I must say, this is by far the greatest subreddit ever made, and it's directly traced back to the steadfast conscientiousness and clarity of the mod team. It's one of the biggest reasons why I still have faith in this platform as a whole, and it's the subreddit that I point to when I am asked what the "ultimate goal" of any community team should strive for, if possible.

More can always be added, but /u/agentdcf presented an early history of the sub and its development at the 2017 NCPH Conference, and the text can be found here.

As a meta post, perhaps the rules might be a little more relaxed with this post. Assuming that is the case, I'd offer the explanation that history is often one of the most highly politicized subjects. Who gets to write history books and who determines what history books will be used in a course (esp. in secondary schools) says more about the politics of those people than the actual history being talked about. Moreover, as we're seeing with the ongoing sectarian conflicts in India, people's perceptions of history, whether factual or fabricated, can influence their behavior today. So it makes sense to tightly regulate a community such as this to ensure that only those suitably qualified to speak on history do so.

I've been here since the beginning.

There are other subreddits and communities that are just as heavily regulated, few I've seen that's even more strict (e.g. PhD verification requirement, 10.000+€ product ownership proof, etc.), but those are usually niche subreddits -- so niche that nobody is really familiar.

What's rare about this kind of subreddit is that it's popular, and the content is interesting enough to draw a big audience despite the stringency.

What I noticed is that PhD mods are pretty good in general. AH historically had mods with higher degrees and happen to be popular.

This is, without a doubt, the greatest number of responses I have ever seen in this sub.

Um, excuse me, I believe this violates the sub’s 20 year rule. I demand this thread be locked and deleted! /s

Wow. This is the first post I've seen on this subreddit that doesn't have all of the comments removed.

It was a conscious choice, believe me. I stepped back as a mod years ago (dissertation writing, then job hunting, then parenting all had some competing claims on my attention) but I was the fourth mod on the site, and we hit a point a few months into my term where we’d had an influx of new members from some threads that went viral on r/BestOf that honestly threatened to overwhelm us and risk the vibe we were going for.

We hadn’t yet systematized our philosophy, and it was clear that we needed a unified idea of what we wanted from the sub and how we were going to make that happen. We were extremely lucky to recruit some mods who were both highly knowledgeable (able to recognize a substantive answer reflective of the depth of knowledge and ability to answer follow-ups to the standard we wanted to keep) and protective of the community we’d built for ourselves, to the point where they were willing to wade through some truly heinous questions and comments to keep them off our community and away from our users.

The moderatorship worked from there to build out the systems and structures that underpin this community, which has become an incredible resource for historians and interested laymen at all levels of experience. There’s so much that y’all don’t see, but at least with all the additions I was there for (and let me tell you, the first annual April Fool’s Day was MAGICAL) it’s hard to overstate just how much thought and discussion and tinkering went into everything.

One final thing: this space has always held with the punk bar philosophy that says that if you let in one Nazi, you no longer have a punk bar, you now have a Nazi bar. Most of you will never fully grasp the efforts - ongoing, I’d imagine - that have gone into keep this punk history bar Nazi-free. On an internet where algorithms seem to be designed to radicalize the unsuspecting into engaging with white supremacy and the alt-right, this space stays what it has been for so long: dedicated to an accurate, unflinching view of the past that takes seriously its audience’s ability to grapple with sources and prioritizes substance over speed.

I love /r/AskHistorians to the deepest depths of my cold, cynical heart.

I’m assuming this thread allows open posts from non historians?

If that’s the case, hats off to this sub. They are explicitly clear on what they’re about and don’t compromise. They also seem to act without bias. Lot of respect.

I like the strict moderation. Keeps the quality high and has kept me coming back for nearly a decade.

It's better for every comment section to be a graveyard with 1(one) high-detail comment from an actual historian than for it to be a deluge of half-knowledge, misinformation, wikipedia pages, and an alarming amount of political circlejerking :P

I'd just like to drop off a comment regarding my appreciation of the heavy regulation of this sub. In these times where everyone is a revisionist historian, I really do appreciate the efforts mods put in on this sub to keep it straightforward, honest, and as close to historical accuracy as possible.

Thanks to the mods. I think y'all do a great job.

This is not only the best sub on reddit, but easily one of the best communities on the internet. Thank you all for your hard work.

Honestly, I wish there were an askhistorianslite. While a lot of the answers here are comprehensive, they tend to ramble and provide a lot of exposition that I am not always looking for.

I appreciate what this sub is, but most of the time it is too much for me.

It's the best subreddit specifically because of the clear guidelines and strict moderation. It's hard to find places for grown-ups on Reddit, and thankfully this is one of those place. Keep up the good work!

My father was in the hospital and for the first time, he could do nothing to actively speed up recovery. Getting him to sit back and follow doctor and physical therapy orders to rest was a task itself.

He loves history but is generally distrustful of 'online experts' so browsing internet content to pass the time was not an option.

...UNTIL I showed him this subreddit.

I cannot tell you how many nights were spent reading the answers out to questions he liked.

Providing factual responses with context and consideration is a valuable contribution to the world we're in. That so many people are willing to give their time to thoughtfully educate a random online stranger truly steers me away from the cynical, nihilistic view of humanity that I lean towards.

Thank you, mods and contributers.

Shouldn't you have waited for the 20th birthday of this subreddit?

Non historian, long time lurker. Since it seems I can post on this thread, just want to throw out that I appreciate all of y’all. To the posters that ask questions I’ve always had in the back of my mind, or never thought to ask and subsequently the historians that either link to previous threads or supply their own knowledge (WITH SOURCES). It’s gotten to the point where I have to limit my time on this sub because of the amount of deep dives I find myself in. Keep doing you AskHistorians.

I will say I love this subreddit because of that. When I meet people who dislike reddit as a whole, I always cite this one as an example of how great the platform can be.

Old lurker here.

I got deleted few times and it took me some time to figure out why. This sub wants knowledgeable opinions. I respect that and this is why I'm here to read some posts.

You might enjoy listening to Episode #100 of the subreddit podcast which has some of the answers you seek.

EDIT: Speech text about the origins of AskHistorians from /u/agentdcf

I’ll be honest, I’ve kinda given up even clicking on AH threads any more (even though I’m still subbed). I appreciate the need for tight moderation so there isn’t just loads of random, incorrect/partially incorrect info floating out there. But over time it seems this tight moderation puts people off commenting that may have contributed to the discussion. I’m tired of seeing a question posed that looks very interesting, the thread shows loads of upvotes and comments and when I click into the thread all I see is (deleted) (deleted) (deleted). I get what you’re trying to do, but imo it’s strangled this sub loads, years ago there seemed to be way more info and the threads would delve into the question, now I mostly see no answers and deleted posts. I realise I can bookmark an interesting looking question and come back to it, but really, who does that? Ain’t nobody got time for that. If I click on a thread and all I see is (deleted) that’s the last time I’m looking at that thread. I realise that’s not how you want people to use AH but that’s how Reddit works and how most people use Reddit. Vast majority aren’t saving potentially interesting threads so they can come back in a few weeks time to see if it’s picked up some answers.

I did split this into paragraphs so it could be more easily read, but I don’t know why this app converts it onto on massive wall of text, sorry.

Unpopular opinion the heavy regulation makes this sub practically worthless the majority of posts don’t even have answers.

Anecdotal for sure, but I had a friend get banned from this sub for asking a question about slavery. Apparent it was posed in a manner that the mod “felt” was racist. It was years ago and I won’t get into it who was right, but I remember it being very benign and thinking that the mods sure are heavy handed here.