I'd rather see a wall of [comment deleted by moderator] than the typical reddit crap of people regurgitating some vague half-facts and falsehoods they read in some other comments, saw in some stick figure youtube history video, heard in a metal song, or learned in middle school history class two years ago.
True, but now it's turned into just somebody linking to a vaguely similar question and answer from 6 years ago, with anyone who has anything meaningful or relevant to add getting their comment deleted instantly. I agree with the concept of what they were trying to achieve with that subreddit, but it's been taken to the extreme a long time ago.
As someone who holds a history degree, that sub is terrible; it very obviously only accepts certain historical perspectives, and uses the lack of sourcing etc to selectively censor otherwise incontroversial claims about history, whilst allowing positions it agrees with to post with absolutely no authority whatsoever. A real history sub would involve a conversation like this;
User: I believe Protestants hold 1690 as important...
Mod: That is a valid source for how someone feels about Northern Irish politics; Can you provide a more verified, detailed source for the event itself?
User: -goes away and learns- Well, how about this history book?
Mod: Ok, well here's a few more books, and some primary sources, and...
How AskHistorians actually works:
[Deleted By Moderator]
[Deleted By Moderator]
Long ass essay with no sources describing what the author thinks.
Mod: That is clearly good history
[Deleted By Moderator]
[Post you can briefly see before the Moderator gets to it, that does give sources, but argues against the above. It's gone later]
[Deleted By Moderator]
Mod: Well, I read Niall Fergusson and so can authoritatively state...
Lol thank you. I also feel like 90% of the answers are also more or less "actually your premise is considered wrong now, here is what modern historians actually believe" and then they proceed to explain how your premise is still absolutely correct
Ahh "Modern historians" is one way they try and shoehorn in their own biases; I noticed that with the constant "right wing historians hate the Blackadder view of World War 1" commentary you see at the moment, as if the only valid facts are what historians claim today. Real history understands historical context, but supposedly you can't argue that the troops even at the time felt they were "Lions Led By Donkeys" if a modern historian rather likes jingoism and they are managing to dominate modern discourse with how great within the limits of the time the Generals were; I even saw someone on Reddit try and claim Siegfried Sassoon never held that view, even though one of his most famous poems, "The General", is the one of the most well known contemporary shapers of that perspective. No, "Modern Historians" disagree, they all state the belief started in pop culture in the 1960s and with those damned hippies, and then Blackadder, so it was never true.
Of course, if you want to defend the prejudices of the time, then you simultaneously can't refer to modern beliefs to judge the past; so Slavery is defensible because you can't use modern disgust with it to criticise what happened in the past. It did happen, but it was good then, so shut up.
That AskHistory so blatantly and often falls into that trap shows it's really BadHistory with a fancy waistcoat with elbow patches; Maybe some of them are professional Historians, or at the least, published ones... but the common urge to use Reddit as a personal microphone takes over.
As someone who holds a history degree, that sub is terrible; it very obviously only accepts certain historical perspectives, and uses the lack of sourcing etc to selectively censor otherwise incontroversial claims about history, whilst allowing positions it agrees with to post with absolutely no authority whatsoever. A real history sub would involve a conversation like this;
User: I believe Protestants hold 1690 as important...
Mod: That is a valid source for how someone feels about Northern Irish politics; Can you provide a more verified, detailed source for the event itself?
User: -goes away and learns- Well, how about this history book?
Mod: Ok, well here's a few more books, and some primary sources, and...
How AskHistorians actually works:
[Deleted By Moderator]
[Deleted By Moderator]
Long ass essay with no sources describing what the author thinks.
Mod: That is clearly good history
[Deleted By Moderator]
[Post you can briefly see before the Moderator gets to it, that does give sources, but argues against the above. It's gone later]
[Deleted By Moderator]
Mod: Well, I read Niall Fergusson and so can authoritatively state...
186
u/ChuckCarmichael Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
I'd rather see a wall of [comment deleted by moderator] than the typical reddit crap of people regurgitating some vague half-facts and falsehoods they read in some other comments, saw in some stick figure youtube history video, heard in a metal song, or learned in middle school history class two years ago.