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It's possible for a Stack Exchange site to get a community powered blog, as done so by many sites seen on SE, e.g. Math.SE. To get our own, what we first need is community support, since the blog will be run only by this site's users.

The purpose of this post is to answer the following question:

Does the Physics.SE community want their own blog?

If the answer to this is yes, the next things we need to address are:

  • Who would be willing to contribute?

  • What would the blog be about?

  • What would our schedule be?

These, of course, will come in later discussions.

Personally, I love the idea of a Stack Exchange site having a community blog. It helps in so many ways e.g. publicity. I am "Blog Overlord" over at Programmers.SE, and we've got an awesome blog going over there. The best part is, users from the community are the ones writing the posts, developing the scope, and editing to reflect the view of the community.

So once again, before we go into details, does the Physics.SE community want their own blog?

Further reading:

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    $\begingroup$ Nice idea, this could stimulate our community :-) $\endgroup$
    – Dilaton
    Aug 6, 2012 at 22:40
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    $\begingroup$ So tl;dr is this supposed to be a SE meta blog or a blog about physics topics? $\endgroup$
    – Nikolaj-K
    Aug 7, 2012 at 11:59
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    $\begingroup$ Both. Take a look at the about page for the Programmers.SE blog: programmers.blogoverflow.com/about $\endgroup$
    – Dynamic
    Aug 7, 2012 at 15:05
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    $\begingroup$ I would mention that I'd definitely be interested in getting this going. But it has to have community support, at least from enough people to make the blog work. If you think this would be a good idea, this is the place to show it. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Aug 7, 2012 at 20:33
  • $\begingroup$ I think the blog posts should be written by competent wise knowledgable native English speakers ... :-P, but I`d like to read it and discuss about interesting stuff with other nice people there :-) $\endgroup$
    – Dilaton
    Aug 8, 2012 at 15:44
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    $\begingroup$ @David I'd been entertaining the idea of proposing a blog for physics.SE before, but I wasn't sure if we'd have enough community support for regular posts. So I think it's a good idea and would like to help out, though I don't think I have the expertise to be able to write interesting Physics blog posts. :\ $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Aug 9, 2012 at 4:04
  • $\begingroup$ heres an example of another/ similar community math.se where its worked out relatively well $\endgroup$
    – vzn
    Feb 15, 2015 at 17:34

3 Answers 3

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I would have dismissed this question, but then I discovered the list of stack exchange community blogs. It seems that many of them are working to quite a productive ends.

http://stackexchange.com/blogs

To answer the question at hand, I draw upon my experience as a Wikipedia editor. The crucial lesson I learned is this: anything you create is only as good as the effort your content creators are willing to put into it. In short, I would be perfectly supportive of the idea of a blog if there were a mass of physics enthusiasts wanting to write for it. The rest of this discussion is a matter of perception of evidence, and I would currently maintain that sufficient enthusiasm for a blog does not exist.

I still think it's a good possibility to bring up, since I've seen rather good work done in other SE network blogs, so I would suggest that we consider it tabled for now. If someone has some good suggestions for the type of content Physics.SE would have on a blog, meta is the place to share it. I, for one, don't see much added value over the current QA, but that's only because I'm not interested in putting in the effort ;)

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  • $\begingroup$ suggest discussion in Physics Chat. what do you mean "consider it tabled for now"? and what is behind your "perception of evidence, sufficient enthusiasm for blog does not exist"? actually chat has been highly lively lately and there is a lot of topics thrown around that would be excellent in a blog. $\endgroup$
    – vzn
    Feb 15, 2015 at 17:31
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I for one will not be interested in a physics blog.

a) I find it time consuming enough to follow the physics papers that Lubos puts up in his blog

b)Physics is not literature. One has to spend grey cell time in deciphering the blog offers, and I do not feel like investing effort in run of the mill physics contributions.

Sorry for the negativity.

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    $\begingroup$ "Physics is not literature" indeed! But when I read about Physics, I'd prefer concentrating on a blog written by multiple authors, where I get some variety and subjectivity can be smoothed out a bit... $\endgroup$
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Aug 16, 2012 at 14:14
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Yeah, the Physics.se community would benefit from one but there aren't enough people that do physics as a profession here, compared to the vast number of people that do programming for a living at Programmers.SE. You therefore aren't going to get good quality regular blogs worth reading, where the blogger speaks with authority. It will end up like the creation of theoreticalphysics.se in initially being supported with enthusiasm, only to slowly die over time.

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  • $\begingroup$ I don't know about that... research physicists are not necessarily the only ones who can be competent Physics SE bloggers. In fact, blogging is more about being able to communicate (which research experience does not qualify you for) than having lots of topical knowledge. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Aug 16, 2012 at 3:27
  • $\begingroup$ I totally second @David: I've heard a bunch of talks by very bright people who seemed to have trouble conveying their basically awesome subject due to being, well, too good, I guess. And colleagues of mine tend to confirm this opinion. So a non-expert, maybe with the help from a "pro", could manage communicating subjects in an even greater manner. $\endgroup$
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Aug 16, 2012 at 14:12
  • $\begingroup$ The only authority I accept is truth. The author name is just an error-prone shortcut. $\endgroup$
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Aug 16, 2012 at 14:13

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