“A Culture and Space for Curiosity”: The Challenges of Growing Your Audience from Scratch

Much has been written about the potential of “new media” for disseminating research and providing historical information – but making good content available is only one half of the equation. As important to the process of diffusion is creating an appreciative audience for the work. This ‘ideal’ audience - a curious, creative, tolerant audience - will actively seek out and explore all aspects of the historical information provided, broadening their horizons along the way.

AskHistorians, the world’s largest online historical forum, has created such an audience. The forum today is well established, with over 365,000 subscribers. But despite its large size, AskHistorians boasts refreshingly positive social expectations between its users; above all, those users seek to ask good questions and provide quality answers, while maintaining a safe atmosphere. This ‘ideal’ culture was also grown from scratch. Throughout the three years of its existence, the AskHistorians volunteer administration team, along with the users themselves, either took advantage of, or put in place a range of social and architectural strategies which encourage and reward the desired curiosity.

This presentation will focus on how the volunteers and audience of AskHistorians instilled and promoted their “culture of curiosity”. It will address the multifaceted nature of such a culture – how it was born both out of repeating social practice, but was also structured and guided by a hierarchy. It will address problems of authority and credibility in an online, democratic space and how those factors impact on curiosity. It will also discuss anonymity and the effects that has on approachability. 

Overall, it seeks to highlight how AskHistorians created its large, engaged audience and draw lessons from these experiences, illustrating the challenges and rewards of online engagement.