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MetaAll right, badhistory. Let's talk. (self.badhistory)

greyspectre2100Pawn Stars: Nazi Edition が 投稿

It's Friday afternoon, and I've got about ten minutes left on my lunch hour as I write this, but I feel like it's necessary to get something out there in this uneasy quiet that has settled on the subreddit.

A little bit of background about me: I'm a dude that lives in Idaho. My primary occupation is in IT, but I dabble in history because I think to understand who you are, you have to know where you come from. Part of that is because I don't know exactly where my family line comes from; my paternal ancestors, the ones who gave me my last name, peter out in northern Tennessee in the 1870s, and there's only vague supposition and family oral legend about how we ended up with our last name. Predictably, it contains crime, intrigue, and illegitimate children, and might be 100% complete bullshit. The other part that truly inspired me was seeing Abraham Lincoln's hat in the Smithsonian, and being unable to get the idea that it could tell some amazing stories if it only had a voice out of my head.

If you're still awake at this point, good!

Let's be honest for a moment. Things are changing around here. Some moderators have gone, some have stayed, some are new (like me. Hi Mom!). There are concerns about the community here, that we've lost some of that AskHistorians After Dark feeling, that maybe we're not focusing on the bad history that's been posted so much as we're focusing on those smug bastards the users who don't have it quite right (or not at all right) being wrong, that civility is on the wane.

I am interested in thoughts. How are you feeling about BadHistory? What makes you stay (or, conversely, has you leaving)? What would you like to see? What do you not like to see? How would you fix the things that you feel are broken?

I'm not putting on my moderator suit because it's still being sewn together in the back, but the rules are still fully in force for this. Be civil. Be thoughtful. Don't be a dick. I don't want to learn how to smite people in my first 24 hours on the job, but since I am now LITERALLY HITLER, I know I can.

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[–]nachofHistory is written by a guy named Victor 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I am interested in thoughts. How are you feeling about BadHistory? What makes you stay (or, conversely, has you leaving)? What would you like to see? What do you not like to see? How would you fix the things that you feel are broken?

Feeling smug about knowing better than lost causers is a nice feeling, but ultimately empty. And it gets repetitive.

What I really like, what I came here for and what made me stay here, is the really well thought posts that teach me stuff I honestly didn't know, either because I fell prey to the popular misconceptions or because I just didn't know anything about the topic. The best example I can find is that one series about the myths surrounding the European conquest of the Americas.

I also really enjoy the existence (although I rarely read them) of the ultra pedantic posts about how the chair that appeared in the background in that one short scenein a show that didn't even claim to be historically accurate was from a different decade.

[–]addledhands 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think that this subreddit over the last few months has started to feel a lot like the GrammarFails subreddit, and I think that's a problem. There aren't really any rules to GrammarFails beyond: find someone or some institution that wrote something incorrect, and post it. The actual result are dozens of posts from Facebook and other social media, places where good grammar isn't exactly the norm, and a sort of sadistic glee with jumping on people that neither know nor care the rules.

It strikes me that this sort of punishment ought to be reserved for offenders that should know better, like Walmart or Target or whatever screwing stuff up in their ads. But it's not -- it targets small time users, exploiting uneducated folks for sweet justice boner karma.

I see similar things happening here. It's one thing if someone writes a long post with educated airs and is either actively deceiving people or forwarding ignorance; that sort of stuff is great fodder. But casual comments in an AskAnimals post? An askew sentence about FDR on Facebook? This is low fruit, and while the OP posts are often quite thorough, it often feels like the sub just loves picking on people that just don't know any better or lack the education to appreciate the nuance of the actual event.

Sadly, I don't have any examples. I don't read this subreddit a ton, partially because I've been turned off by sniping at what I guess you could call casuals (to use a gaming term). I dislike this kind of thing.

What could be done to make it better? Two things:

  1. An emphasis on going after posts that are written by people pushing an agenda (news media is great for this), intentionally ignorant yet having the education to know better, or people willfully (or ignorantly) spreading misinformation. These are bad things.

  2. A de-emphasis on anything related to social media, and better yet, a de-emphasis on posts made on Reddit (with maybe the exception of content from actual history-related subs).

I don't think that the purpose of this sub is to educate the public, and it's certainly fun to take jabs at idiots, but I think that things can be better. I think BadHistory should target content that gets seen by lots and lots of people (stuff in History Channel, news media, stupid sentences in films like the Caesar reference in Dark Knight), and avoid stuff that just doesn't matter.

[–]jordanthejq12 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Hi, long time lurker here. I feel that the actual breakdowns of exactly what constitutes "bad history" are more often than not equal parts informative and highly entertaining, so those are good and have kept me hooked to this sub.

As far as attacking the posters themselves, it's important to remember that people will repeat what they've been taught, and that the purpose of this sub is first and foremost to educate, not to mock. Some people literally do not see what is wrong with what they say.

(That said, if the poster is an unapologetic racist/sexist/apologist for some inexcusable evil, they're probably going to end up fair game for mockery anyway.)

[–]el-b 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

hi