We had a thread just like this recently, so if you excuse me, I'm going to copy paste a bit I said there.

Certainly depends how you look at it, but I think you're missing something personally.

Because the thing is, what you're seeing is not a bug. Its the design. We've got a particular niche here. We want long form, in-depth good and accurate history. There's lots of other subs that allow more discussion, or let everyone chime in with their opinion. This isn't a place like that. We strive to get rid of that clutter so that the real history gems are at the top.

Most of those comments you don't see aren't even answers, or even attempts at answers. They're jokes, one word responses, single sentences (My favorite continues to be "just google it" which is a recurring comment) or something someones cousins uncle second roomate once told them.

If you are interested in what we have, there's a number of ways you can more easily find it. Here's this week's Sunday Digest with a few hundred answers carefully collected by a pretty swell guy. There's a twitter or a newsletter you can sign up for to get a weekly blast of history right to your DM's. There's lots of way to find the good stuff here.

BUT we recognize that's not for everyone. This kind of sub isn't always for everyone, but considering we're nearly at 1.5 million subscribers I'd say there's plenty of people who are fond of it. You might be more interested in r/History or /AskHistory. Both very good places that move at different speeds, or aim for different things.

Edit: I forgot to mention it, but it's open in my tabs so I wanted to add it. OP, or others, might also like the related sub r/HistoriansAnswered. It uses a bot to link to threads that have answers in them, and can make for a nice browsing experience. Easier to find things.

I should also note that u/turmohe helpfully did actually link you to a previous answer on the subject of the most recent question, which will hopefully answer said question.

So a general piece of advice (will go into your charges and questions line by line): let people answer as to why such is the case before slagging them off. You want to know why lack of answers and the answering process? That is fair enough and not unusual a question. Telling everyone they are snobs before they answer is just rude and doesn't help anyone. Maybe there are reasons you weren't aware of that isn't to do with snobbery? Be kind and considerate to others, give them a chance and don't needlessly get backs up. I realize you are upset and mention feeling demoralized but the way you have handled this has not been helpful.

What is the purpose of this sub:

So a misunderstanding is that this is a discussion sub. It isn't and there are good places like r/History and r/AskHistory that serve different niches. A discussion can happen here due to complexities of history resulting from an answer but that isn't the purpose so if that is what you are seeking then this isn't the right place. Which is perfectly fine, just don't need to be rude about it.

The purpose here is public history, there are many myths about history and we want to address them and to spread accurate information. We love history, we want to share it and we want people to be able to trust the answers given. We have a policy that better there is no answer rather than a bad answer that spreads misinformation while "sounding right".

For those asking questions, we give over a hundred answers a week (not counting the "here is a link to a previous answer" like you have got) however we often get over that weekly amount in a day (at the time of writing not counting this, Sunday Digest and short questions thread we have 98 in the past 24 hours). So you won't always get an answer but if one of the over hundred to get answered each week, it will be accurate, in-depth and comprehensive. As the rules require. It won't be "I googled", a quick browse at the wiki, a one-liner, a myth like people didn't drink water. It is information that you should be able to rely on from someone who has put in the hard work. The answer also will be helpful, not just a "no that didn't happen" or "yes" or a one-liner but to set out and explain the answer to give a better understanding.

For those seeking to give an answer, we ask more than other reddits from those wishing to answer. Even a quick answer is probably going to take 3-4 hours of work from seeing the question and since no finical reward, love of history will make up for that. So, bar love of history, why answer here rather than other history reddits? The bar set for a proper answer means somebody who didn't put in the work isn't going to come in, and get all the upvotes and attention while giving a bad answer. If the answer is going to take you a few days, a week, or more then the question will be sitting there for you. When you post, the Sunday Digest will pick up (you can also Saturday Showcase the answer) and if a very good answer, the newsletters and our social media platforms will also highlight it.

Answers chosen by snobbery/karma:

I and I suspect everyone else, doesn't have time to check the karma of each user that posts a question each and every day. I don't think the published historians' that we have here are figures whose prime goals in life include only chatting with the high karma people on Reddit.

I have certainly (non historian) answered questions (not just this meta) that have zero karma (no idea about the users). I should note that the only time our rules mention karma is "This is not a race for karma: a good answer late is better than a bad answer early. Good answers take time, and that's okay."

Answering someone who has high karma benefits the answerer how? Whichever question you answer, it will get noted via Digest and HistoriansAnswered (let alone the other ways the mods promote good answers here). So you might as well answer the low one rather than wait for a question to just happen to have high karma behind it. Some people would have to wait aeons before the upvotes hit their sphere I suspect.

Questions with high upvotes don't always get answered, questions with low upvotes don't always get answered. People with high and low karma can answer and ask questions.

So why don't some questions get answered:

So you pop in a question, what will it take for it to get answered? First, is the question possible to answer? Is the question too broad (covering thousands of years, millions of people, across a continent let alone the globe) or too narrow by, for example, pinpointing a specific year? Is it a question where there is research about?

Let us say the question is answerable. Do we have anybody who can answer it? Sadly we do not have an expert in every period and sphere of history and, as part of "no answer better then bad answer", it would be wrong for people to wing it on a sphere they don't have expertise in.

We do have someone who knows the right part of history to answer? Huzzah. So what could prevent an answer? One, they have to see it. There are things our hard-working mods do to go "hey, this question might be up your alley" but things can slip by. The other (and more of a problem) is time. Regular answerers do get polled every now and again as to their experiences here and what prevents them from answering a question. Time comes up as the foremost reason again and again.

To research and write even a "quick" answer takes 3-4 hours. People have lives, families and jobs so the ability to answer at various times can be curbed because they have other things required, every answer here is done by volunteers on their free time. So an answer might be delayed till free or simply be a case of too many questions to answer with the amount of free time available so some will get dropped.

A question can always be reposted in the hopes of finding a more favourable time.

Your questions here:

I have looked but can only go back seven months and see two questions, one of which has got an answer.

One, four months ago, is on rates of infidelity in the 1920s-1950s (I'm assuming western culture but you don't narrow it down) with the example of Tamara de Lempicka used. So it would need someone with expertise in that time period (or the life of the painter to address the example and the spouse) who can speak of the attitudes towards marriage and infidelity at the time, ideally also has the statistics or other research of then and now on the subject of infidelity to see if indeed there was more infidelity or if the assumption of the question was wrong.

The most recent was in the last 24 hours, asking about the claim of Genghis Khan killing 40 million people (also widening to the Mongols), which you gave about an hour before this meta question. It wasn't karma or if people had seen it but that you didn't give time for someone with the expertise to... do anything. Bear in mind that during that hour, someone who might have been able to answer might not have spotted the question due to work, eating, or sleeping. Let alone had time to write an answer given it takes 3-4 hours

As noted, you did actually get a linked answer. So you have asked two, got one answer.

Feeling demoralised

I'm sorry you didn't get one question answered and when you put an effort into a question and nothing comes of it, it will suck. However I'm afraid you will not get a 100% success rate on questions being asked getting answered, you will have to be prepared for that in exchange for what we do offer when there is an answer (and other things we provide like podcasts, conference, Tuesday trivia, Friday free for all and so on). Please also bear in mind that everyone here is a volunteer, answering in their own free time.

Remember you can repost questions after giving a decent amount of time for an answer. If a question not always being answered (bear in mind the "no answer better then a bad answer" policy) is too big a problem and too discouraging then I would suggest the other history reddits.

/r/AskHistorians is different to most subreddits in that it holds a very strict policy. Answers must be detailed and, where necessary, sources are to be provided. This is, after all, a subreddit where you ask historians (amateur or otherwise), people who have an expert level of knowledge in the field. This isn't a subreddit where anyone can post a Google search result, copy and paste a Wikipedia article or make an educated guess.

Other history subreddits, like /r/history and /r/AskHistory are more relaxed in what is permitted for questions and questions. /r/AskHistorians sets a very high bar. You might not get responses for every question, but you will be guaranteed that the responses you do get are credible, unbiased and well researched, rather than an opinion or a vague explanation.

If you're not looking for the most detailed and researched answers, you can find answers elsewhere. If quality control makes the subreddit "snobbish", that's a cost we're happy to pay for the wealth of knowledge freely on offer.

Huh, a well worded, thought out answer to a post on r/AskHistorians? Who would have thought?