AskHistorians

AskHistorians is a subreddit on Reddit where users may ask questions or start discussions about history.[1] It is "one of the largest history forums on the internet".[2]

r/AskHistorians
Logo of the Subreddit
Type of site
Subreddit, Question-and-answer site
Available inEnglish
FoundedAugust 28, 2011; 7 years ago
Founder(s)u/Artrw
URLwww.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians
askhistorians.com

The subreddit was founded in 2011 and has remained active ever since, with over 1 million subscribers as of August 9, 2019.[3] Unlike other Reddit communities, it aims to "provide serious, academic-level answers to questions about history" and is strictly moderated. Therefore, discussions not directly pertaining to the question being asked are often removed by the moderators.

History

r/AskHistorians was founded August 28, 2011 as a question and answer forum for sharing historical knowledge.[4] The site's rules state that all answers must be serious and based in reliable academic sources, and regular contributors who demonstrate an expert level of knowledge in their field are given "flair" which displays their expertise next to their username.[5] Although many of AskHistorians' contributors are professional historians, anyone is allowed to contribute to the site provided that they produce answers that meet AskHistorians' standards.[6] Scholars Mike Dash, Alex Wellerstein, and Benerson Little are regular contributors to AskHistorians.[7]

AskHistorians has received praise for its commitment to unbiased and well sourced history, and for making academic history accessible to a broad audience, with the American Historical Association stating that "AskHistorians is, in effect, a training ground for historical thinking facilitated by the moderators and experts".[8] Many of AskHistorians' most popular posts deal with common historical myths and misconceptions, such as the theory that lead caused the fall of the Roman Empire.[9][10]

AskHistorians has been noted for its commitment to combating Holocaust denial, in comparison with the more lax policies of Facebook.[11] The moderators of AskHistorians are outspoken about their policy of banning all holocaust deniers and Nazi sympathisers from the platform, and preventing Nazi apologism or manipulation of historical facts surrounding The Holocaust.[12] AskHistorians' contributors also write in-depth explorations of the circumstances in which the Holocaust occurred, and its historical weight.[13]

AMAs

AskHistorians regularly hosts expert Q&A panels called AMAs (short for "Ask Me Anything"). These panels include both regular contributors to AskHistorians and outside guest experts.[14]

Some notable guests on AskHistorians include Kate Williams, James F. Brooks, John Lukacs, Eleanor Dickey, Juan Cole, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, James M. McPherson, Brad Lepper Gavriel Rosenfeld. Eric H. Cline, and Jack Weatherford.[15] AskHistorians has also featured organizations such as American Battlefield Trust, Ohio History Connection, Osprey Publishing. On November 25, 2014 Timothy Potts (then director of the J. Paul Getty Museum) hosted an AMA on the Getty Museum.[16] In 2019, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting hosted an AMA on AskHistorians to discuss the value of cultural resources and historical media.[17]

Conference

In September 2020 AskHistorians organised the first ever virtual conference on Reddit. The topic was "Business as Unusual: Histories of Rupture, Chaos, Revolution and Change." The three-day event included AMAs, networking events and panels, with speakers encompassing academics and museum professionals.[18][19]

Podcast

AskHistorians launched its own dedicated history podcast on December 20, 2016.[20] The podcast features 30–90 minute interviews with dedicated members of the r/AskHistorians community, as well as academics and published experts in the fields of history, anthropology, and archaeology. Since August 2018, it also features AskHistorians Aloud, shorter episodes which focus on narrating answers to questions from their subreddit.[21]

References
  1. "Have Questions Only an Historian Could Answer? Try Reddit. Go Ahead, Ask Them Something". historynewsnetwork.org.
  2. Breit, Johannes (20 July 2018). "We Banned Holocaust Deniers From Our History Subreddit. Here's Why Facebook Should Do the Same". Slate.com. Retrieved 19 August 2018.
  3. "/r/AskHistorians metrics (AskHistorians)". redditmetrics.com.
  4. "Historians on Reddit? | History News Network". historynewsnetwork.org. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  5. "Public History in the Digital Sphere: /r/AskHistorians". Doing History in Public. 2019-09-17. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  6. "Anyone Can Cook: AskHistorians and Engaging with History". Clio's Current. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  7. Dash, Mike (2019-01-18). "Ask Mike". A Blast From The Past. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  8. "Have a Question about the Past? AskHistorians. | Perspectives on History | AHA". www.historians.org. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  9. "Did the Roman Empire Really Fall Because of Lead in the Water?". io9. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  10. Oller, Jacob. "A Good Place: Where nothing is fake and there is no news". The Outline. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  11. Chandrasekharan, Eshwar; Samory, Mattia; Srinivasan, Anirudh; Gilbert, Eric (2017). "The Bag of Communities: Identifying Abusive Behavior Online with Preexisting Internet Data" (PDF). Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 3175–3187. doi:10.1145/3025453.3026018. S2CID 2817829.
  12. Breit, Johannes (2018-07-20). "We Banned Holocaust Deniers From Our History Subreddit. Here's Why Facebook Should Do the Same". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  13. Locker, Theresa (2015-06-25). "Reddit-Historiker: Warum bombardierten die Alliierten nicht einfach die Auschwitz-Schienen?". Vice (in German). Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  14. "Academics, publishers find new communities on Reddit". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  15. "amas - AskHistorians". old.reddit.com. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  16. "r/AskHistorians - I'm Timothy Potts, Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum - AMA". reddit. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  17. "The American Archive of Public Broadcasting Hosts Successful AMA on Reddit's r/AskHistorians". Foundation. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  18. "r/AskHistorians Community Hosts First-Ever Virtual Conference on Reddit". Upvoted. Retrieved 2021-01-02.
  19. "AskHistorians to hold conference over Reddit". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2021-01-02.
  20. "The AskHistorians Podcast". iTunes. Retrieved December 4, 2018.
  21. "The AskHistorians Podcast". Libsyn. Retrieved December 4, 2018.
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