I want to follow two threads in arguing that such questions are very well suited to Physics.SE: firstly that stack exchange is well suited to these kinds of questions and secondly that these are physics questions.

1. Prototypical questions that are well suited to our engine here have a small or medium number of distinct answer that are not wrong and can be well evaluated by users who are familiar with the question domain. Such questions can be either outright objective or "good subjective".

Yes, there is going to be a list of answers. There are lists of answers to questions on Stack Overflow and to most of those on the main site (in fact many of our most highly voted questions have 10 or more answers that take several approaches to answering the problem), but these list are characterized by a domain expert being able to say to each answer "this is correct" or "this is incorrect", and any subjectivity that may enter is in terms of which answer is clearer or easier or more scalable or more pedogoically useful.

Managing, maintaining and running experimental apparatus constitutes a specific domain of knowledge in which experts will know which answer are good, which might work and which are nonsense.

2. Experiment is, obviously, a pillar of the scientific inquiry co-equal with theory and phenomenolgy, and a substantial fraction of working scientists would describe themselves as an "experimenter" rather than a "theorist" or a "phenomenlogist".

And the actual work of an experimenter includes a lot of things from the design, construction, calibration, operation of experiments though data acquisition and analysis as well as writing up the results. In my personal experience a scientist in his or her early career will spend a substantial fraction of his or her time tinkering with and swearing over some piece of apparatus that almost works or simple isn't working at all.

These are problems encountered and solved by physicists, and because they revolve around experimental apparatus they are specific to the profession or to a small set of related professions. (Yes, I recognize that the leak test question is rather broader than that.)

Finally, to exclude the kinds of questions that experimental grad-students spend a lot of time on from consideration here send a message that experiment is not valuable to the physics community. Do we really want that?

I want to follow two threads in arguing that such questions are very well suited to Physics.SE: firstly that stack exchange is well suited to these kinds of questions and secondly that these are physics questions.

1. Prototypical questions that are well suited to our engine here have a small or medium number of distinct answer that are not wrong and can be well evaluated by users who are familiar with the question domain. Such questions can be either outright objective or "good subjective".

Yes, there is going to be a list of answers. There are lists of answers to questions on Stack Overflow and to most of those on the main site (in fact many of our most highly voted questions have 10 or more answers that take several approaches to answering the problem), but these list are characterized by a domain expert being able to say to each answer "this is correct" or "this is incorrect", and any subjectivity that may enter is in terms of which answer is clearer or easier or more scalable or more pedogoically useful.

Managing, maintaining and running experimental apparatus constitutes a specific domain of knowledge in which experts will know which answer are good, which might work and which are nonsense.

2. Experiment is, obviously, a pillar of the scientific inquiry co-equal with theory and phenomenolgy, and a substantial fraction of working scientists would describe themselves as an "experimenter" rather than a "theorist" or a "phenomenlogist".

And the actual work of an experimenter includes a lot of things from the design, construction, calibration, operation of experiments though data acquisition and analysis as well as writing up the results. In my personal experience a scientist in his or her early career will spend a substantial fraction of his or her time tinkering with and swearing over some piece of apparatus that almost works or simple isn't working at all.

These are problems encountered and solved by physicists, and because they revolve around experimental apparatus they are specific to the profession or to a small set of related professions. (Yes, I recognize that the leak test question is rather broader than that.)

Finally, to exclude the kinds of questions that experimental grad-students spend a lot of time on from consideration here send a message that experiment is not valuable to the physics community. Do we really want that?

I want to follow two threads in arguing that such questions are very well suited to Physics.SE: firstly that stack exchange is well suited to these kinds of questions and secondly that these are physics questions.

1. Proto-typical questions that are well suited to are engine here have a small or medium number of distinct answer that are not wrong and can be well evaluted by users who are familiar with the question domain. Such questions can be either outright objective or "good subjective".

Yes, there is going to be a list of answers. There are lists of answers to questions on Stack Overflow and to most of those on the main site (in fact many of our most highly voted questions have 10 or more answers that take several approaches to answering the problem), but these list are characterized by a domain expert being able to say to each answer "this is correct" or "this is incorrect", and any subjectivity that may enter is in terms of which answer is clearer or easier or more scalable or more pedogoically useful.

Managing, maintaining and running experimental apparatus constitutes a spefic domain of knowledge in which experts will know which answer are good, which might work and which are nonsense.

2. Experiment is, obviously, a pillar of the scientific inquiry co-equal with theory and phenomenolgy, and a substantial fraction of working scientists would describe themselves as an "experimenter" rather than a "theorist" or a "phenomenlogist".

And the actual work of an experimenter includes a lot of things from the design, construction, calibration, operation of experiments though data acquisition and analysis as well as writing up the results. In my personal experience a scientist in his or her early carreer will spend a substantial fraction of his or her time tinkering with and swearing over some piece of apparatus that almost works or simple isn't working at all.

These are problems encountered and solved by physicists, and because they revolve around experimental apparatus they are specific to the profession or to a small set of related professions. (Yes, I recognise that the leak test question is rather broader than that.)

Finally, to exclude the kinds of questions that experimental gradstudents spend a lot of time on from consideration here send a message that expreiment is not valuable to the physics community. Do we really want that?

I want to follow two threads in arguing that such questions are very well suited to Physics.SE: firstly that stack exchange is well suited to these kinds of questions and secondly that these are physics questions.

1. Prototypical questions that are well suited to our engine here have a small or medium number of distinct answer that are not wrong and can be well evaluated by users who are familiar with the question domain. Such questions can be either outright objective or "good subjective".

Yes, there is going to be a list of answers. There are lists of answers to questions on Stack Overflow and to most of those on the main site (in fact many of our most highly voted questions have 10 or more answers that take several approaches to answering the problem), but these list are characterized by a domain expert being able to say to each answer "this is correct" or "this is incorrect", and any subjectivity that may enter is in terms of which answer is clearer or easier or more scalable or more pedogoically useful.

Managing, maintaining and running experimental apparatus constitutes a specific domain of knowledge in which experts will know which answer are good, which might work and which are nonsense.

2. Experiment is, obviously, a pillar of the scientific inquiry co-equal with theory and phenomenolgy, and a substantial fraction of working scientists would describe themselves as an "experimenter" rather than a "theorist" or a "phenomenlogist".

And the actual work of an experimenter includes a lot of things from the design, construction, calibration, operation of experiments though data acquisition and analysis as well as writing up the results. In my personal experience a scientist in his or her early career will spend a substantial fraction of his or her time tinkering with and swearing over some piece of apparatus that almost works or simple isn't working at all.

These are problems encountered and solved by physicists, and because they revolve around experimental apparatus they are specific to the profession or to a small set of related professions. (Yes, I recognize that the leak test question is rather broader than that.)

Finally, to exclude the kinds of questions that experimental grad-students spend a lot of time on from consideration here send a message that experiment is not valuable to the physics community. Do we really want that?