Comment on META - As much as I've enjoyed r/AskHistorians for the past 10 years, I firmly believe that this subreddit should make a better effort to redirect people seeking more of a skin-deep understanding to subreddits more conducive to casual discussion. This would be a huge benefit to all.
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r/AskHistoriansu/SarahAGilbert (1147)

A few of your suggestions are already implemented—we regularly recommend r/AskHistory to users who want more discussion or want an answer but aren't necessarily interested in having it vetted for accuracy and we're also in regular contact with moderators of r/history (some folks are mods of both subs); we aren't in regular contact with the moderators of r/AskHistory, mostly because they take a very different approach to moderation than we do—theirs is a very hands off approach to moderation in which mis/disinformation is addressed (or not) through users via decentralized moderation (i.e., votes) rather than mod intervention. Both subs are listed in the sidebar as part of the history network of subreddits.

I'm not an historian—I'm an information scientist who studies moderation, but I have a background in library and information studies. What you're describing in your second paragraph:

But where do people go who just want to ask a question where they might not know what information it is they're seeking?

has a name in LIS: Anomalous State of Knowledge (ASK)—you know you want to know something, but you don't know enough to be able to articulate it. This can make question asking (or searching for information in google) really difficult. Browsing (or looking through existing information) is a much better solution for people in the ASK state. Being a Q&A sub, this is a bit of a challenge and one that moderators and flaired members of the team address through the FAQ in the wiki, so that someone who wants to read through background information on Greek mercenaries can read through the existing answers and, ideally, ask their own question from there. Another thing moderators here do that's less visible because it tends to happen in modmail or in removed question chains is provide coaching on how to ask questions. For users who want a quick answer we direct them to the dedicated thread for short answers and try to prioritize answering those when we can. There are also a set of flairs who regularly respond to those kinds of questions too.

These are all initiatives undertaken by mods and supported by expert flairs to make sure our users have as many ways of getting the information they want while still maintaining the goals of the subreddit—to provide question askers with comprehensive, accurate, and trustworthy responses to their question. I guarantee that no one on the mod team is going to say: "We don't care about raising general knowledge and interest in history" because that's the foundational goal of the subreddit and the primary reason why members of the modteam dedicate hours of their time everyday to the community—I've written about that here and published more details here.

There are a few challenges of course—Reddit's design means that these efforts are harder to find (for a while, and perhaps still, the wiki wasn't available on mobile, which is where the vast majority of the sub's traffic comes from) and it all takes time and labour. Every time a moderator makes a visible comment they are always at risk of pushback (which is benign in intent, but can be stressful, particularly when it happens en masse) and at risk of abuse. So it's often a balance between wanting to do more and having the time and the emotional energy. Because some of the feedback requires specialist knowledge it's not simply a case of adding more moderators. Moderation is a lot of work and moderators are human. There's a ton of stuff that the team works on and does to address the issues you raise, it's just hard to get it out there and make sure people see it.

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Anomalous State of Knowledge (ASK)—you know you want to know something, but you don't know enough to be able to articulate it. This can make question asking (or searching for information in google) really difficult.

Completely off topic but you just nerd sniped me. As a developer a frequent problem I run into recently is that google favours more popular answers over more recent, so if for example I'm searching for answers on an ES6 function that shares it's name with a jQuery function, the newer ES6 threads are completely obscured by the bajillions of jQuery questions. Do you know of any good techniques or guides that help a search under such conditions?

Also this might be the first time I've asked a librarian an actual librarian question.

Google provides a few tools that can help with a situation like that:

  • When you know the results aren't what you're looking for because of age, you can use the "Tools" button to filter by a date range. Often setting a "From date" newer than the majority of incorrect results helps a lot.

  • When you know the results aren't what you're looking for because of topic, in this case because of the use of a library you do not want (jQuery), using the search exclusion operator - (a minus/hyphen) prefixed in front of that word will remove those results and hopefully leave you with more relevant ones. For example, myfunction -jquery.

  • Modern Google tries to guess what you mean and can change or convert search terms. If you notice one of your search terms is not actually appearing in the results, surrounding that term (or set of terms) in double quotes should force Google to look for results where those terms appear verbatim. For example, if a search for myfunction is giving you results like my other function, use "myfunction" instead.

  • Don't be afraid to add more terms to further refine your results! You can always go back if they lead to results you don't want.

  • Sometimes, using more specialised collections can help. For example, searching StackOverflow directly (and using its tagging system), searching mailing list archives specific to your library, GitHub issue trackers, etc.. That said, a lot of developers like to write more opinion-based pieces on blogs, which aren't discoverable with this method.

More generally:

  • Search filters (date range, etc.): https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/142143?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&oco=0#zippy=%2Cweb-results
  • Search operators (exclusion, exact match, etc.): https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en

Of course, none of this necessarily helps when you don't know what you're missing and don't have enough clues to prompt search engines along. In that case, actually asking other people isn't a bad idea :) Mailing lists, Stack Overflow, IRC chatrooms, even some subreddits can be good places to ask questions.

I have had experiences, increasing as time goes by, of Google seemingly utterly ignoring date range in their responses. I don't even get a message akin to the "no results found matching X" you get with keywords.

Thats because a lot of websites are spoofing the date ranges - reddit does it now. If youre looking for old threads through a google search it obfuscates the thread age and tells you most of the page results were from within the last few days ago, when it's a 3 year old locked post. Its just another bullshit SEO optimization that only serves to undermine the purpose of archival

AMAZING.

Thought I was going crazy. Getting 8y old reddit posts at the top of Google results that the search result displays as 1y or less.

Very interesting, thanks!

putting stuff in quotes doesn't seem to work as well anymore either.

In your Google search, include after:2021-06-30 or your required date range. Before also works. Also include a negate: -jQuery to exclude results which contain that word.

Problem solved

I have had experiences, increasing as time goes by, of Google seemingly utterly ignoring date range in their responses. I don't even get a message akin to the "no results found matching X" you get with keywords.

Can you not still add -JQuery to the end of your google search to remove results that include that word?

That may work in that specific circumstances (IDK) but in more general queries of this type I'm loathe to take that approach because of the high probability that the articles I'm looking for will make passing reference to the other thing, if only to point out the differences and the fact they are frequently erroneously conflated.

"Today we are talking about the foo function in ES6, users of jQuery will rejoice that it has finally been added to the standard!"

or else it's in the meta data or in navigation, or a list of "related" content.

If you go in stackoverflow you can search for your function there and filter out jQuery, or specifically search in the ES6 tag.

Oh man, trying to look up pre-covid mask research is horrible nowadays

The fact i now know theres a phrase for knowing so little i dont know what to ask, i feel alot mroe confident asking a librarian for help.. so thanks!

In that specific example, you should use the MDN.

But where do people go who just want to ask a question where they might not know what information it is they're seeking?

has a name in LIS: Anomalous State of Knowledge (ASK)—you know you want to know something, but you don't know enough to be able to articulate it.

Thank you for this.

It is often an issue on many of the technical subreddits, and the flippant "just google it dude" answers are frequent.

It is nice to have a name for why that is so unhelpful.

I cannot understate how deeply I hate the "Just google it dude" answers we get sometimes. On several occasions I have "Just googled it" on a whim, and often get totally contradictory answers just within the first few results.

Google is powerful, but if someone comes to you to ask a question it means they'd likely appreciate an answer from you. Its perfectly fine to point out where you can find good sources or other places for an answer, but "just google it" feels like such a hand wave away.

I share your hatred.

I write software, so I basically google things for a living. It's really common for the top google result to be a forum asking the exact thing I googled with the only comment saying "just google it." That moment of smugness doesn't just frustrate the OP, it frustrates everyone who runs into that same error again for the rest of the Internet's existence. It's like some recursive google hell.

AGHS thats a terrible one. I do a lot of tech support for the family and with no real background all I have is google. The only thing worse then that is the classic "Hey here's my problem thats exactly the same as what Gankom will experience in 5 years, whats the solution?"

"Never mind. Found it."

TELL ME THE ANSWER YOU FIENDS!!!!

ANSWER ME DENVERCODER94, WHAT DID YOU FIND???

This comment chain is making me feel things I didn't expect to feel today.

My eternal enemy will always be BongsOutSunsOut420justblaze who somehow found out what that weird clicking sound in a lenova laptop was, but never said.

I like to think of those threads like modern equivalents of Fermat's Last Theorem.

They said they found the solution, but offered no proof. It is a note scribbled in the margin, and it is likely a wrong or erroneous solution that may only have held up in the cases they examined, and would not bear rigorous scrutiny.

Oh the pain.

https://xkcd.com/979/

I love that comic so much, yes.

It's really common for the top google result to be a forum asking the exact thing I googled with the only comment saying "just google it."

Ooph, that's a feedback loop through hell.

I got a private message from a person about my recent James Bond Martini question saying I should have just googled it and my post should be removed by the mods

Jokes on them because the post ended up with a great response about cocktail and James Bond history, so much more insightful than anything I could have found on Google

Boo that person, but hurray for proving the system works! I really liked that Bond question/answer! imagine not sharing it with the world.

I've asked so many stupid questions all over reddit and this has never happened to me. Very weird behaviour. User is larping as a mod.

Sounds intimidating, I wonder if they are doing it to others. I wonder if they should be reported.

I googled a simple question "who killed Hua Xiong" of my era, let us just say it would not have been a helpful use of time. I mean the first half of the first page avoids one of the common wrong answers but otherwise still get it wrong or doesn't explain the context

The Dynasty Warriors art I got in my search looks fabulous though.

Then it was worth it.

I lol'd at this. You have made my day better both of you.

I'm glad we gave some joy.

People smugly replying that they "found an answer on Google in <1 second", but don't want to share their findings because "they need to learn to Google f themselves" has gone up in the past few years, it feels.

Also, speaking as someone who used to be very good at squeezing esoteric results from Google - the engine is much harder to wrangle these days. GIS will frequently bury literally everything that isn't new or an actual ecommerce listing behind "we found more results we think are bad, but hey, if you want to see them you can". I can be holding an antique product in my hand and searching for extremely specific information, and Google will still prioritize the shallowest interpretation of my query if that's what serves up links that have ecommerce listings.

Dude. This is so true. I like to think of myself as a google wizard, and am still pretty good, but they have def made it way harder than it us to be. What use to be a <5 min search can now be 15+. For someone that prides themselves in their research and google powers, I can only imagine the dejection and frustration of someone just trying to find answers and getting what appears to be absolutely no where. I've also noticed that sometimes the 'tricks' to help narrow searches do nothing and/or seem to confuse google into a completely different search.

Agreed; my use of Google as the search engine of choice has diminished greatly. Even searches on topics that maybe .01% of the American population have even heard of, like Ghawazee (a Dom/Domari group in Egypt famous for dance and music accomplishments) has seen results go south over the years, to my estimation.

Spaces like this are more and more critical for good, thoughtful, information.

Is there anything you use instead that can get better results?

Also, there's been a non zero amount of times I've searched for something and the first result is a forum post with no answers other than people saying to just look it up.

I can't remember quite what it was {Insert removal macro for "I don't know"!) but there was something I searched recently when a game bugged and most of the first page was people with the same issue, not a single answer, and finally a comment that was just "Huh, seems like it fixed itself eventually."

Also if you use DuckDuckGo like I do your search results may be completely different. Or live in Germany and not the US, like I do. Or have a different search history, like I do. Or...

The worst style of this answer is people who reply with a lmgtfy link. It's the equivalent of saying "Look, I get that you're too stupid to use google, so I'll do it for you". Makes my blood boil.

you know you want to know something, but you don't know enough to be able to articulate it.

"... as we know, there are known knowns: there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know."

  • Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2/12/2002 press conference.

He leaves out the unknown knowns, or questions we have the answer to but don't know it.

Anyway, more wordy but less informative way of describing ASK. But a pithy soundbite.

We're going to end up in some philosophical weeds here but I'm not convinced that unknown knowns exist. If we already have the answer to a question before it has been asked, we do have a known known in the form of said answer. If we have the means to develop an answer upon the question being asked, then the knowledge of said answer is created during the process and is not already extant, i.e. it converts a known unknown into a known known.

I think these definitely do exist and often feel like "Oh, right, duh" moments when we finally get to the question itself. As an example, I was tooling around with vegetarian breakfast sausage ideas and kept trying to figure out how to improve on the structure. I knew that animal sausages held together better in part because of their fat content and the fact that those fats are solid at warmer temperatures, but it took a decent string of searches and research to identify why those fats work the way they do before finally coming to the question "what's a good hydrogenated vegetable fat that's flavorless and solid at room temperature?"

So I google it..."Oh, duh. Crisco."

I knew Crisco was a solid vegetable fat but until I had worked my way up to the last question it never even crossed my mind as relevant information to my experiments.

Edit: this comment was not paid for by Crisco - they still won't return my calls.

If we already have the answer to a question before it has been asked...

...then we have an unknown known.

We don't build railroads until its railroading time. If you know how to harness steam power, but nobody's come up with the idea of using it for movement, you already know the answer to the question you don't know enough to ask yet. Its not railroading time. When it is time to ask the right question, the unknown known changes, yes, but not until that time.

Good enough for me, really, but I am but a simple man.

I get the train of logic (ha!) but for me it doesn't actually pan out: imagine for instance a simple maths question like 72+81. You have all the information necessary to work out the answer, but it takes actually doing the sum to know that 72+81=153. But it's not something I knew beforehand as such, I only knew the process. If nobody asks the question, it's an unknown unknown, when someone asks it, it's a known unknown until I work it out and it becomes a known known.

I view it as things you forgot but then remember.

"Do you have vegan friends?" "No." "Tom is vegan, he mentioned it last week." "Oh yeah! I remember that conversation."

Versus

"No." "Tom mentioned it last week." "I don't remember that at all."

I was always bad at math.

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I think it makes sense to break it down into constituent elements:

Let's just go with the fridge thing: I know the size of the fridge, it's a known known. He knows what he thinks the size of the fridge is, it's a known known. The question itself is an unknown unknown because neither thought to ask. There's a sort of emergent 'unknown known' but in its granular components it breaks down into known knowns and unknown unknowns.

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Right, and that's fine, but it's a different idea from an unknown known as being knowing the answer to a question you do not know – if you don't know the question, you don't know that the information you have is an answer to said question, if that makes sense. So in that way, the information in and of itself is a known known, but its relevance as an answer is an unknown unknown.

I would say that unknown knowns are more relevant in the context of a government or large organisation and poor communication / retention of historical documents. I come across them all the time and it’s things like: We want to build a new bridge, we’ll start a project, how about we use this existing connection (cue weeks of painstaking feasibility work) some time later the right person becomes aware of this project and supplies a study report from 30 years ago where they did the whole design already and it wouldn’t work because it would all fall into the sea. It’s normally info that some or most people know in an organisation but key people do not know. There are an absurd number of examples now that I think about it.

I would love to know who's words were drawn upon in this famous quotation.

It is definitely not new, and definitely not first said by Rumsfeld.

You may be right. Apparently "unknown unknowns" was a term people at NASA used. According to Wikipedia, its first documented use was in a Canadian inquiry about uranium mining in 1978, along with "known unknowns." Also, a New Yorker article from 1982 used both of the "unknown" variants as well.

Plato quoted Socrates as saying "I know that I know nothing", which may be an ur-example of Rumsfeld's comment.

It does appear, however, that Rumsfeld at the very least made the concepts famous, and may very well have been the first to use all three descriptors at the same time.

That's an example of a known unknown.

At the risk of getting political, I remember him being lampooned for that speech. Presumably because it sounds like a non-sensical word salad despite being pretty spot on. I disliked the man and his policies, but those were true words.

Somewhere else in the discussion, I mention that I remember hearing the press conference this was from and how badly he was savaged in the media for saying something so illogical, so ridiculous.

It made perfect sense to me then and still does 20 years later. Anybody with a modicum of military history knowledge under their belt will have understood it immediately... which is probably why the media didn't get it.

The combination of four, in a sense of complete conception, are typical in a logic / philosophy analysis and exercise, and I am fairly confident that all four have been in a statement and conception, long before Rummy's televised statement.

It does appear, however, that Rumsfeld at the very least made the concepts famous, and may very well have been the first to use all three descriptors at the same time.

You just agreed with my last serious paragraph.

Actually, I did not, as I believe without proper citation, that all four have been around jointly and collectively, for some time.

Jesus wept. That paragraph admits that he may not have been the originator of the things. And, as I pointed out, 1978 saw two of them used together in the same report, and NÀSA wasn't unfamiliar with them.

But okay, you're the one claiming in effect that Rumsfeld didn't make the statement famous. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Go find evidence that his speech wasnt the time that made the known knowns, etc... well, known.

I remember that speech and the way the media ripped him apart for the concepts being so ridiculous. I never understood why, it made perfect sense to me.

You dont seem able to give the guy credit, despite presented evidence. Is this a political thing?

Hey, I agree, Rummy made it famous.

Thank you so much for explaining this, it's both a TIL about ASK and realizing the volume of effort that goes on behind the scenes of removed chains and modmail. But wouldn't that help to keep the threads visible so others can learn from common mistakes, even if it might be redundant since the same mistakes are probably mentioned in rules, wiki, and FAQs?

Keeping the rule-violating questions up would also create extra work because people would see them as answerable questions and, understandably, vote on them and/or try to answer them. People already hate when popular unanswered threads land in their feeds so I can only imagine how happy people would be if a question that we weren't going to allow an answer to was highly upvoted!

Another issue with that is some of the questions we remove are removed because they contain disinformation. Among the mod team this is referred to as JAQing off (for "Just Asking Questions"). It's when someone specifically includes disinfo talking points to spread them under a guise of plausible deniability. That guise usually comes off when they respond to the ban message, with some users outright admitting they're racist or antisemitic once they're in a private space. Sometimes misinformation is spread that way too, where the person really doesn't know and is asking in good faith, but is inadvertently spreading it nonetheless. This is an even more serious issue, as the bulk of bad info is spread through people who just don't know rather than intentionally nefarious actors.

So, rather than leaving the questions up for educational purposes and risking abuse and angry push back, mods have written Monday Methods posts (like this one by /u/commiespaceinvader on how to combat Holocaust denial, and an extensive set of rules roundtable discussions written by /u/georgy_k_zhukov providing explanations for the rules and guidance for asking questions (e.g., this one on asking uncomfortable questions. When it comes to feedback on answers we tend to do that through modmail although when that decision gets made (vs commenting in public or straight up removing) is highly dependent on the situation.

It's a tough balance—while there is an advantage in providing opportunities to learn about the subreddit's rules through lurking, light doesn't provide a disinfectant for many of the kinds of things that we remove, creates extra labour, and creates extra risk.

Both subs are listed in the sidebar as part of the history network of subreddits.

Am I blind? I don't see where this is on the sidebar.

You aren't blind but simply looking at a different sidebar, both subs are listed on old reddit but not new reddit. /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov mr general you should delegate someone to fix it ;)

as an old redditor who refuses to use new reddit, I upvote you!

Me too. It is awful

It's a bit better for viewing images but it's not worth how horribly ugly it is in general or how much harder it is to navigate.

And the input box used to be buggy as hell. I perma opted out of the new reddit after about the 4th time I lost half of a mega post I'd spent hours honing.

And the input box used to be buggy as hell.

And it still is too. Switching to markdown mode helps, but it's still frustrating.

IIRC it was switching between markdown mode and WYSIWYG mode (which IIRC you have to do quite frequently) that caused you to lose all text that wasn't in the part of the box revealed by the scrollbar.

It just looks awful. I use the .compact interface for mobile, as well, unless I am moderating.

What is new reddit? Is it some kind of hoax?

It's the Reddit equivalent of New Coke.

Check it out at your own peril but https://new.reddit.com I warned you though! Just in case make sure you have https://old.reddit.com open in an extra browser tab as sort of a panic button.

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You know you can set old reddit in your preferences right?

Old reddit is the only reddit!

Old Reddit with Reddit Enhancement Suite.

Let's not go there. Tis a silly place

I fixed it.

It should be showing up on New Reddit too on the sidebar on desktop version.

On old Reddit you have to scroll down a bit to get to the Related Subreddits. r/history is 6th on the list and r/AskHistory can be found when you click on more, under the "General History" heading.

On new Reddit r/AskHistory is the first listed. r/history isn't on it, but I think that list is automatically generated.

It's totally buried on the mobile app, unfortunately. You have to click on "Other subreddit resources" to get to the list of related subs.

If you're on Old Reddit, it's in the 'related subreddits' section, above the 'Message the Mods' button; we don't have it on New Reddit.

Ah. So, maybe put it on the New Reddit?

I only started using Reddit about a year ago; I never use the Old Reddit for anything. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Apparently it is supposed to be there but we seem to have slipped up on the formatting and it doesn't currently show up – we are fixing it though. Speaking personally, you should use Old Reddit, it's much better.

hear hear! old reddit forever!

I’m so glad you talk about this among the mods. I see so many irritating questions with the format ‘Given [thing that is not true], [sensible question]?’

Ah, the ol Tucker Carlson tactics...

Again this has provided me with the most insight on the day to day issues you guys must deal with. It also seems like you're suggesting this sub is better when you DON'T lurk. Basically try, fail, get removed, but at least you'll try to help most figure out where and why.

No, that's not what I'm suggesting. That's a service moderators provide in response to typical platform use and challenges faced by operating a subreddit that differs pretty substantively from Reddit's SOP. While mods provide a lot of individualized guidance, doing that kind of work takes time away from doing things like answering questions, but it's done anyway because they care deeply about the community, which includes providing scaffolding to new users. It's certainly not the preferred mode of learning how to be a community member, which is to take advantage of the ample resources that are linked in the rules and the FAQ.

But wouldn't that help to keep the threads visible so others can learn from common mistakes, even if it might be redundant since the same mistakes are probably mentioned in rules, wiki, and FAQs?

No. It's in the rules, in the sidebar, int he FAQ, in the wiki, and everyone who needs assistance receives it.

As a teacher you may feel the pain of having something on the syllabus, on the slides, and in a study guide, then providing patient feedback to a student who didn't read any of those. Now imagine a percent of those students are trying to use your essay assignments as a platform to deny the holocaust or find historical support for white superiority

Information scientist studying moderation is one of the niche-est career title I've ever seen. Huge respect for pursuing such a specialised line of work 🙏
Didn't even know there was such a thing.
Also makes me appreciate this subreddit even more.

You might be interested to know that in academic circles, that kind of specialization is quite common. We often tell PhD students that by the time they defend their dissertation they are likely the world's leading expert in that very narrow topic. In fact, when they go in for their defense, they know more about it than anyone else in the room.

The world's knowledge is so vast that in order to truly contribute something new, you basically have to go for a narrow focus. Science/research is something that happens very slowly in very small increments with contributions from vast numbers of people. Long gone are the days when someone could just be "a historian" or "a physicist."

Back in school, my former department head and academic advisor once said to picture all of human knowledge as a circle. Then when we do our dissertations we're creating a bump somewhere on the edge of that circle and expanding it.

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I'm guessing you've either never been through grad school or you've forgotten what it was like.

What you're saying here is more or less accurate. That's almost never how the student feels in the moment.

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Yes, which is why offering words of encouragement is a good thing to do. I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make.

Currently doing my master's in the field and it's really interesting, if albeit like a long and upsetting episode of Black Mirror. I'm not entirely surprised, but I'm excited that this sub has such a close relationship with members of the field. I'd sure like to see the principles spread further.

In what way is it like Black Mirror?

Someone make u/sharpie660 a mod as well 🙌. You know dis.

Browsing (or looking through existing information) is a much better solution for people in the ASK state.

Yep, as a librarian this is the most common solution to ASK and one people are most satisfied with. You only need to show them where the general topic is located (which they often need help in formulating so it translates to the library classification system).

What really impresses me in this sub is not just the great answers but also the characteristic of finding good questions from someone who doesn't have the ability to pose them in the subject of history. It's a sign of a good teacher.

I'm not an historian—I'm an information scientist who studies moderation, but I have a background in library and information studies.

My apologies for taking a liberty here but would you have a link to introductory reading for precisely that? I've suddenly found an interest in information storage and retrieval and I seem to be running into common problems that likely have already been addressed in the literature. I'm currently in an ASK and I'd appreciate a pointer or two in getting started.

For example, a problem I've recently been thinking about is what the common pitfalls of creating a file system hierarchy in the vein of Johnny Decimal and possible edge cases for retrieval are. I'm certain this question has been asked and answered before but I'm currently manually testing this by implementing a "test system" and figuring out what the edge cases could be. I'd love more technical insight.

I'm afraid I don't! Information seeking behaviour was the subject of my master's thesis, but I pivoted from there in my PhD to focus on participation in online communities. So I'm almost 10 years removed from the literature now! ASK is one of the foundational theories though and it's stuck with me because I personally have I've found it so useful for articulating that uncomfortable sorta feeling when you're trying to learn something new. It's so validating to have a name for it! I don't know of any primers, but here's one of the most commonly cited articles, written by Nick Belkin who's generally credited with coming up with it.

(Apologies if you already do this, but just in case) When I'm in a bit of an ASK I find it really helpful to see who's citing who when I'm looking for more information on a topic (this is called forward citation chaining). Google Scholar makes it pretty easy by clicking on the citation number link (for the Belkin article this this where it takes you). The default sort is the number of citations the citing articles have, but you can also click on the years to see what the most current scholarship says.

Excellent! This is a good starting point. Thanks for taking the time!

Sorry for treating you like a talking directory. I'm new here and wondering if this sub is a good place to ask for book reviews or evaluation of accuracy of historical non-fiction books, and if not, if there are other subs or resources for that.

You are more than welcome to ask such questions! We frequently field questions about history in YouTube videos, podcasts, and pop culture. We can't promise an answer, alas, but we're happy to host such questions.

Would it be okay to ask open questions à la "What is your favourite book in your field of study and why?"

The topic of the importance of browsing came up above (in context of the ASK state) and that seems like a good starting point for a lot of people to find and dive into many different topics.

That might be removed for being too over-broad (I guarantee you I'd look at that question and drop it into our mod discussion channel), but it would be a great question for our Friday Free-for-All thread.

That's a poll-type question and would be removed from the main page. BUT! It's a perfect question for our Friday Free-For-All threads. (Which is basically what the removal message would say to someone who posts such a question.) The thread usually goes up around 9 AM EST on Fridays.

Please do. I've found book suggestions/reviews to be tremendously useful when deciding whether to read X or Y in the past.

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Some subreddits do get around this somewhat by creating a generic moderation account. While I haven't studied those communities, I tend to observe those accounts being used when making decisions that they know are likely to be unpopular with some members of their community and want to avoid harassment and abuse that might folllow the decision. modmail also has a feature where moderators can respond as the subreddit, which helps with that too.

Generally though being a known member of an online community and supporting it through moderation work can actually help build community. Being seen and known to do work helps build trust in the community being safe and in this case, that the information shared is trsutworthy). Seeing the same "faces" doing it over and over again is also important for community building as latent tie relationships^1 between regular lurkers and moderators can help lurkers feel like part community. For example, as a lurker I "knew" /u/gankom before I ever actually "met" him.

There are AskHistorians-specific reasons too. While I'm the only one who moderates with their real name (because I research moderation and online communities, using my real name was a conscious ethical decision I made), several mods are pretty identifiable if you know where to look. Participation here is an important part of their careers and being connected to a username is something that you can put on your CV/resume to show pubic scholarship outputs or community management experience. So while the visibility has risks, there are some benefits too!

^1 latent tie relationships are those that could exist by virtue of being in the same space, but aren't technically relationships because no one has actually interacted with each other

This has actually run people into trouble in the past when they remove something that's seen as controversial or when people assume we have a bias due to our flairs (we all have bias, but that's a separate discussion.) For example, I absolutely will not moderate in an Indian history thread because my flair has the word "Britain" in it. Made that mistake once, but only once.

LIS: Anomalous State of Knowledge (ASK)—you know you want to know something, but you don't know enough to be able to articulate it. This can make question asking (or searching for information in google) really difficult.

I am a teacher and I love learning about how people learn. This topic sounds fascinating and I'd like to know more! Might you be able to recommend a starter book or resource? Academic papers are fine too!

Here's one of the original articles from the person credited with developing theory. His work, and the research that builds from it is within a subfield of LIS referred to ask information seeking behaviour which focuses on how people look for information (and on the flip side, developing systems to retrieve it based on how people search and what their information needs are). There's a whole sub sub field that looks at learning through searching, but I'm not super familiar with it. Looking for Information by Donald Case is a pretty classic overview text on information seeking.

Thanks for this really interesting discussion about ASK. I’m curious about whether you know of any recent research into this area as it pertains to information architecture, content management or user journeys particularly for digital knowledge bases?

Is there a good syllabus or textbook you'd recommend for introductory information science? Like, I'd actually be really interested in reading more about moderation, particularly since I see so many debates about 'censorship' and I'd like to know what the data when it comes to how misinformation spreads, what strategies are useful, what type of moderation leads to good communities, etc.?

But also I have no doubt the field is way broader than that so I'd love to find a good introduction to it so I can actually ask better questions! For that matter, is there an equivalent for information science to AskHistorians?

Sorry, this just seems like such a cool topic!

I actually teach an introductory course to information science! The bad news is that I don't work from a textbook. Instead I assign articles and book chapters and videos as readings. I haven't looked into it too much since I try to keep my readings free (university is expensive enough!) but I haven't come across a solid textbook either.

If you're interested in content moderation, I cannot recommend Tarleton Gillespie's book, Custodians of the Internet enough. It's so so good and provides a really clear and accessible introduction to the topic. I've linked to his Twitter post because a pdf of the book is available for download for free, but also want folks to be aware that there is option to donate directly since all proceeds go to Center for Technology and Democracy and Hollaback.

This is awesome! Thank you for the Gillespie recommendation. I look forward to reading it.

Are there any particular articles/book chapters from the course you teach that you think might good for someone with no prior experience?

Here's a link to my syllabus if you want to take look! The course is sort of survey-style in that we cover different topics every week, but the “Fundamental concepts of information” article is might be closest the kind of article you're hoping for.

Excellent! Thank you so much!

Are there any specific subs that you could recommend for things other than European history ?

for example - military history has /r/WarCollege

eg Asian, South Asian history

/r/AskHistorians tends to be poor in this regard and the insistence on "higher quality" seems to be even counterproductive here often.

Is this wiki situation a point where taking another approach might pay dividends? I don't know the appetite for standing up domains/web spaces/etc. for an offsite-of-reddit AskHistorians wiki that is (among many things) mobile-friendly, of course.

I'm sure the cost of such has been evaluated; just felt like this was an unaddressed (at least from what I'm reading here) approach to reducing that ASK cost in terms of moderation, that I'd raise.

We do have a website (https://www.askhistorians.com/)! Right now it's mostly being for information relating to the upcoming digital conference and the podcast. It probably could be used to host some of the wiki content, but getting people to go there is another hurdle as is the time/skills involved with updating it.

I'm an information scientist who studies moderation

omg you have like EXACTLY the background I've been interested in recently! Can I maybe send you a draft of a blog post in a couple months that I'm currently working on about infoboxes on wikis (and why I hate them) for feedback?

Also, do you have any information science book recommendations, specifically with how people's information seeking behavior on the internet? I read Looking for Information and LOVED it but that's pretty outdated at this point. I've been reading some other LIS books and ended up getting incredibly sidetracked and am now just reading a bunch of books on the history of the American public library as well as information classification systems (oops) but I'm very much interested in the intersection of IB & applications in web UI/UX!

What about putting a link to the related subreddits with lower standards directly into the Automod post that goes up on every new post discussing the standards for answers?

Thank you, joining rAskhistory, adios askhistorians, no more wow such empty

Perhaps put the more casual subreddits in the modbot? I'm sick of seeing the most simple questions being left unanswered. Additionally, certain questions can just be googled. Ive seen people asking for dates of events; definitely something that should be redirected to a search rather than essay long responses.

For instance, one of the most recent threads asked why chainmail was so popular compared to full body armour, and has obviously not got an answer considering the simplicity of the question. It's pretty hard to extend "It was cheaper and quicker to manufacture for the masses while offering identical weight and flexibility with similar protection levels for common weapons" into the essay long responses required by this subreddit.

You're describing existing rules that the mods definitely enforce. They don't allow questions about basic facts like dates and direct simpler questions to their "Short Answers" feature.

but they dont- or atleast not on a large enough scale. I have posted an example question in my comment that is insuitable for the sub- its been up for hours iirc. clearly, r/askhistory should be in the automod's comments.

I know absolutely nothing about armor, but I’m going to guess that at least one mod believes that question is more complex than you do.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_basic_facts

That’s how they define basic facts. It’s e.g. when the answer is a number or the origin of a word. Usually these seem to get directed toward the “short answers” thread but there must also be a judgement call here because I know I’ve seen the most basic stuff get removed.

ahh. now I see.

Two factors here. One in an active sense and the other in a passive sense. In terms of this we do, there is a LOT of utility on not letting the Sticky comment get too long. It already is longer than is ideal, for that matter. There is a lot of important information to get across, and only so much space to do it. Suggesting alternative subreddits for would add several more lines, and simply isn't a high enough priority to use that much space for.

In the latter though, and related, is the fact that people simply don't read Auto mod posts. Not literally everyone, of course, but we routinely get people literally asking us why we don't include a prefilled link for the Remind me bot, for instance... Which we literally do! The conventional wisdom of modding is that people just immediately zone out anything that Automod does, or which uses a Macro.

That doesn't mean there is zero value in using them of course. In the first, if nothing else for that "you can't complain you didn't know the rules, we clearly told you to read them" way, but a lot of the AM post is aimed specifically at community members, such as the remind me link, and the much smaller subset of users who show up and are slow, deliberate, and thoughtful on their engagement. But that definitely is the minority of new arrivals who will read it.

and of course these two factors interplay with each other, as the latter is a big part of why the former matters. Shorter is it, some slightly increased chance people will read it. The longer it gets, the more likely it gets ignored.

We actually do link them in response to some of the questions we remove (it's just the only the OP sees them because the question is removed). If the question is allowed to stand we don't have a lot of motivation to direct the OP somewhere else. I'm not sure why the responsibility is on us to make other communities across Reddit known to users—that's not that's expected of any other moderation team on the site.

If you think a question violates our rules (e.g., that it's a short answer question) the best thing to do is report it. We all make mistakes and reports help make sure they aren't overlooked.