A lot of us don't - I myself last formally studied history during O levels and even that was decades ago.

We are fortunate to live in an era when knowledge is more widely available than ever before, thanks not just to the internet but to people and organisations who push to have information available for free, instead of behind a pay wall, or in an exclusive library, or in expensive books. Among these are the people who do have academic qualifications, or are in academia, and spend time to answer questions on this subreddit! I am fortunate to be a citizen of a country that gives all citizens free public library membership, and that comes with free access to JSTOR. So all that has made it easier for enthusiasts like us to communicate history to the public.

At the same time there are still barriers to entry. Some people don't have free access to the internet, for example, and some struggle with English. So while we do have flairs who come from a broad range of backgrounds, there are still groups that are unfortunately underrepresented. Here, the mods must be given a lot of credit as they are committed to trying to increase diversity and forum accessibility.

Anyway, if you see someone saying that only people with fancy academic qualifications can answer questions, don't believe it!

Edit: Just to add something often neglected, a big part of answering questions is being able to communicate academic findings in an accessible way. That's like the other half of the process to me - from all the reading and research, can one distill an answer that the layperson can understand? Definitely a skill that takes a lot to master.

Most certainly not. While many flairs do indeed have actual credentials and published research - and some even post under their real names, or have self-doxxed following AMAs to promote said published research - just as many flairs are complete amateurs.

Take me, for instance. I have absolutely zero credentials in anything, I dropped out of college after two years in, and fiercely maintain to be the least-academically-qualified of the flair panel - certainly the least on the mod team. To quote The King's Speech, I have no training, no diploma, no qualifications. Just a great deal of nerve. Also access to the Russian Bookstore, from which all of my so-called 'qualifications' derive.

The key here is that, while there is a bar and it's a reasonably rigorous bar, it's not nearly as difficult as people think it is. I am far from the only non-academic on the flair panel. We have a radio astronomer, a physicist, a delivery driver, a BA in Poli Sci, two lawyers, and worst of all, a fiction writer. At least two flairs got said flairs while still in high school. Credentials play zero part in a flair application, in fact; what the application process looks at is simply post quality.

Just as amateurs are capable of creating excellent, well-researched posts, people with degrees are more than capable of writing poor answers. There have been quite a lot of self-proclaimed BAs or PhDs who attempt to justify a short one-liner or one-paragraph answer with their credentials, and it never works. (I may or may not take special pleasure in dealing with those people and emphasising that I dropped out of college.)

Thanks for asking the question rather then making an assumption!

So the answer, as others have said, is nope, certainly not. We do have many academics with books and credentials who are happy to share their expertise here. They are most welcome. However many also don't have that academic background, they are also most welcome. I certainly don't have credentials or qualifications: I have no degree, no history qualifications, no academic background at all.

Dan has linked to the flair application thread already and it is worth having a look there. Note one of the requirements

Expertise in an area of history, typically from either degree-level academic experience or an equivalent amount of self-study. For more exploration of this, check out this thread.

People like me, Dan and thestoryteller69 come under self-study.

The other requirements? Be able to use and engage with (proper) sources, behave yourself and provide quality answers. To show you can do this, provide links 3-5 quality answers to show proof of your work. AH doesn't ask people for their qualifications when applying (or for identity and people may have very good reason not to ever want to reveal that), just (in essence) "please show your work to show you can provide good quality answers and handle the sources properly"

On things mentioned that brought about the perception

On the through answers, bear in mind by the time someone is applying for a flair, they have probably done more then those 3-5 answers, improving their answers and ability to communicate the knowledge via reading others and by answering (the more one does, better one will get). By the time your seeing a flaired person, they probably had a fair bit of practise put in and so improved their answers. I would hope my answers now are generally better then when I first joined in

On the rigour: AH is more rigorous then many parts of reddit and there is a lot of deletion but people can really overestimate the barrier required to actually post an answer here. Look at the rules in brief, in short 1) don't be a jerk, 2) 20 year rule 3) questions requirement, 4) proper answers, 5) provide sources when asked 6) stay on topic 7) report, 8) read rules

Now only 4 and 5 really cover the answers (and as I understand it, more often the other rules being breached requiring deletions).. So what is required? Answer being accurate really does help (we prefer no answer to a bad answer), having a good handle on the sources (like what are their strengths, biases and flaws) and answering properly. There is a very good summary of what in-depth means in the rules ie they explain

An in-depth answer provides the necessary context and complexity that the given topic calls for, going beyond a simple cursory overview. It is important to remember one of the philosophies of the subreddit, that "good answers aren't good just because they are right – they are good because they explain." Your answer should be giving context to the events being discussed, not simply listing some related facts.

Some questions are more complex than others, but it is often difficult to provide sufficient context, engage with sources and the relevant historiography on the subject, and demonstrate your understanding of the subtleties of a subject, in a single short paragraph. When evaluating responses in the subreddit, the mod team weighs whether a comment addresses not just the literal phrasing of a question, which might be done in a mere few sentences, but if it will help an uninformed reader understand the 'Who', 'What', 'When', 'Where', and of course 'Why', surrounding the topic.

The rigour helps ensure keeping the "better no answer then a bad one" philosophy, giving credibility to the answers and ensuring anyone who takes the time to write a proper answer isn't going to find that it gets missed becuase people have put a one-line answer that is not helpful and likely not accurate. For a questioner, if you get an answer, that it will be a proper, correct (rather then someone repeating a common history myth or something outdated) answer that explains.

What AH doesn't try to do is put up barriers (beyond be accurate and put the work in). There are enough barriers out there in life as storyteller69 touches on and AH wishes for history to be spread. If you can provide very good answers consistently, to a high enough quality and have expertise then flair is open. AH recognises people come to history via all sorts of walks of life via all sorts of qualifications, what matters is the knowledge you can bring and share. There is no secret requirement that is hidden from the flair application rules and if refused that time, the mods do try to explain why, encourage people to learn from that and try again in future.

Another voice chiming in to reiterate what has already been said, but with a twist.

I entered a mechanical apprenticeship that shortly after starting was transitioned to a 7 year business apprenticeship, then capped that with trade school courses. I have spent over 20 years in the business world since. I have taken exactly zero post-highschool level (formal) history courses; I am not "formally educated" in any field.

Then, one day, I grew so very weary of the business world, in part from this subs influence, and began more rigorous pursuit of my lifetime of passion for our colonial history. I had volunteered at a number of colonial and/or antebellum sites as a docent or guide and was hooked from that point, but THIS SUB is what inspired me to pursue actual employment within the history field. I have since began collecting historical works and reviewing the abundance of resources available in this day and age to increase my knowledge base on the topic. I was able to parlay that self-education into a role combining my business experience and history knowledge to get a job at a former president's home (which is the best and coolest employer I have ever had... much better than working for myself!). Now I am blessed to have been offered an even better role as a chef within our foodservice department, and I get to bring 200 year old recipes to life for guests to enjoy. This is effectively a continuation of the interpretive history I volunteered for as a docent/guide over a decade ago, though now I share history through pots and pans instead of with words.

Without this sub, I'd still likely be living a businessman's boring life, but now, at least in some respects, I am an actual historian. In other words, it wasn't being a historian that earned me the flair, but rather earning the flair made me a historian.

Never give up on a dream.

When I started reading /r/AskHistorians, I was in high school.

When I started answering questions, I was a union carpenter's apprentice who had graduated from a tech college and was in the trades.

By the time I was modded, I had just started attending a Tribal college and was several years away from earning my bachelor's (which is in Native American & Indigenous Studies).

This year, I finished my master's degree which is in public administration with a concentration in Tribal governance.

I didn't begin my time here with any credentials and my current ones are not strictly history related. This sub was my first real interaction with history in any form beyond textbooks, the one-off title I might pick up at the bookstore, or the history channel. I'm very grateful to the community here for encouraging my growth in historical studies and now I teach history at the undergrad level (among other things). Some of us do choose to pursue formal qualifications, but credentials are not always necessary and they do not determine a person's ability to "do" good history, IMO. That's the great thing about AH--it gives the rest of the public a chance to be involved in this very important work.

I'll jump in with my own background. Yes, I have a BA in my subject area with a minor in history, and an MA in history. That said, you'll frequently see me answer questions outside of my flaired area, such as the 9/11 question I answered recently. When that happens, it's usually an area of personal interest, and I'm applying my academic background of historical analysis, but I've never actually studied that area. But I'm a PhD student currently, so even if I don't have resources on my shelf, I have access to them - which helps answer those questions that are more personal than professional interest.

No, certainly not. While I now hold a BA in history and classical studies and am currently an MA student in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies, when I first began answering questions here at r/AskHistorians and when I received my flair, I was still an undergraduate with no formal degree in anything yet. Granted, I was in the second semester of my senior year by that time and I was majoring in the area that I was writing answers about, but I still hadn't completed my degree yet, so I was still technically uncredentialed.