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In recent days, we've had a bunch of new (and not-so-new) users making great contributions to the site, and there has been a distinct uptick in meta activity. So I thought it would be a neat idea to capitalize on this by having a brief chat session where we - or at least, whoever's available - can all get together and share the latest news in the physics world and also hear updates about what is going on with the Stack Exchange network. Additionally, this will be a great chance for any new users to ask any questions about how the site works or anything you may want to know from the moderators.

With that in mind, I went ahead and scheduled an event for this Thursday, March 8, at 22:00 UTC (5 PM EST). This is listed on the chat room schedule, where you may register for the event - but that's totally optional, it's fine if you just pop into the chat room without registering in advance! I realize that time may not work for everyone, but I thought it'd be best to just get something scheduled. If this is a success, we could make it a repeating event, perhaps monthly, and in that case we'd vary the times so that different people can show up. Of course you can always post in the chat room at any time, and usually someone will get back to you after a few hours.

Anyway, since I don't have much of a plan for this first chat session, and I should probably make this a question, what do you want to talk about? If you have anything that you would like brought up during the chat session, feel free to post it as an answer or comment here.

Note: You need to have 20 reputation on any one site in the SE network to join the chat.

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  • $\begingroup$ I doubt that the SE people will allow this; but it would be nice if certain privileges--specifically "comment anywhere" and "talk in chat"--were made rep requirement 1. We don't have enough activity to attract spammers (I don't think so atleast), so letting newbies chat and comment shouldn't be bad; it will in fact help retention IMHO. It can be turned off once the site becomes more popular. $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Mar 7, 2012 at 11:46
  • $\begingroup$ I'm pretty sure that has been suggested on MSO - certainly you're not the first one to say that the 20-rep requirement is somewhat inconvenient for smaller sites. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Mar 7, 2012 at 21:05

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(I may or may not be able to come--depends; but I'll try)

  • Discuss some unanswered questions
  • How should we retain new users?
  • Discuss developments in physics ("Oh darn; it was just a faulty cable!" and all that =D )
  • How else can we build up chat activity?
  • Maybe some of us can talk about their current research?
  • Puzzles! Yes, I know, we're not math.SE; but there are quite a few interesting conundrums to think about at varying levels.

We can also take a peek at other SE chat sites and see what they do. Math.SE seems to do random stuff. There are so many SO chat rooms; most of them are doing general computer banter.

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    $\begingroup$ And now it struck me that 3:30 in my timezone is 3:30 in the morning , so I can't come :( $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Mar 7, 2012 at 14:04
  • $\begingroup$ Next time (assuming there is a next time) I promise to pick a different time ;-) $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Mar 7, 2012 at 21:05

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