Whenever I browse this subreddit, and particularly when reading threads about topics of which I have more than passing knowledge, I am always struck by the profound lack of perspective present. What I mean by that is quality scholarship almost always acknowledges, and more often than not addresses, the fact that on any given issue of historical significance there are invariably multiple, contested viewpoints. On /r/askhistorians, however, I rarely if ever see even the most well-respected users draw from the scholarly diversity that they must know is at the core of their own fields of study (because they had to pass their PhD examinations like anyone else). Humility, a trait my own academic mentors have always emphasized, is cast aside in favor of an almost categorical certainty.
Users should be very aware - much more aware than they are currently - of just how curated the content they consume on this platform is. And /r/askhistorians is, or should be, no exception to that rule. Sadly, I think too many of us programmatically conflate long walls of text and hefty lists of sources with a nuanced examination the past. Form over content, and the content here is often a poison pill all too willingly swallowed.
EDIT: Damn the whole mod team rolled through to hit me with their walls of text. I'll respond individually to each one out of consideration though certainly don't feel obliged to respond back. I'm glad this has led to some generative discussion.
I am not a moderator, but I am reasonably active in answering questions on the sub.
In addition to all the fabulous points made by the moderators, I would like to point out another angle to which none of this makes sense. The people who answer questions here are all volunteers, engaging with the extent to which they have time and energy, according to their research interests and expertise. We have a massive variety of training, ranging from graduate degrees in history (I have an MA, not a PhD) to 30+ years of teaching to a well-read amateur perspective. AH has never required answerers to have "passed their PhD examinations" and it is unbelievably elitist for you to be assuming that.
This diversity means that not everyone may feel the need to deal with, say, Buchprosa vs Freiprosa (to use an example from my own field) when answering a question that references the Icelandic sagas. That's not evidence that helps answer the vast majority of questions, and no amount of your vagueposting about philosophy of history will change that.
Now, let's talk philosophy of history. Your comment of "humility" reads to me as a very overblown way of really referring to cognizance of Alun Munslow's "deconstructionist" approaches to historical discourse. This is of course a useful perspective when talking to other academics, and can often be valuable to rope into outreach, often through conversations (contrary to what you are presuming based on no substantiated evidence, conversations do happen here that highlight different perspectives and training). However, repeated scholarship (including Tara Copplestone's work in historical games) have shown that the public tend to view history in terms of reconstructionist perspectives or, at best, constructionist ones (i.e. ones that recognize theory and the role of the historian, but do not deconstruct the historian's perspective as a fully subjective one). This shapes what questions are being asked, as other have pointed out to you.
To be perfectly blunt, when I am answering a question, my first and primary goal is to actually answer the question. Not go on a historiographical tangent, not trail through my entire research process, not to ruin the poster's hopes and dreams, to answer the question that was asked. These are largely questions that are best suited to a reconstructionist approach - so for a question about horned helmets: according to the evidence we have available, was this accurate (no, except some highly stylized engravings or embroidery in pre-Viking or early Viking material), and if not, where did it come from (Carl Emil Doepler, designing costumes for Wagner's operas). There's simply not much room for debate about Doepler's role, and constantly hedging on academic consensus would be somewhere between irritating and unbearably tedious.
As it turns out, the diverse volunteers who do the work of answering the questions do think about these issues regularly when crafting answers, and I absolutely take umbrage at how you're insinuating our work is all form, no function. If you have specific links to posts you think evidence that, link them so we can see what you are talking about, otherwise stop trying to throw shade at the flair and answerer community.
First off, just from one of your other comments here I want to make it abundantly clear as a moderator here: Reddit itself makes money through advertising and people buying Gold and such, but we the moderators don't get any of that. We sometimes fundraise/crowdfund for things like our conference and podcast hosting costs, but that is a pretty tiny amount of money and none of us take any of it. We are not making a profit or even breaking even, given the amount of time and effort that goes into running the sub!
I'm afraid that in order to properly respond to your post I'd need examples of posts/answers that you think inadequately explain things. This is because there are a few different kinds of "controversy," and telling the difference between them is extremely important. We always want answers to be thorough, and that includes laying out when things are certain and when they're less so. But it's important to think a bit about what this means.
For example, we have a question on the front page right now about the Polynesian "discovery" (not actually a discovery, because there were plnety of people already there!) of the Americas. There is evidence in various places of contact between Polynesian and Indigenous American people, from archaeological finds to genetic data to linguistic similarities to shared agricultural crops. We don't, however, have a "smoking gun" that says "in this place and at this time these particular people met and exchanged these goods." What we have are various theories about what happened where, and some don't match up to each other. This happens a lot! There's a whole bunch we just don't know about history, and we'd expect an answer to explain this and at least mention various current theories. We'd also allow answers that seem to contradict either other if they are well-argued and come from credible sides of a current academic debate.
Another type of "controversy" is when one theory, perhaps using new evidence, is replacing an older theory that fits less well or has been mostly discredited. These older theories and concepts often persist in popular thought for much longer than in academic circles, such that people can think they're valid but they've been more or less thoroughly debunked. An example of this is the idea of a backwards "Dark Ages" in Europe during the Medieval period. It would be tough to find a credible medievalist nowadays who thinks like this, but it's still all over the internet and popular consciousness. In this case, we usually would like answers to keep up with current scholarship, and not promote the outdated "Dark Ages" concept. Answers can certainly mention it, and it can be a good jumping-off point for explaining a lot about our concept of the Medieval period, but any answers that are solely based on "Dark Ages" thinking just don't jibe with how we understand history.
The one that gets us in a lot of trouble is a third kind of controversy, in which bad faith arguments essentially create a controversy in order to push a particular point. A great example of this is Lost Cause mythology around the American Civil War, which seeks to launder the reputation of the Confederacy through ideas like "states' rights," obscuring the fact that racist ideology and slavery were the bedrock principles of the movement. This is quite popular, and even people who aren't necessarily racist themselves can fall into the trap of believing certain Lost Cause ideas, like the (false) notion that Robert E Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, and others were "personally against slavery" and just fought to help defend their home state. We emphatically reject the idea that answers need to consider "both sides" of this kind of argument, because the Lost Cause is and always has been a lie that serves only to advance the interests of white supremacy and slavery apologia.
It's really impossible to make one blanket statement about "controversial" topics because often it can be hard for a non-expert to distinguish between the truly academically controversial (like the first category I mention) and things like the Lost Cause, which isn't and shouldn't be taken seriously. Often, the reason an answer doesn't engage with some well-known idea or scholarship on the topic at hand is because it falls into the latter two categories, either theories that have more or less been rejected or theories that were created in bad faith to begin with. This isn't always the case; sometimes there's just not enough room to write about it! But it's the case for a lot of our answers, and it's a good rule of thumb to consider if you find yourself wondering why "both sides" of an argument aren't being aired.
So, with that in mind, are there any topics in particular you're thinking of?
You've already received many eloquent and well-thought-out responses, but I've got to stick my concise and shirty oar in. Because the thing is, the Venn diagram of "topics that scholarly thought has evolved on in a relevant fashion over the past decade" and "topics that Redditors ask about on this subreddit" has barely any overlap. I'm sort of getting the impression that you're just assuming that because historiography is A Thing and because many answers here don't get into it, it's because the answerers are deliberately avoiding it (unfortunately, I have little choice but to assume that since you've refused repeatedly to prove that you know that this is happening on any specific topics) - but in fact, many questions just do not lend themselves to a historiographic explanation.
The vast majority of questions I've answered are like this. What was medieval underwear like? What happened to Elizabeth I's jewelry? When did women start to run schools? How did Paris become a center of fashion? What did "macaroni" mean in the 18th century? What did "buying a living" mean in the Regency period? Et cetera. What are you expecting me to do with these questions? How am I supposed to provide historiographic background and other theories when they just don't exist because scholars are not really debating them?
And on the other hand, sometimes there is something that could be a theoretically legitimate debate, except that the alternative explanation is based on misconception. This happens frequently when it comes to issues relating to clothing, because many historians of society or literature will make assertions based on pop culture, e.g. that corsets were horrifically restrictive. Should I bother to give space to these explanations when they're based on nothing more than assumption? Or should I spend my time explaining how women actually wore corsetry when pregnant, which is the question being asked? It simply makes no sense to explain all possible viewpoints when my time is valuable and I don't want to plant the seeds of the assumption in my readers' minds when it's not useful.
It's fair to assume the person is representing the position of the sources they cite. If there are other sources that say otherwise, another user is free to bring them forth. I don't think it's dishonest for somebody to not cover every single position found in the literature to answer a reddit question
I'm going to repost my comment from below as a top level as it gets to your larger point, I believe:
To be clear, it's not against the rules to respond with contrasting or conflicting scholarship. In fact, we welcome such responses as we're eager to model that a great deal of the work of "doing" history is conversation between those who do history. There is, of course, always the possibility that someone isn't sure how to start a such a response and fit within our rules. So, to clarify, responses like:
will be removed for breaking our rules around civility. Responses such as:
will not be removed.
And as always, people are welcome to reach out via modmail if they're unsure about a post or how to frame a response.
You're being interestingly vague for someone who seems very sure of themselves. I do wonder what specifically prompted your post, because it didn't come from nowhere but you're not telling us what you actually had an issue with. Only a month ago someone asked about what debates are in our fields, and people answered.
The fact is, most questions asked here do not have a historiographical component. Let's look at some of the most recent popular posts. There's that question about Polynesians and South America, where the answer does show an awareness of current historiographical trends based on recent evidence. There is the question about the adoption of barrels - I'm sure you'll be disappointed to know that there is no raging debate about the history of barrels, it's pretty straightforward. The question about de-Nazification is again not a hotly disputed topic, and in any case it has a bibliography so readers are quite able to follow that up themselves if they want to know more. The question about stripey French shirts is very simple; it came from the naval uniform so no historians at loggerheads there. Other recent popular questions include the design of ghosts, the specific timing of duels, whether western mercenaries were a thing in 20th century Africa, and medieval nonces. None of these things have historians writing feverish arguments and counter-arguments. Most historical events are simply not that debated. There is a current consensus among historians and that consensus is summarised in the answers.
When there is a serious historiographical debate, we do, in fact, explain it. Sometimes at great length.
Humility, a trait my own academic mentors have always emphasized, is cast aside in favor of an almost categorical certainty.
I for one am ready to be humbled. Could you please provide some examples of this categorical certainty here, so that I might benefit from your criticism?
My colleagues have already done a bang up job of providing direct responses and challenges to your commentary, but I'm going to go ahead and join them.
Your post and comments presume a number of things. Among them is that respondents on this sub do not go into the depth of nuance you desire such as what you get with more conventional historical scholarship in the format of books or journals. In some respects, you are correct. What I find somewhat humorous about that charge is that we regularly encounter the very opposite accusation. For example, check out this recent thread where one user made a ruckus about their perception of the verbose nature of answers on our subreddit.
In response to this criticism, I provided a detailed explanation of why answers here are, comparatively speaking, more lengthy than what our society currently conditions people to expect when engaging in online platforms. Yet, I make it pretty clear that even what we encounter here is often not even close to what you could expect from the very same books and journal articles you designate as being sufficiently informed on the multiplicity of perspectives. /r/AskHistorians does favor a more long-form format for writing answers and we encourage users to be comprehensive when making replies. But as I also elaborated in that linked thread, writing for our subreddit--and indeed any online platform--is essentially a technique in of itself. We need to keep in mind the audience we are writing for while also holding true to the values of our project here.
What this basically translates into is that we need to strike a balance between making historical and other scholarly knowledge accessible to the general public while preserving a level of rigor that is conducive to good scholarship. Writing a book-length answer that requires users to learn the ins and outs of methodology, historiography, and theory on a given subject may be required in some instances, but requiring that of every answer here is a good way to ensure we lose the audience we've built up. We are not an academic program, Redditors are not our "students," and nobody is getting paid to be here. We are a community of avid learners who wish to bring experts closer to the public and embrace members of the public to engage with scholarly discourse.
This means that ultimately we are not going to hold the exact standards as what is required to be published in a journal article. It wouldn't be helpful in meeting our goals and would defeat the purpose of our subreddit. However, that doesn't mean that we are without standards. We obviously hold higher ones than most subreddits (and most other forums). We want to build up the knowledge and skills of our audience so they can develop their critical thinking and knowledge bases as well. Unfortunately, this cannot be done arbitrarily. Writing for our platform requires a different set of skills than writing a book chapter. It means knowing what the limits of your audience are, knowing when to push them, and knowing what needs expounding. Some questions require simple answers (that's why we have a thread for that). Some require longer answers. Some users want to work within the 10,000 character limit to ensure readers keep track of what is being said. So it is unrealistic to expect that every answer or even the majority of answers here should conform to your personal expectations of scholarship.
Where we can meet in the middle on this, though, is that we expect every user who answers a question to be familiar with the historiography on the subject they speak to (to a reasonable degree--nobody here has to possess a degree to participate) and that they be capable of answering follow-up questions. If you or anyone else wants them to provide further perspectives, ask them to do so. As the moderators, it is our job to ensure this compliance so we can maintain the standards we have laid out.
As someone who loves to read this subreddit, I completely understand your point and agree, but I think the issue might be overstated.
Obviously many questions will simply not have many alternative answers. Frequently questions are either both extremely esoteric and lacking in broader historical importance or surprisingly basic. However, there is an overwhelming sense of certainty given in nearly all the answers on this subreddit. Yes, consensus exist in some cases, but not for everything. New stands of evidence are always discovered and different concepts are run through various theoretical lenses.
History is messy. There are many things we simply do not know with any level of certainty. In a postmodern world, especially given postmodernism's impact on history, this hubristic epistemological and interpretational confidence stands out of bizarre: as if rather than opening reader's minds to the deep questions and struggles of history, views are repeated as consensus-accepted unquestionable truths. This sense of certainty could also be detrimental to perceptions of history, reducing it to a 100% factually-driven causal analysis with scientific-levels of epistemological certainty where answers can be memorized, akin to how history is too often poorly taught in schools.
Perhaps this certainty is inevitable. While some of the best historians highlight creativity as a key component of great history, this subreddit runs on a question-and-answer premise. Deep dialectical dives, so important in scholarly history and so fruitful for creative interpretations, are not suitable for such a format.