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2019 is here! And with the new year, as usual, comes a new iteration of Community Promotion Ads! Let’s refresh these for the coming year :)

What are Community Promotion Ads?

Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, in the right sidebar. The purpose of this question is the vetting process. Images of the advertisements are provided, and community voting will enable the advertisements to be shown.

Why do we have Community Promotion Ads?

This is a method for the community to control what gets promoted to visitors on the site. For example, you might promote the following things:

  • the site's twitter account
  • useful tools or resources for physics research
  • interesting articles or findings for the curious
  • cool events or conferences
  • anything else your community would genuinely be interested in

The goal is for future visitors to find out about the stuff your community deems important. This also serves as a way to promote information and resources that are relevant to your own community's interests, both for those already in the community and those yet to join.

Why do we reset the ads every year?

Some services will maintain usefulness over the years, while other things will wane to allow for new faces to show up. Resetting the ads every year helps accommodate this, and allows old ads that have served their purpose to be cycled out for fresher ads for newer things. This helps keep the material in the ads relevant to not just the subject matter of the community, but to the current status of the community. We reset the ads once a year, every December.

The community promotion ads have no restrictions against reposting an ad from a previous cycle. If a particular service or ad is very valuable to the community and will continue to be so, it is a good idea to repost it. It may be helpful to give it a new face in the process, so as to prevent the imagery of the ad from getting stale after a year of exposure.

How does it work?

The answers you post to this question must conform to the following rules, or they will be ignored.

  1. All answers should be in the exact form of:

    [![Tagline to show on mouseover][1]][2]

   [1]: http://image-url
   [2]: http://clickthrough-url

    Please do not add anything else to the body of the post. If you want to discuss something, do it in the comments.

  2. The question must always be tagged with the magic tag. In addition to enabling the functionality of the advertisements, this tag also pre-fills the answer form with the above required form.

Image requirements

  • The image that you create must be 300 x 250 pixels, or double that if high DPI.
  • Must be hosted through our standard image uploader (imgur)
  • Must be GIF or PNG
  • No animated GIFs
  • Absolute limit on file size of 150 KB
  • If the background of the image is white or partially white, there must be a 1px border (2px if high DPI) surrounding it.

Score Threshold

There is a minimum score threshold an answer must meet (currently 6) before it will be shown on the main site.

You can check out the ads that have met the threshold with basic click stats here.

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  • $\begingroup$ I just got one of these ads in February 2020 - should this be happening? $\endgroup$
    – Andrew Grimm
    Feb 12, 2020 at 2:17
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, I haven't posted this year's version yet — hope to do it soon, though. Sorry for the delay. $\endgroup$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Feb 12, 2020 at 8:51

23 Answers 23

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arXiv.org: the leading open access eprint repository

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Detexify: automated LaTeX symbol recognition

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Physics Stack Exchange Review Queue

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    $\begingroup$ Glad to see this is still being suggested for promotions!! $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Jan 25, 2019 at 17:19
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    $\begingroup$ Sad that it's getting downvoted. Do people not support community moderation? Or is it that we shouldn't announce that we're community moderated? $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Jan 26, 2019 at 16:30
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Chemistry Stack Exchange

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Wayback Machine: experience the Web as it was

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Community ads are run by the community. Come and vote!

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    $\begingroup$ This one should really be at the top. It's how I discovered how community ads work last year! It's quite a pretty-looking and descriptive ad and those downvotes could really use some explanation. $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    Jan 28, 2019 at 2:26
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Astronomy Stack Exchange

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Computational Science at Stack Exchange

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Quantum Computing Stack Exchange

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  • $\begingroup$ From Community Promotion Ads - 2018. Designed by DanielSank. $\endgroup$
    – user199113
    Jan 23, 2019 at 20:20
  • $\begingroup$ I feel that there is a lot of empty space that could be utilized here. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Jan 25, 2019 at 17:21
  • $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos I've added the sponsor logo now. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do much more, but I've pinged some of the folks from Strangeworks who might be willing to improve upon this. $\endgroup$
    – user199113
    Jan 26, 2019 at 16:25
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    $\begingroup$ @Kyle what's wrong with empty space? I'm of the strong opinion that less is more here - crowding in that space would make the ad distinctly worse. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jan 26, 2019 at 20:04
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty most of the other posts in here have small, background text or images (cf. the SciComp one, Detexify, Astronomy, Academia, etc) that add some additional background to the image. This has an orange box that I have no idea how it adds to QC.SE or what it means & a whole bunch of blue. It also appears to have two different, but similar fonts, used. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Jan 27, 2019 at 12:27
  • $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos The orange box is the QC.SE logo - asking why it's there is like asking why the mexican-hat logo is in the Reviews ad. The font for 'Quantum Computing' is a direct pull of the QC.SE logo; the font for 'Stack Exchange' is in the closet publicly-available font to that, Proxima Nova. This design was iterated on a number of times last year, and I'm not particularly impressed by folks jumping in throwing punches at random without even trying to understand the design choices or even the ability to recognize the logo of the site being linked to. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jan 27, 2019 at 15:59
  • $\begingroup$ As for the "sponsored by Strange Works", I really don't see how it adds to the design in any way. Are we hoping that there will be name recognition that will help drive clicks to QC.SE? (for clarity: that's ridiculous.) Are we beholden to SW in some way which compels us to give them free advertising, just because SE selected QC to be kicked out of the usual Area 51 process? If so, how? Until a coherent argument for its presence can be formulated, I'm reverting this to my original design. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:03
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    $\begingroup$ I suppose the confusion most folks face is: "Why does the quantum computing site have an orange box as its logo and how is it relevant to quantum computing?"...well, I don't really know the answer. SE never clarified it for us. We had some theories like: it's a wordplay on "qubit" as in "cube-it". $\endgroup$
    – user199113
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:04
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty I also question the choice of the Mexican hat potential for our site design (I have no suggestion for a replacement, though at this point is probably not ever going to change). I've not really noticed this post prior to this week, so if it's older than a few days, sorry that I'm not particularly attentive. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:08
  • $\begingroup$ @KyleKanos The discussion about this design is freely available on last year's thread, I'd strongly suggest catching up and actually going to the linked site before making further comments on the design. While the appropriateness of the box as a logo isn't obvious (and oh, look! there's an entire thread about it over on the QC meta), it's moot here. Are you suggesting that the QC.SE logo doesn't belong on an advert for that site? $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:14
  • $\begingroup$ FWIW I don't have any strong preferences either way: with or without the sponsor's logo. If the community likes it better without the sponsorship logo, then so be it. $\endgroup$
    – user199113
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:15
  • $\begingroup$ And I'll go a bit further: if you want to suggest changes, actually produce print copy for them, instead of throwing stones at the people that do actual design work for this space. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:16
  • $\begingroup$ @Blue I'm dead serious. If folks want the SW logo advertised on this site, then let's hear some actual arguments about why we should advertise for them. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:17
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    $\begingroup$ Whatever the issue with the logo is, I really don't think that downvotes are the way to express it. The QC meta site has a page for the redesigning of the logo, and if you think it's bad, that's the place to take it up. If you think SE needs advertising, maybe we can discuss that here, since this is where the ad is. It's perfectly legitimate to downvote because you think the site shouldn't be advertised. But remember that when you're downvoting, you're potentially stopping this from being advertised, so if there's some mildly annoying part, just leave it. $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:17
  • $\begingroup$ @Chair Indeed. And if you're downvoting but the reasons why you're voting are not yet represented here, then please drop a line to say why you're doing it - this is a community process, and we can't help steer it without that feedback. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:24
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Academia Stack Exchange

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DLMF: an online encyclopaedia of special functions

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SciRate

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History of Science and Mathematics at Stack Exchange

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Engineering Stack Exchange

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archive.org - the public library of the internet

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The Cost of Knowledge - join the Elsevier boycott and take back our scientific publishing!

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Zotero - your personal bibliographic research assistant

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    $\begingroup$ Goodness, how did this become so unpopular? It used to poll extremely well. Zotero is the most usable reference manager that doesn't siphon your usage data to an evil corporation (ahem). Would downvoters care to comment on why they disagree with this ad? $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:08
  • $\begingroup$ On Chemistry.SE I noticed a couple of waves of downvotes, but after a while they disappeared as if someone created multiple accounts solely to cause harm and then those accounts got deleted. // Zotero is not just the most usable, this is pretty much the only choice if you have to deal with both BibLaTeX and {Libre|Open|M$}Office, plus it's open source, portable, decentralized and the guys behind it also do the majority of work on CSLs. I wish I could upvote this more than once, Zotero deserves better. $\endgroup$
    – andselisk
    Feb 10, 2019 at 20:06
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @andselisk Maybe the design was just getting tiring. I've lifted your design from the Chemistry thread; hopefully it'll do better now. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Feb 13, 2019 at 0:10
  • $\begingroup$ Oh, CSL stands for Citation Style Language, and it's also the extension for the corresponding style files (e.g. located under ~/Zotero/styles/). And I'm glad you liked my design, so thanks for reposting:) $\endgroup$
    – andselisk
    Feb 13, 2019 at 0:14
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty I suspect this is the CSL. Aaaand got Ninja'd :/ $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    Feb 13, 2019 at 0:14
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Retraction Watch

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PhysicsOverflow

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  • $\begingroup$ Due to prior experience, we're asking everyone to avoid discussion in the comment section here. Instead, use the related meta post and its chat room. $\endgroup$
    – ACuriousMind Mod
    Mar 9, 2019 at 13:15
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Are your papers available in an open access repository? Check with Dissemin

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    $\begingroup$ I'm curious about why this is being downvoted. Do folks disagree with the design? Or with the service? Or just the concept of open access and having papers being freely available instead of costing $40 a pop? $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Jan 27, 2019 at 16:09
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    $\begingroup$ My guess would have been that people might dislike an ad for a social campaign (make your papers open access) rather than a useful tool, but the downvotes for zotero and the upvotes for The Cost of Knowledge suggest otherwise. $\endgroup$
    – Tyberius
    Feb 1, 2019 at 21:26
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Physics Travel Guide

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All your TeX questions answered!

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Follow us on Twitter!

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  • $\begingroup$ This is a demonstration post to indicate how this should look when an ad is posted. It also doubles as your twitter ad, but it's up to you if you wish to promote it by voting $\endgroup$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Jan 23, 2019 at 11:59
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    $\begingroup$ We are programmed to hate the twitter account for the algorithm with which it chooses and posts clickbait questions :P $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    Jan 23, 2019 at 12:00

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