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I really like the idea of using this site and its battery of questions as a way to check my own understanding of the physics that I am learning. However, the big problem is that I can't seem to filter out questions from high school, junior-undergrad, senior-undergrad, graduate and research-level questions. I think it would be a huge plus to have such a filtering mechanism.

Think about it.. you could simply log in to stackexchange and pick out all senior-undergrad level questions in QM or classical physics and have a ball of a time the night before your exam.

Please look into this.

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No, that would be a meta tag. See http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/08/the-death-of-meta-tags/

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    $\begingroup$ I think it could be made to work. True, there is an element of subjectivity in deciding what level of question it is, since different people have different physics backgrounds. But I know that when I ask a question, I have a fairly good idea that it is a beginner's question and I would gladly tag it as such, just so a researcher doesn't have to be bothered with it. Common people! Anything that improves the signal to noise ratio.. More tags, if properly used, will only result in a higher SNR. $\endgroup$
    – Joebevo
    Jul 15, 2012 at 16:00
  • $\begingroup$ @Joe note that you are trying to go against a widely accepted network-wide policy here. I think segregating the site into different levels of expertise will be as disastrous as the theoreticalphysics.se website (which was a researcher-specific site and was closed). Also, questions can be answered at various levels. $\endgroup$ Jul 15, 2012 at 17:18
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    $\begingroup$ If your intention of tagging a question as [high-school] is to let experts ignore the question, you may be losing out on some great answers. For example, this question was meant as a beginners question, but got some great answers at different levels. Remember, the primary aim is to write posts that are useful to other visitors (by the motto "make the Internet better"). If a beginners question gets a research level answer, there's no harm in that--it will be interesting for others, if not the OP. $\endgroup$ Jul 15, 2012 at 17:18
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    $\begingroup$ There is already a research-level tag such that researchers who really dont want to be bothered by lower-level questions can filter them out. This is enough I think. $\endgroup$
    – Dilaton
    Jul 15, 2012 at 22:43
  • $\begingroup$ BTW, note that a tag need not be used if not wanted. For example, a researcher could still answers basic questions if he or she wants to. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. These meta-tags would simply be a way to get access to RELEVANT questions when people are under a time-constraint. Having them would convert the site from a casual browse to an serious study-related site. Anyhow, with a growing body of questions, I predict its only a matter of time before this happens, if the site is to continue growing in its usefulness. $\endgroup$
    – Joebevo
    Jul 16, 2012 at 3:12
  • $\begingroup$ @Nemo: That was after a lot of debating, and the only compelling point in favor of it was that it would help capture the theoreticalphysics.se crowd (TP.SE was created to segregate research level stuff from beginner stuff, and failed). THe tag creation was sort of grudgingly accepted. $\endgroup$ Jul 16, 2012 at 3:14
  • $\begingroup$ @Joebevo: Most researchers will prefer to use it, and they may not know what they're missing when they do. Basically, this will break the site into walled gardens of beginner, intermediate, and expert users--with little interaction between the three groups. Btw, egarding your prediction--StackOverflow has a level of activity which will take Physics years, if not decades, to reach. SO hasn't yet needed meta tags (there are a few people who want them, but they are in the minority.). Doubt we need to even think about it now. $\endgroup$ Jul 16, 2012 at 3:17
  • $\begingroup$ @Manishearth I agree with you ;-), I just wanted to say we need no additional level tags ... $\endgroup$
    – Dilaton
    Jul 16, 2012 at 8:59
  • $\begingroup$ @Nemo: I know :), that was more of an expansion of your comment, but I wanted to keep the threaded nature of this $\endgroup$ Jul 16, 2012 at 9:01
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Meta-tagness is enough, but there is also a practical problem with maintaining it -- making up for missing or wrong level labels is a lot of work and may lead to numerous redundant discussions.

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I pretty much gave up reading her at all with so much reddit oneliner alike badly tagged redundant highschool questions. On biology.se the community agreed to downvote and close such questions. Here it becomes more and more pointless even to find interesting stuff via votes or tags sorting. Seems the theoreticalphysics qsqa project was abandoned too. I welcome undergraduate student and good detailed high school questions, but reddit oneliners is the content that drives me away definitely

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  • $\begingroup$ If this is a suggestion to be aggressive about poorly researched stuff it should probably be a separate meta question. Something along the lines of "treat "general reference questions as off-topic". $\endgroup$ Jul 22, 2012 at 18:34
  • $\begingroup$ But @dmckee I dont think questions asking for more (specific) information about a topic (in the form of papers, advanced books, etc) one is learning about should be treated generally or by default as off topic ... $\endgroup$
    – Dilaton
    Jul 22, 2012 at 19:40
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    $\begingroup$ @Nemo: The [books] and [reference-request] tags have already been discussed on meta and passed without objection. $\endgroup$ Jul 22, 2012 at 19:44

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