I'm a trans woman (she/her) who talks about the theory and history of anarchism, feminism and marxism. Author of Means and Ends: The Revolutionary Practice of Anarchism in Europe and the United States. PhD on the history of anarchism.
For recommended reading and video scripts (with all my page references) see my blog.
Surprising that last year’s loud RU-vid plagiarism affair has yet to have encouraged proper reference/ authorship practices of creators. Disappointed History Tube channels neglect this.
I started unfollowing creators (across different mediums) for not citing sources years ago. There’s a huge podcast where the hosts sometimes just read Wikipedia page content early in the podcast. They never cited sources. It was so aggravating.
Now I'm excited to read Dr. Baker's new book about Democracy in Ancient Athens! Also just genuinely very useful to spend the majority of a critique about citation with an example of your citation process. The dedication to pedagogy is clear!
Malatesta decided not to die, and the tuberculosis was like, "Aight, my bad. Didn’t realize you had will like that." 😂 Seriously though, what an amazing story.
I am highly sus about AI but I wish I could AI scrape my brain for all the political and feminist theory I have read/watched in the last five years - I never planned to write about it, but now I find myself desiring to communicate these things more and I cannot for the life of me remember where I absorbed half of the ideas. Dreaming of running an AI script on my mind that only reads and downloads this info I am going to try this approach as a regular degular person without academic goals and see if I can keep it up 🤞
Related to this whole discussion, I have wondered for a while about the feasibility of having a RU-vid peer review system/network for educational and essayist RU-vidrs. Like, imagine a stamp or logo that you could put on your videos to show that your video was reviewed by specialists relevant to the subject. I think something like this could go a long way to improve the state of educational RU-vid and to facilitate viewers to find better online educators.
Attributing the issue of homophobia exclusively to the left is a misunderstanding of its origins and presence across the political spectrum. Homophobia historically existed independent of political ideologies, permeating various cultures without ties to left-wing principles. Over the years, we've made significant progress in overcoming such prejudices, which should not be used to advocate for identity politics as the sole approach to achieving class-based change. The most effective strategy for achieving class-based change is to focus on class issues directly. This doesn’t imply that other issues should be ignored; rather, class should be the primary focus if we aim to enact substantial change for the 99% who are most affected by oppressive, totalitarian structures known as corporations. While we continue to support and celebrate various social achievements, the foremost priority should be transforming these structures to empower individuals to make their own decisions and improve their lives.
Wonderful video! This is very similar to how I write scientific papers for peer review. Another reason to provide sources is so people can learn more about topics that catch their attention!
@@amtoyumtimmy he's a historical youtuber who not only covers past events but aswell as covering current events like whats happening in gaza for example
I would also say that even if the youtubers cite sources with pave references you should be careful. I have seen a few of them say a few stuff that sounded wrong and when I seeked the sourced I wasn't able to find anything that supported their statement. And in an occasion a quote that simply didn't exist.
My favorite is when I asked a music history RU-vidr about a claim they made, since it conflicted with every academic source I could find on the topic, and they seemingly just added me to their "Hide user from channel" list.
It's kind of appaling that History RU-vid would have a citation problem. It's basic academic routine to share your bibliography with the readers/viewers.
This topic of history on youtube is an interesting one. To me, it seems an issue less of sourcing and more about communication and presentation. Is it fair to hold a history channel to the stabdards of academic history if the channel is not trying to engage in academic history? Taken a step futher, is a channel giving a nrrathve of what happened in the past acrually doing 'history' and so is that a fair standard to hold them to? It seems to be that various channels have different ambitions and objectives, and that those objectives are what should dictate the standard the channel is held to. As a comparison, consider something like David Attenborough's Blue Planet. Its a nature documentary, but has zero citations throughout. Now one could argue that it is therefore very problematic as a work of natural history, but one could also argue that that work wasnt intended to be academic and that it therefore shouldnt be held to the same standard as a natural history thesis.
I could be wrong cause I’m just filling in the blanks, but I don’t think Zoe is necessarily suggesting holding RU-vid to the *same* standards as academia. If we were talking about that, there’d be a whole bunch more standards than just what was discussed in this video, it seems to me she’s really just talking about a problem with lots of history tubers just giving no citation or basis for the claims and statements they make about he real world. I love history and I agree with her, there are soooooo many channels like that on RU-vid. Obviously we can’t hold RU-vidrs to the exact same standards cause RU-vid is a public platform anyone can publish on and not just anyone can publish academically. Obviously there’s room for people to talk casually about history and topics they found interesting and wanted to share without a full bibliography. But then that person is not doing history. Yes that’s technically gatekeeping but thats not the point. They could *do* history if they wanted and out in the extra work, but when you just casually retell a story without providing the basis for it, you are not doing history, you’re just telling an entertaining story. Anyone can do history I firmly believe that, but doing history actually means something and requires a certain amount of work and the proper formula, and there are lots of channels on RU-vid which are ostensibly presented *as* history channels, but they’re actually just casual entertainment because they don’t put in the work to be real history
@@novataco5412 I completely agree that many people on RU-vid which are popularly thought of as being 'history' channels are not, in fact, doing history. That's not inherently a problem, and I also don't think its fair to characterise those channels as not having put in the work; they've put in a lot of work but that work is focused on achieving something aside from just being history, namely entertainment. That's still work though. To me, this doesn't seem a fault of the channels necessarily, but is a larger problem of people not actually knowng what 'history' is. But if we are in agreement on that point, that many of those sorts of channels are not actually doing history, and if Zoe also agrees with that stance, then what is the point that this video is making? This video is targeting history channels, but we agree that many of those channels aren't actually history channels, so who is the intended target here? As I say, it seems to me that the real issue is distinguishing those channels that *are* doing history from those that aren't. Part of that is certainly how the channel presents itself, but an equally important part is how the material is received and perceived.
its not only history - can we like at least have the standard that people try to explain their reasonings for any claim they bring it’s something i see informational channel on youtube getting worse and worse with
This is a pretty good list pulling from a lot of different genres and backgrounds. Tbh these are all people I’ve subscribed to but I do not regularly watch all of them so can’t guarantee the quality lol. Atun-Shei Films (primarily 16-19th century American history) Chill Goblin (history of contemporary topics) Climate Town (urban policy) Crecganford (myths/religion) Fredda (mainly European history) Gold and Gunpowder (pirate history) Jacob Gellar (art/science/culture history) Kaz Rowe (niche histories) Khadija Mbowe (marginalized/culture history) Knowing Better (mainly American history) Meeka le Fay (niche histories) münecat (long video essays over history of topics) Philosynoir (intersectional and black history) Real Time History (primarily 20th century conflicts) Ryan Chapman (“thinker of general human concerns”) Skip Intro (pop-culture history) Some More News (contemporary news and large topic historical analysis) The Armchair Historian (animated 20-21st century) The Cynical Historian (perhaps the most ‘academic’ and rigorous historian on RU-vid imo) The Great War (WW1) Veritasium (science history) Victory the Creator (culture, didn’t used to cite sources but seems to now)
Adding on to what @novataco5412, here's a few more: Sam Aronow (Jewish history) Premodernist (pre-modern history/general topics) Noj Rants (Russian and Soviet history) The Historian's Craft (primarily ancient history)
Unfortunately, a lot of RU-vidrs have interpreted 'doing history' as just telling stories or passing on trivia and factoids about the past, devoid of any technique or critical approach. When you point out that there needs to be accurate sourcing, citations, a discussion of proper technique, you face accusations of gatekeeping and elitism. It's what happens now that education and entertainment are so entwined and come with such strong financial incentives. It's very frustrating.
All very good points, but if the video doesn't have an AI generated thumbnail of a historical figure staring at you ominously with glowing red eyes, it doesn't really matter.
No. Peer-review isn't a perfect crap filter, but it is an important crap filter. Also, she's talking about history. For the most part, historians don't do "studies." The standards of argument and evidence are completely different from the sciences. Unlike the Sciences, history involves more interpretation and not amenable to direct observation.
You need to learn what “peer review” means. Peer review in academia doesn’t mean they’re checking if you’re right. They’re simply going over your methodology, if it follows a legitimate process and is internally consistent with no glaring issues. Something being approved by peer-review doesn’t mean that academia has agreed they’re right, so the fact that some peer-reviewed things are wrong doesn’t discredit the institution. Also no, “most” peer reviewed papers aren’t unreliable, I’d challenge you to substantiate that in any way. Where academia refines its knowledge is in the studies that come after the first. In science for example, after a study is published only then can there be follow up studies to analyze and compare to the original findings and add more evidence to support the original findings, or to invalidate them. I’m liberal arts it’s similar, just that another historian would then go over a similar period of study with some of the same and some different sources, at which point they could compare the work and make arguments about the quality of the original published research.
@@novataco5412 So much for know a bunch you should know there's a fake paper issues in academia and I'm happy to show you websites/citations saying as such if you tell me what you see as evidence; we know that for example sugar and cigarette companies have paid academia off to change the results of their studies when published and so on I have no idea why you trust a bourgeois for profit education system so much especially when things are faked so often, even historically things like I know it's funny but buck breaking 😂 are just whipped up, this clinging to citations isn't inherently wrong but you desperate cling to the science and the academics just put your bias with them
This is a HUGE problem especially with those youtube videos, which present develepoment of borders, for example. l take them just as entertainment, which gives a rough idea what happened, which isn't properly explained where information is coming from. An especially in campaigns and wars, when they try to make movement of armies as "conquested land", not as "hostile, unconquered territory". But, l watch history youtubers as entertainment. Because l forgot soon what l've heard. They tell fascinating things, and they may not be wrong with facts, but it is just as worthy/worthless as entertainment. And usually l think "This sounds interesting information. l better check that myself".¨ What comes to using wikis, l can almost accept usage of them in very special circumstances. Like using very very very generalized explanation of something at best. Then you need to go deeper than that than using wiki (unless it has sources listed)
There’s just something about “I can’t wait to get done writing history so I can go learn about history” that is just the quintessential “so tired of looking at the bad screen can’t wait to go home and look at the good screen.”
A good argument that Lil Bill made about providing sources for free is that it is an expectation of free labour. As far as I know he does have sources but they are on Patreon. I feel like the conflict between the need for academic standard citation and the need for RU-vidrs to maintain boundaries with their audience in terms of the labour expected from them is one that pushes left tube into two different genres that have different expectations of the audience and creator relationships. In the spectrum from Contrapoints to Philosophy Tube (Hbomberguy lies somewhere in the middle) the duty of the creator is understood differently in different contexts, with different emphasis on the subjective versus academic truth. I haven't eaten enough today so I can't tell if I have gone on a tangent that's not fully relevant, but it is something I think about every time this issue is brought up. I think people like Lil Bill and Contrapoints are really important voices on social history and I really don't want to undermine their value to the conversation even if they don't publicly cite sources. On one level there is a different interpretation of epistemology governing the assumptions behind this very specific kind of video essay which covers history which I am talking about. Some of Atun Shei Films's videos are also in that genre. Anyway as I said I haven't eaten enough today so take what I'm saying with a pinch of salt, but there were some ideas that came up from watching this video but I thought it important to raise.
I don't see how providing sources is "free labour". It's providing evidence for the claims that you choose to publicly make. Gate keeping sources behind a paywall is wrong since it means only people who pay you money are in a position to properly evaluate your claims and understand where they come from.
Ok then posting any publicly available RU-vid video is free labor and why should anyone. If you’re putting claims out there, I’m sorry it’s your responsibility to substantiate them!? Personally ideally I’d love for every serious essayist RU-vidr to use perfect academic citations but I understand why that doesn’t happen but man you gotta at least put out the name, author, and year. If they don’t cite sources for claims, even in pop-history or subjective history, I’d argue then they “undermine their value to the conversation,” cause they could have made a substantiated argument but instead made a personal subjective statement. If people just want room on their channel for that that’s fine but if it takes away from the credibility of the points, people are necessarily going to take them less seriously. Also the point that people should cite their sources is because they already found and used them. It influenced their work, if they don’t want to write the sources for it then don’t use that work. Atun-Shei is usually great at at least naming sources in pretty much any of his serious historical videos (at least which I’ve seen, even if they aren’t always correct like the original King Phillips War video). Obviously there are different standards for different channels and different genres of content. But if you want to make serious content and make it well, I think legitimately citing sources is crucial otherwise you are not making a useful contribution to the broader dialogue, you’re making entertainment. And entertainment can still be thought provoking or life changing to any individual person, but that doesn’t make up for or bypass the lack of substantiation behind points.
@@anarchozoe I am not sure you see what I am trying to communicate second hand (this is not my perspective). All academia is created by labour, and the people who are more likely to challenge Lil Bill on Black history are White people who are not good faith in their criticism. The dynamic of the demand for Black people to do the labour of educating White people on the history of Blackness is an extremely toxic one. I don't want to presume to tell a Black person who makes resources for free about the interaction between history and their lived experience how to react to this situation of being asked to serve as an ideal teacher by White strangers, because I'm not Black. I can't easily condemn a marginalized person who uses that solution, and from my own marginalisation perspective I see the merit in it. I haven't got the last word on this cos I am not Lil Bill, but I don't think it is an easy thing to simplify the nuaces of the labour of online history education made by marginalised people for and audience that includes people from outside of the community.
@@anarchozoeYea, if providing citations is free labor then using sources without providing proper citation amounts to an even more egregious sense of entitlement. In that case, the RU-vidr is claiming another’s work as their own. By putting their bibliography behind a paywall, they are essentially enriching themselves off the work of others. This goes doubly so if those sources they are selling access to were provided publicly, free of charge, with the expectation that its use would be properly cited, as it would in an academic context.
@@PlurCohey! I see what you’re trying to say and I do agree that the decision of a creator to make sources free would be dependent on the “genre” of essay. In this same vein of thinking, though, making your sources free to look at could provide invaluable resources for your community. If I were to make a RU-vid history essay as a Filipina, I would have to keep in mind that misinformation and a general lack of knowledge in Philippine history is prevalent in my community. Keep in mind that the transition from Spanish colony to American colony really messed things up for us education wise. Without even talking about the transition from Spanish to English to Tagalog as the national language, our education system was inundated with pro-American propaganda. Right now, there is an ongoing effort by Filipino scholars to rectify this. Ahistorical myths about the Philippines are still mainstream in the Philippines and outside of the Philippines, so any serious long form discussion about Philippine history would have to lean on primary sources and secondary sources, and showing these sources could show the community the value of serious historical discussion…The poorest amongst us in the Philippines and the busy working class Philippine diaspora in the US may not have the time or the resources to pay to see an academic article behind a paywall or pay for a Patreon subscription. In this example this would be a disservice to my community’s decolonial efforts to not include sources. Let’s not forget that knowledge is often only disseminated to those privileged enough to have access. What more damage would I do to a community like mine by withholding that knowledge? (this paragraph has been edited for clarity. I originally wrote it in a hurry and kind of balked once I looked it over) As you mentioned the onus of citation will vary with each and every essayist and Zoe Baker is very specifically talking about history RU-vid, which is populated by both people with an interest in niche pockets of history and people who seriously study history. For the latter the standards of citation and discussion are somewhat different. They’re similar just different. Comparing History RU-vid to the average LeftTube essay is like comparing the New York Times to an academic journal. They’re both serious with very high standards, but way they require sources to be spoken for will not be the same. As a person engaging with historic research, the sharing of sources is one of the best ways we can help our peers. (This paragraph was also edited for clarity) No one should be expected to work for free but discussions in history require collaboration. If I emailed a seasoned scholar about a primary source they used in a work (one that I might have already paid for) and they told me “pay me to discuss the source,” well, I wouldn’t know what to say. In my niche I’d have to go all the way to a Spanish or Mexican archive to look at an actual primary source, those documents can’t be taken home or photocopied. Being able to speak to someone who has engaged with the work would be a HUGE help. (Additional words because I have more thoughts and this bugs me) Your decision to cite Lil’Bill feels like a crutch. He’s an individual creator making very good content, but his decision to put sources behind a paywall is his alone. He is an essayist. Zoe particularly talks about History RU-vid, I don’t know how much people have to reiterate that fact. People don’t just study history based off of vibes. Even when people engaging with history speak about oral history we know that we must look at it as ‘a truth’ in a ‘larger truth.’ There’s still a burden of where and how this information is collected as with everything else we make claims about. But you talk about labor, labor, labor as if we don’t know we are not being paid fairly. This video is about upholding academic integrity online where there is none.
This REALLY pisses me off and is completely unacceptable. Sources should never be paywalled. That immediately makes you suspect and tells me that we probably should not trust you
That's reverse what I've seen from some book authors lol, they sometimes put sources on their website without paywall even though you pay for the book.
Oh wow, it's a relief to hear you saying this. I've made two videos saying exactly the same thing, and I've taken so much heat for it from people saying it's unnecessary. I wil not watch a history video which doesn't have sources. I also love the fact that you use Zotero like I do!
Why ain’t there a standard for citations? The issue is that there is no single agreement on it… nor are channels held to account by other channels / any agreed body for their work… Till that changes the citation issue and the quality and reliability of videos for accuracy and factuality will be overall be subpar to reading a paper or average history book.
@@raquetdudeRU-vid is generally done on an individual scale, so you won't find many people putting effort in monitoring others. While occasionally some videos are made (Fredda, for example), there is a limit to how effective this approach is. The only way to accomplish what you're suggesting is to create a big enough history community that regularly engages in such regulation. This is not so easy, but it can work if enough people cooperate.
@@raquetdude there has been quite a lot of talk about this within the more serious membersr of the history RU-vid community, those who strive to educate accurately, and I even suggested some kind of basic standard to which people might voluntarily hold their channels, but there's also a strong aversion within the community to anything which looks like gatekeeping or rule-making. Having said which, there are some history RU-vidrs like Zoe, The Cynical Historian, and myself, who believe good history RU-vid channels should maintain a minimum standard when it comes to both citations and source quality.
