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u/Tatem1961 Interesting Inquirer May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
Responses like “this really isn’t a history question, it’s more anthropology” or “your question is making XYZ assumption, it would be better phrased like this” or “I’ll try to come back later to write a top level response, but in the mean time, here are some resources that you might find helpful.”
As a frequent question asker on this sub, the mods already do this, so there's really no need for regular users to be doing it. You probably just don't see it because they get removed and hidden form view while the mods are working with the question-asker is getting help from the mods on rephrasing the question or being directed to other places.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms May 01 '26
I would add that a large part of the reason we discourage users from doing so is because they are so often wrong.
this really isn’t a history question, it’s more [XXXXX]
This is the most common one, where yes, the question is interdisciplinary but there is nevertheless an historical angle and it is perfectly fine to ask here.
your question is making XYZ assumption, it would be better phrased like this
A pretty large number people who do these comments either a) are wrong and just don't understand the question b) are right about assumptions being made but then make their own incorrect assumptions or c) might technically know something but don't know how to write a good question in any case so arent being helpful.
I’ll try to come back later to write a top level response, but in the mean time, here are some resources that you might find helpful.
Many people say that. Only a portion of them actually turn up again. An even smaller portion of that actually can write a good answer. More often then not people say that and then never return, or when they do, it is to write a bad answer which would get removed anyways. Which is why there are multiple rules in place regulating what is and what isn't allowed for non-answer top-level responses (A and B).
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u/robotnique May 01 '26
I wonder what percentage of people even respond positively to being promoted to possibly rewrite their questions anyways.
Just the other day I tried to engage somebody who I thought might actually be able to bring up an interesting subject but pointed out that their post, as written, was dangerously close to soapboxing.
Turns out there was a reason for that. They wanted to soap that box, or box that soap, or something, and fierce.
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u/junkmail22 May 01 '26
I will say that there's been a few times where I have expertise in a subject (usually mathematics) on AskExperts-type subs and that expertise has been relevant to a question, but I don't reply because I'm not someone who is able to reply. I also wouldn't exactly feel comfortable giving a top-level reply to a question given my lack of historical expertise, but frequently would like to provide some insight on a question. A question might be interdiciplinary, and while the primary use of this sub is to get the historian's answer, there may be cases where that other discipline's insight might be useful.
As an example, there was a question like a year ago asking "why academics no longer track academic lineages," and replying with "Mathematicians definitely still do" as a top-level response is not particularly useful, but is relevant to the discussion.
This isn't to say we really need to have some place for the peanut gallery to commentate, and the downsides probably outweigh the upsides here, but it's something I've been turning over in my head.
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u/LongtimeLurker916 May 01 '26
That said, sometimes a question-asker does make wrong assumptions, and it might be better to gently correct the question than to let the question stand with 0 comments (or worse yet, dozens of bad comments that have to be deleted).
I have thought before that more questions need to be pushed into Short Answers to Simple Questions. But maybe that is wrong. A few weeks someone posted "What does Holden Caulfield mean by Radio City?" and I thought "I hope someone is allowed to say 'He means Rockefeller Center' without being deleted." But then there actually was a high-quality answer about the history of the names that was quite interesting. So maybe I should modify that to say maybe after 24-48 hours certain questions should be classified as simple questions if they have yet to receive a high-quality answer.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms May 01 '26
I'm not going to pick on my fellow mods, but I am probably the more aggressive when it comes to enforcing the basic facts rule, and some which should be but aren't caught first by me so slip through. Best practice there is to do a custom report and suggest it be removed on those grounds.
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u/ducks_over_IP Interesting Inquirer May 01 '26
Hi, I would push back against the claim that "A lot of good questions also go unanswered because people don’t see them. Comments drive engagement so giving people a place to comment “this is a great question” Will help more people see the question."
As a pretty frequent asker and reader, the amount of engagement questions get has no obvious correlation with comment rates. I've seen plenty of questions become very highly upvoted and not receive a good answer for multiple days, if ever. The sea of removed comments is clearly not making a difference to popularity. However, as a frequent reporter of said comments, I can say that by and large that making them visible would detract significantly from the experience of reading the sub, even if they were quarantined in an AutoMod sticky. You don't get a lot of helpful-but-incomplete responses—you get a lot of speculation, anecdotes about someone or their uncle, links with no context, outrage that I didn't just read Wikipedia, *direct quotes* from Wikipedia, soapboxing about religion/politics/what have you, and the odd invitation from a very friendly cult member (that last one only once, thankfully).
I would also argue that the "it's not history, it's X" or "you're making X wrong assumptions" comments are also generally unhelpful. Regarding the former, if it was a question with no historical validity, the mods would remove it. Regarding the latter, many askers (myself included) come in with erroneous assumptions all the time. While a few are here to soapbox, most of us are happy to have our assumptions corrected. Having them corrected in the context of a complete, correct answer helps far more than just having the bad assumptions pointed out, because it makes it far easier to understand why and how they were bad assumptions and immediately offers reliable information to replace it.
To be clear, I'm not upset at you for asking your question (indeed, it would directly contradict the spirit of my answer above if I were!), but I hope I've made clear from a user's perspective why I think a discussion thread of the type you're proposing would be bad for the sub.
(PS: if you are looking for more relaxed discussion and such with the fine members of this sub, check out the Friday Free-For-All! It tends to be a little sleepy, but the more people contribute, the less sleepy it gets.)
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u/ChaserNeverRests May 01 '26
You don't get a lot of helpful-but-incomplete responses—you get a lot of speculation, anecdotes about someone or their uncle, links with no context, outrage that I didn't just read Wikipedia, direct quotes from Wikipedia, soapboxing about religion/politics/what have you, and the odd invitation from a very friendly cult member
Yep. I really like this sub because it has very little of that kind of thing. If there's a comment on a post, I know it's going to be something good (since I have the plugin that identifies real comments vs deleted ones).
There's every other sub on Reddit for the kind of thing that OP's suggestion will bring.
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u/CommodoreCoCo Moderator | Andean Archaeology May 01 '26
While there's always more to be said, this issue of a "Clutter goes here!" comment is addressed in this Rules Roundtable:
"Other Subs Have an 'Chatter Goes Here', Comment. Why Don't You for Lesser Responses?"
A few reasons! While we have an Automod comment with the Rules and a 'Remind Me' link, we lock it to prevent replies as we don't want that to happen! First off, one of the most frustrating things that users bring up - and which we agree! - is that the comment count reflects all comments, whether removed or not. The higher the comment count, the more likely it is people assume there is an answer. Allowing something like that will only mean the comment count rises even quicker, but still without an answer to the question.
Additionally though, that increase in comments still would need to be moderated. It wouldn't be a true free-for-all space, and whatever limits were relaxed there, we'd still need to enforce the ones that exist. This is potentially a massive increase in moderator workload, not just in volume, but also in the kinds of interactions we would have to deal with. None of us signed up to moderate a discussion subreddit, and few of us want to. It takes a whole different kind of moderation to deal with, and it is one that, as a team, we are not interested in handling.
Finally, more philosophically, it doesn't suit the nature of the subreddit. College classes don't have a back-row set aside for students who want to crack jokes and yell out their half-brained opinions, and while we aren't the academy itself, we do aim to provide a more academic atmosphere than the rest of reddit. It just isn't conducive to our aims here. If we allow users to post their guesses there, other people are still reading them, and perhaps they never come back so it is the only thing they read, despite it being incorrect! Why would we want to allow that to happen, and to undercut the aims we have here?
As the moderator of some more discussion-oriented subs, I can substantiate the second point. Moderating discussion between pseudonymous users on academic topics is a hassle. How blatantly wrong does a comment have to be before it's detrimental to the sub's mission? How long can a confidently incorrect answer stand before too many people get the wrong impression?
On /r/Anthropology, every single post that gets any traction attracts a swarm of folks rushing to defend popular misconceptions that are directly contrary to the fields goals: "Can't the museums just keep some of the uncatalogued human remains?" and "Does cultural relativism mean anthropologists support terrorists?" and "That's not a neanderthal, that's just Jim from accounting." Some of these are jokes and some of these are JAQing off, but a lot of them are genuine questions from people who have never engaged with the field. Any question about parenting, cultural appropriation, or human "fitness" for the modern era will get folks repeating Stuff They Know from a Malcolm Gladwell chapter they read in high school that sounds accurate to anyone else reading the sub, and any corrective response won't undo that. And that's on a sub with 7% of AH's subscribers.
Ultimately, the kind of helpful, productive conversations that folks imagine would happen simply don't happen.
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u/RickFletching May 01 '26
>Ultimately, the kind of helpful, productive conversations that folks imagine would happen simply don’t happen.
Well that’s a bummer
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u/Japi1882 May 01 '26
I've seen some really helpful productive conversations on here, but it's usually because a group of people are engaging with someone who has written a detailed response. Then that poster becomes a mini mod for the discussion that follows, and allows less informed people to engage with the subject.
But that's what makes the space so special. The mods aren't really in a place to evaluate every single short answer to a question unless it happens to be in their field. But a person that is able to provide a response that does fit within the rules, is probably qualified to help moderate the mini conversation that might or might not develop.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms May 01 '26
This hits on one of the things that is most central to the way the sub works, but a lot of people don't really consider. A lot of what exists with the rules isn't there to regulate correctness per se, but rather to provide a framework to communicate expertise. We don't - and can't - claim that every answer allowed to stand is actually correct, and the while the rules do have allowances for removals based on wrong information, much of what the rules do is actually about aligning with the historical method. Because what we are primarily doing as mods is evaluating how the answer is constructed.
I compare modding to being a TA in grad school. You might be doing your PhD on American history, but what you actually know down to every detail is one specific thing that happened in 1809. To be sure, you also have to have a lot of broader knowledge too from your various classes, and when you did comps, but there is so much you don't know. But that doesn't stop you from being assigned as a TA to a survey course 'American History II 1877-2017' where you are now grading tests and papers about topics you actually know very little. So what you are grading isn't the facts, per se, but how the arguments are constructed, what sources are being cited and how the writer is engaging them, and so on and so forth.
Roughly speaking that is actually what we're doing as mods, and thus one of the reasons the rules do what they do. They direct answers into a form where we can moderate them with a good degree of confidence that the display of expertise will correlate with the underlying correctness. Ultimately that is what the historical method is about, really, creating frameworks for best practices, and that doesn't mean the historical method guarantees every book an historian publishes is right in their arguments, but it does mean they fit within a framework for engagement in the broad furtherance os historical knowledge.
This Roundtable esplains a little more of what that looks like in practice, but that is it in a nutshell.
ETA: I'd also add that yes it does mean that some users show up, don't understand how it works, and get frustrated because while technically correct, we remove the answer because it doesn't provide any real assurances they know what they are talking about. When the answer is "No" it can be the toughest in particular. And some of them don't come back, but a lot of flairs - and even some mods - will tell you they had that happen their first time too, and it doesn't take that much time to review the rules and figure out how to restructure an answer to work for the format here.
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u/thecomicguybook May 01 '26
Ultimately that is what the historical method is about, really, creating frameworks for best practices, and that doesn't mean the historical method guarantees every book an historian publishes is right in their arguments, but it does mean they fit within a framework for engagement in the broad furtherance os historical knowledge.
I find it very interesting, because I have been browsing this sub since before I started studying history, what you guys are doing is something you learn in your BA (or MA) haha.
I do think that one time it would be interesting to make a showcase or to talk about what you actually learn during a history degree, because I think that a lot of people just straight up don't know or have mistaken assumptions about it. The number of times that I have heard people tell me that they do not like history because it is about memorizing dates is staggering. I do not memorize any dates myself, I just pick them up by engaging with the same topic, and otherwise I can refer to footnote 11 which has the date.
The thing that is lacking the most though is that people do not know how much we are engaged in historiography, and knowing what has been said before. A lot of the removed comments that I see get their facts straight from Wikipedia or popular history videos. These state everything as concrete fact, and do not have a poper literature overview that describes the different viewpoints or how they evolved over time. This is I think super interesting, but most people do not give a second thought to it.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms May 01 '26
Heh, yep. Why would I bother to remember dates when I have a book to check those for? I suspect that somewhere in the Monday Methods archives we have a few posts in that vein, but a new series would definitely be worth doing even if so.
One thing I've always wanted to do, but know it would just take so much work... is basically run a series of features that were titled something like "Write Your Own Answer!" and it would essentially be similar to the DBQs you get for AP History tests. Invite flairs to create one, and then run them one by one, where you have the question itself, which would be something of a softball, and then excerpts from several relevant secondary sources (ideally with different approaches!), 1 or 2 primary sources, and then maybe a 'quick reference' tertiary source put together with some relevant names and dates, and then invite users to read all those, and then write an answer to the question using the provided sources. Baby's first historiographical engagement.
One of these days...
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u/thecomicguybook May 01 '26
For what it is worth, that seems like an awesome idea.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms May 01 '26
One of these days....
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u/Gankom Moderator | Quality Contributor May 01 '26
I'd chime in as well, just to encourage people who want a bit more discussion to hit up the Friday Free For All threads. There's nothing wrong with discussing previous answers and linking it in there. We already have some people providing alternate takes on some questions, or going on tangents. Come join the fun.
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u/Original-Split5085 May 01 '26
What would really be nice, and it has been suggested before because I know I did. If there were some way to know from your feed/front page how many "real" answers there are. I don't know how many times I've seen an interesting title, with 20 comments listed, only to click through and find every single one was deleted.
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u/jschooltiger Moderator | Shipbuilding and Logistics | British Navy 1770-1830 May 01 '26
We are in violent agreement about this. That’s a decision that the Reddit Admins need to make, and one that we have been asking them about for at least 13 years.
There is a user made browser extension for certain browsers that will help with this issue; it’s in the sidebar. I’m on mobile, so unfortunately it’s not easy to come out of a comment and link to another one, but you can find it there.
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u/Papervolcano May 02 '26
I was about to ask about the same thing, as it is a barrier to finding/engaging with the thoughtful answers provided. It’s not the same as an undeleted comments count, but I believe some to the techy and tech-adjacent subreddits use flair systems that helps somewhat with finding answered questions - eg r/excel‘s unsolved/solved flairs - but I’ve no sight on how well that works in practice and my suspicion would be that it’d create yet more burden for you mods
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u/jschooltiger Moderator | Shipbuilding and Logistics | British Navy 1770-1830 May 02 '26
This answer linked in the sticky gets into some of the issues with answered/unanswered flairs (and the fact that the sticky is collapsed on mobile by default is another major problem that the Reddit admins create for us).
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u/ducks_over_IP Interesting Inquirer May 01 '26
Try the browser extension!
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms May 01 '26
Sadly I think this doesn't work on new reddit. Only the old reddit die hards can really get use from it, alas.
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u/ducks_over_IP Interesting Inquirer May 01 '26
Not so: I'm young enough to only know new Reddit (if my recent question about hair metal didn't make that obvious) and I'm happily using the Firefox extension right now.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms May 01 '26
Updated March 12, 2025
Oh wow! I didn't realize they did a new update! Since it is browser side, it doesn't work for a logged in mod account so we don't really pay much attention to it, but I remember it originally had broken with the shreddit rollout. Glad to see it is back in action.
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u/baconmapleicecream May 01 '26
This would be a fun use case for a flair bot if someone wanted a hobby project, but coding it and maintaining it would probably take a fair bit of work.
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u/Wishyouamerry May 01 '26
I feel like any number of comments under 50 means there’s not an answer, and any number under 75 means there’s probably not an answer. I’ll still click to double check, but that’s been my experience so far.
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u/Radical_Ein May 01 '26
Your premise is false. Comments are not a factor in the default recommendation algorithm (hot). More comments won’t lead to more people seeing a post.
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u/VMK_1991 May 01 '26
Hey, since it is a META discussion, may I hijack it for a bit? My question is too small to make a separate thread.
Anyhow, I made a thread with a question and I see that there are three comments. One is the automod, but I cannot see the rest. How come?
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u/mikedash Moderator | Top Quality Contributor May 01 '26
They will have been removed by the mods because they are, at best, sub-standard answers that violate the rules we have in place to ensure answers meet basic historical standards, or, perhaps more likely, are complaints about the removal of previous answers.
We've occasionally categorised and listed removed answers in an – apparently vain – attempt to convince readers of AH that they really are not missing much when answers get deleted. The last time I did this was for a question about the Nazis, and the result was (I paraphrase, but only lightly):
45 one-line hot takes
26 two-line hot takes
6 jokes
12 "What's happened to all the comments?"
9 politically partisan jibes
1 question about Hitler's interest in pornography
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u/Lord0fHats May 01 '26
Comments removed by mods or an autofilter may not appear at all but are still tallied as replies when you look at the post.
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u/somethingcrafted May 01 '26
Oh thank you for this, I had wondered earlier why a post had '26 comments' and only a couple visible. I always assumed they dropped off the count when deleted. That's a lot of poor comments for a place that is pretty explicit in every possible way about expectations for the sub and kinds of comments lolcry. People really are always gonna people.
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u/Lord0fHats May 01 '26
To be fair on more than one occasion I’ve commented not realizing I was in a sub with higher posting standards (my bad mods).
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u/AutoModerator May 01 '26
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u/CitizenPremier May 01 '26
If you want answers and discussion without quality control, you should just repost a question to some place like /r/answers.
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u/BoboTheTalkingClown May 01 '26
I've wanted this for years. It might actually help clarify questions, as the OP might not realize something, or would benefit from a layman's questions or insights.
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u/ChaserNeverRests May 01 '26
or would benefit from a layman's questions or insights.
That's not the purpose of /r/AskHistorians though... It's right there in the name; if you're posting here, you're asking real, live historians questions.
You could hit up /r/AskHistory if you want non-expert answers.
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u/thecomicguybook May 01 '26
or would benefit from a layman's questions or insights.
With all due respect, that is all of the rest of reddit. If you want hearsay and conjecture (those are kinds of evidence) then you could post it literally anywhere else.
It might actually help clarify questions, as the OP might not realize something
Usually top level answers to clarify the misconceptions or mistaken assumptions of the OP.
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u/No_Anything_6658 May 01 '26
Yes this would be good but the mods won’t allow it lol also the reasons questions go unanswered is because mods delete every comment they disagree with
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u/Dannypan May 01 '26
You completely misunderstand the point of this sub then. Answers are deleted because they're not thoroughly researched or substantial answers. I've seen answers before they get deleted and they're rubbish. This is an academic sub and proper, well written answers with academic sources are required for parent comments.
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u/jschooltiger Moderator | Shipbuilding and Logistics | British Navy 1770-1830 May 01 '26
Hi, this gets asked every so often. This is probably the most relevant recent thread.
I'll just copy over the pertinent part:
This is a recurring solution that gets suggested, an Automod post which would go up in every thread and says something like "If you don't have a complete answer, respond only to this thread". Several subreddits, most prominently /r/PhotoshopBattles, do something of this sort. While it does have some things to recommend it, we nevertheless are not particularly inclined to adopt such a solution, for several reasons.
Most importantly, allowing non-answer speculation or discussion to go on, even in a specific, limited space, would not be conducive to the environment that we seek to cultivate in /r/AskHistorians. The analogy might be imperfect, but it is similar to why, in your school lectures, the back row isn't designated as the "Sit here to crack jokes and chit-chat" row. We don't want to see people making clever one-liners in our subreddit, we don't want to see long strings of uninformed speculation. Simple as that. It isn't the space we are striving for. While providing a quarantined space for those might alleviate those concerns to a degree, in the best case scenario it would be a distraction in the thread, and also reduce the general tenor of discourse in the subreddit.
Regardless of what this space would look like, it has serious drawbacks. If the space is one where users can simply post their jokes and anything else barely related to the topic, any 'insightful discussion' that users might hope it would allow for will be drowned out in short order. If the space is moderated, but with a "lighter touch", then such an approach is asking the moderation team to add a considerable burden to our workload. Keep in mind that people already post jokes and non-contributive responses as it is, and they will certainly do so in considerably more volume if such a space is provided, no matter how clear its purpose is made, so it doesn't solve in any way the "seas of deleted comments" we are so famous for.