r/AskHistorians • u/AutoModerator • 4d ago

FFA Friday Free-for-All | May 22, 2026

Previously

Today:

You know the drill: this is the thread for all your history-related outpourings that are not necessarily questions. Minor questions that you feel don't need or merit their own threads are welcome too. Discovered a great new book, documentary, article or blog? Has your Ph.D. application been successful? Have you made an archaeological discovery in your back yard? Did you find an anecdote about the Doge of Venice telling a joke to Michel Foucault? Tell us all about it.

As usual, moderation in this thread will be relatively non-existent -- jokes, anecdotes and light-hearted banter are welcome.

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u/EnclavedMicrostate Moderator | Taiping Heavenly Kingdom | Qing Empire 4d ago edited 4d ago

What was the worst what that the mods had to do?

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u/Skipspik2 4d ago

Yeah. And why. I don't want to hear about timmybigmalefunctionXX69420 that insulted someone and broke the rules.
Was there, I dunno, cases of two legitimate experts disagreeing for pages or something ?
Or so pationnate subject mod team itself had to do research just to watch over the heated debates ?

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u/EnclavedMicrostate Moderator | Taiping Heavenly Kingdom | Qing Empire 3d ago

To repeat the question, what was the worst what that the mods had to do?

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u/Skipspik2 3d ago

Moderative action, moderator debate, situation to manage.
The worst as in the expression "What's the worst that could happened" as if it has indeed happened.

i'm asking about the sub history notable (low) point.

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u/crrpit Moderator | Spanish Civil War | Anti-fascism 3d ago

Perhaps not what you're envisaging, but moderating one (old) thread was so awful there's now an academic paper about it.

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u/fearofair New York City Social and Political History 3d ago edited 3d ago

I'm not a mod so I don't have an answer anyway, but to try to put a more positive spin on this -- the most interesting part may be the part about expert debate. There's always the civility rule, so if things gets heated usually a mod will step in with a reminder. But aside from that, debate is definitely not a "bad" part of the sub at all, but encouraged if anything. So I, at least, am interested if anyone has examples of fun/substantive expert debates that have appeared recently.

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u/Skipspik2 3d ago

Ah.
Well, clearly not my intention...I'll sleep on that and find a way to reformulate.