a lot of question centered around Black American history. But it seems many of the questions I ask, (which do not violate the rules in any way), often get downvoted because some of the questions make people uncomfortable and I find that concerning. Often when talking about Black history, people explain through a lens where a Black person is often oppressed but many of the questions I have challenge that notion.
I've asked questions regarding sexual assault of enslaved Black women by enslaved Black men. This question seems to hit a nerve. The question wasn't asked for any political or controversial reason. Only to get an answer to the question from the lens of human interaction.
I've asked questions regarding a Black man defending himself from Klan attack. This question also gets answered by sarcastic Redditors, who couldn't possible image a Black person defending themselves successfully.
I've asked questions about how the Nation of Islam adopted a blend of Islamic and Judeo-Christian ideology and iconology. Downvoted.
I've asked questions about Black conservatism and the middle class. Downvoted
I've asked questions about the HUGE pedological debate between Booker T Washington and W.E.B Dubois. No traction. Which is weird because its a huge part of the history of Black intellectualism.
To be clear; I don't think this is an issue with the mods or Historians. But more so a lot of Redditors who read these questions get quickly uncomfortable at the thought of Black autonomy
Late to the party, but I'd like to offer the perspective of someone who occasionally answers questions here. I'm not an historian and I don't have an area of expertise: I'm just browsing the questions once a day to see if there's something that I find interesting and that I can answer without sounding like an idiot. This often means questions that are about academic "dead angles", ie not well explored as such by historians, and not highly popular on Reddit (so: no Nazis). I do preliminary research to see if I can actually provide a valuable answer, and I wait a little to see if an actual historian pops up to answer it. This wait is also necessary to make sure that the question is not deleted or that the OP has not deleted their account. Let's be clear: doing the research (not actual historical research of course, but I get to read a lot of primary sources) and writing the answer is a lot of fun and it makes me learn a lot. That's basically why I do it, in addition to helping people.
When I start to work on the answer, one day has already passed, and the question is off the front page. Finding the sources, reading them, getting the feel of the historiography, and shaping everything into a narrative often takes several days (not full time obviously). Not being an historian, I'm always at risk of missing something basic, so I need to do contextual research: every word I write must be backed by an academic source! When I post the answer, the question has been forgotten - sometimes by the OP themselves! - and it's only "resurrected" by the Sunday Digest, the AskHistorians Twitter and r/HistoriansAnswered. Sometimes the stars align and I manage to answer a popular question a few hours after it's posted, so my answer gets popular also, but that's uncommon. Here's some statistics collected on my 114 answers so far: the median number of upvotes is 11, average is 26 (thanks to a couple of popular answers). About 60% of the answers are acknowledged by the OP, and 1/3 result in follow-up questions or remarks by the OP or other people.
This thread is more of a study into hyperbole and the effects of disinformation on the Internet than it is a relefection of the sub and the questions that have been answered. The digest shows many questions have been answered recently.
It really sucks to see logical fallacies and false premises introduced here as a cudgel against the standards that are the reason why I come here.
Might I add... a lot of the people who answer questions on this sub work in or adjacent to academia. largely speaking, academics are utterly and completely burned due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This is of course pure speculation (and therefore might get my comment deleted) but i could see how that could lead to less commenter action.
Use the remindme bot stickied at the top of every comment thread. I haven’t missed a Q I found interesting since. Sometimes the Q does go unanswered but it usually just needs time.
I posted an answer to a question that had no other just last week. I saw the question via the weekly newsletter that u/Georgy_K_Zhukov puts together. In addition, Georgy sometimes messages me to alert me to questions that fall into my area of expertise (the history of mental health treatment) and I try to provide an answer). The Ask Historians mod team puts a lot of effort into getting questions answered, but they are diligent about there being quality answers authored by Redditors who are qualified to answer. I’d rather see no answers than wrong ones. Trust me, you don’t want me answering questions about Waterloo anymore than I want random people with Wikipedia degrees answering questions about lobotomy.
Just as someone who can occasionally answer questions but isn't committed enough to be a mod etc., what I see from a distance is:
A lot of the same kind of questions get asked again and again and again.
Sometimes the people asking them don't seem to be seeking answers (hence the existence of prior answers is non-satisfying to them) but instead to either trying to reproduce a really troubled idea/premise or to spoil for some kind of preordained fight. At least some of the deleted answers are pouring into the contours of the preordained conversation, and the people who might really answer it are put off by the knowledge that this is really not about seeking an answer from an expert.
Some of the questions are unanswerable either because of intense over-specificity, because of a weird assumption locked into the question, or just because really nobody knows for any number of reasons.
Feel like I need to compliment the mods here for standing by their rules for years now which has led to high quality answer. There are a lot of history subs on this site but this is the only subreddit where I trust the answers come from people who know their stuff.
Please keep it up.
I personally use /r/HistoriansAnswered. Gives you exactly what you want, for the most part.
When I see a question that I would like an answer for on here that doesn't have an answer that's up to standards, I'm disappointed too. I would be much more disappointed if the comments were full of guesses or misinformation. It takes a lot of work to give an answer that's up to this sub's standards, so you can't always expect it. When you do get one, it will be trustworthy. This isn't a community sub, it's a method of asking historians direct questions. The mods ensure that this sub is what it's supposed to be. A few years ago, probably with a different account, I provided a quick answer to a question which was correctly removed. The mods advised me why it was removed and the standards that I should follow if I wanted to re-submit, which I did. It's not unfair in any way.
I'm just here to support the mods as I think they do a fantastic job and make this one of the better subs. Am I disappointed ever question isn't answered - yes, but do I understand why? Yes! Good answers require both time and research and when this sub delivers, it delivers!
TBH, plenty of questions people post don't have anything to do with history. It would be better asked in other social science subs like anthropology, sociology, linguistics, politics, etc., or even subs like literature.
Because they delete them all for not being the proper answer.
I agree, except for this post I’ve literally never seen a question answered! 😂
I save every interesting post and come back to it later. There is usually a quality answer by that time.
It’s just you
I sort posts by Top post over the last month shortly after joining this sub.
Teaching season for historians. I've noticed this sub goes nuts over summer and winter break.
Maybe there could be a flair for mod-approved answered questions? Then we could filter by what's been answered and what's still waiting. I bet it'd be more fun for those looking for qs to answer that way, too.
Edit: the crossed out is a poor idea. Link with reasons below!
"Good" is probably subjective, but I saw an answer that I'd deem good removed recently. It was thorough, not anecdotal, and answered the question. I searched for further details on specific information, I was able to validate that it was correct information. I went back to refresh to see more comments and suddenly it was removed. I kept the post open for some time (at least 24 hours) and no other answers appeared.
I'd have to imagine that it gets pretty annoying for the answerer to spend time on a thorough answer (this was probably about five long paragraphs) and then just have it removed without any obvious reason.
There is middle ground here including posting canned reasons for deletions (as I've seen other subreddits do) or simply commenting with what needs to be improved and giving the poster a reasonable chance to improve finer points when the answer is otherwise solid.
There are many questions, but few sources.
As a practical solution:
use SortBy: Top (Month)
I wonder if there should be a separate subreddit for casual, non-scholarly discussion of topics posted here. I know there’s r/history but I mean something more directly linked like the r/legaladvice and r/bestoflegaladvice pairing. With the mods allowing a casual discussion link in the r/askhistorians thread.
My question actually got answered in a day or so. I posted it quite recently as well. I've seen other threads get answered too. So this is hardly true.
I’ve posted and never got an answer lol
Others have covered much of the matters at hand here, so I will simply give the briefest of comments to sticky some important information to the top. The TL;DR is that this sub is quality over quantity, so not everything gets answered, and answers take time to write, so seeing them requires patience. We strongly encourage users to make use of the Remind Me bot link that is stickied in every thread by Automod to come back later to a thread if there is no answer. Popular thread almost always get answered, even if it takes 12+ hours, so you'll be rarely disappointed there.
If you don't have patience though, there are a number of ways to consume content with all wheat, no chaff.
The best way is to subscribe to the weekly newsletter by clicking here and hitting send. It highlights the best content of the week, sent straight to your inbox (more info here).
If you don't want to miss a thing, every week's Sunday Digest, highlights literally hundreds of answers written over the previous seven days.
If you want something more spaced out but in that vein, our Twitter - @AskHistorians - highlights content throughout the week, and there is also the unofficial mirror sub /r/HistoriansAnswered which we don't run, but many people find to be a useful companion.
I’ve seen maybe two or three answers for ever. Usually I see an interesting thread, go into it, and everything is deleted...
This is something I've noticed too. It's actually quite frustrating
Press the subscribe button for the post
[redacted]
Is this a question?
You could provide a non-expert response thread in the lower half of the thread, and keep flaired answers on top.
Honestly, all these discussions about top vs hot and the rest of it sounds like cope. I'm with OP. There's never any answers, and while most of us are not qualified to give in depth answers, there are things we can answer and subsequently discuss on our own. But we never meet this sub's extreme standards so no one tries to participate anymore. It's killing the sub.
I've seen a couple answers but for all o know they were deleted later. Maybe it's time to drop the reply standards a couple notches.
this happens to me on both firefox and chrome
Same here. Here's a solution that might work:
Create a new sub that's like a staging area for r/askhistorians questions. Get all the people who regularly answer questions to subscribe. All new AH questions get posted there first. Only after getting an approved answer does the thread get crossposted to this, the original r/askhistorians sub.
[removed]
Edit: updated with new information from the helpful mod.
Aka we see what they want us to see. Gotta love it.
The mods here are kind of overzealous.
Useless sub
Yes, what is up with this?!?!?
Maybe we should sticky a “best posts of the week” thread where anything that actually got answered can live.
This sub has always been hot garbage. The mods expect full on dissertations for answers. Shits lame and I thought I unsubbed years ago.
Same here super frustrating
What do you expect on a left site? They love censorship.
History answers most questions for us.serving as a template surviving the rest of time.
had to check if this was creepypasta sub or not because title
Not sure why the moderating is so strict here. I'm on here to talk about history and read ranges of responses from various education levels. If people want a peer reviewed journal they can go read a peer reviewed journal. Let the people speak and respond!
The moderation for this sub is geared towards quality, but the standards are way too high.
Better half an answer that can point someone in the right direction for their own research than a bunch of deleted answers.
Basically same. What’s the point of this sub if is always delete without a reason explained
As a lurker that rarely comments I fully agree.
This sub used to have amazing indepth answers to even simple questions but now it seems the comments just consist of "Deleted" a couple of times followed by the occasional dude saying
"Here is a link to another answer to a question that vaguely resembles yours!"
The biggest problem is that when MODS delete comments here, there is a 98% chance that, the comment gets deleted without explanation or even a notice to the person who commented.
The MODS might do an amazing job at making sure accurate answers are on this subreddit, but the MODS are absolutely horrible at communication or any sort of soft or interpersonal skills.
Every deleted comment should have a reason for the removal visible to see.
Historians are naturally uninterested in new things. They will wait until the true historic value of the question is at its peak before providing a complete answer.
It was about time someone wrote about this. No questions answered, not to mention that on the phone app you can’t even see all the comments most of the time. It’s such a shame this sub is going down in this way. I think it had much more potential then r history but I guess the mods are just don’t give af