Why is it only Ask Historians and never Ask Herstorians?
You joke, but ruling with an iron fist in an academic sub is preferable. Requiring a bit of academic integrity in responses to questions is what makes a history sub valid. For instance, requiring all responses to provide sources should be a bare minimum.
The old place required “answers that are in-depth, comprehensive, well-sourced (academic), and written by knowledgeable contributors, prohibiting bigotry, speculation, links as answers, and current event discussions”, with a core principle to “provide high-quality historical information, not quick facts, focusing on expert-vetted responses that adhere to historical methodology and avoid modern political debates, even if framed around history.”
Being extremely judicious in the act of moderating is one of the aspects that allows academic subs to flourish.
I’m just concerned we don’t have the same pool of expert historians here to reach the same standard. I do think we should be as rigorous as we can but I do wonder if using the other communities standards would mean just no answers to any questions.
Definitely requiring sources is a good idea though. And I’m not sure how to delineate this but making sure they’re quality sources too, since there’s some pretty bad historical analysis out there these days and Lemmy has a lot of partisans who will want to push their agenda over the truth.
Seconding this. I’d rather have a few really quality posts than a graveyard of spam and low effort bs. High standards are EXACTLY what made the reddit version great. It might have some rough growing pains, but it will be worth it in the long run.
Quality over quantity.
You joke, but ruling with an iron fist in an academic sub is preferable. Requiring a bit of academic integrity in responses to questions is what makes a history sub valid. For instance, requiring all responses to provide sources should be a bare minimum.
Shit man, even AskHistorians on R*ddit doesn’t require sources in the original answer. From the Old Place:
We do not require sources to be preemptively listed in an answer on /r/AskHistorians, but do expect that respondents be familiar with relevant and reliable literature on the topic, and that answers reflect current academic understanding or debates on the subject at hand.
Even though sources are not mandatory, if someone asks you to provide sources in good faith, please provide them willingly and happily. If you are not prepared to substantiate your claims when asked, please think twice before answering. Requests for sources which are not fulfilled within a reasonable span of time will generally result in the removal of the answer.
Suggestion: Team up with @[email protected] to do a weekly meme-illustrated deep dive into a random topic of history.
I appreciate the vote of confidence, but:
That sounds an awful lot like work + My historical expertise is far more narrow than broad. I can address any subject of the Roman Empire to at least some degree; I can talk with some specificity on premodern European economics and society; I like to think I have a good understanding of the industrial revolution and modern history.
But there are vast gaps in my knowledge - I couldn’t give you more than the names of the major Chinese dynasties, nor tell you more than a handful of trivia and comparisons gleaned from articles that mention China only in passing. My understanding of pre-Mughal India is near-nonexistent, most of my knowledge of the medieval Islamic world is only in relation to Europe, Africa is a continent I desperately want to learn more about but never seem to be able to find source/time/motivation coinciding, etc etc etc etc. Relying on me would greatly restrict the topics that could be seriously covered.
Besides, I was never more than an undergrad. I’m not quite a rando from the street, but also, don’t take me too seriously!
Yeah, I fully get not wanting to turn your hobby into work! You already do plenty.
About your narrow area of expertise, don’t beat yourself up over it. I doubt anybody was expecting you to know every bit of history, and your passion for what you do know is what makes your explanations interesting.
Don’t worry, nothing beating myself up about it! Even folk with doctorates have pretty narrow fields, even if their general knowledge is still broader than mine. It’s legitimately very flattering to have a reputation for historical knowledge on the Threadiverse, but my ego is less important than reminding people that what I say is still very fallible, especially outside of my primary field of interest!
To be clear, at least in my mind, it’s not that you’ve got a reputation for deep historical knowledge. It’s that you’ve got a passion for history, and the willingness to put in the time and effort to share it with the rest of us in a way that’s very accessible!
If you actually need more mods, I can join you. My modding style is more bronze fisted than iron, but I can asure you that the bronze alloy is made from only the best metal. I mined the tin myself, and I got loads of promises about the copper quality from this vendor named Ea-nāṣir.
I’m UTC+1, by the way.
Oh fug, I forgot to resubscribe to this comm when I made the move to Piefed!
You can stop being a mod.
