I don't think I need to tell you that recently there was an historic discovery that captured the interest of the popular press and general public, as well, of course, as that of the broader scientific community. As a consequence, we saw many questions about LIGO (see the ligo tag); some simple, others more involved.
At the moment, we deal with these events in an ad hoc manner, treating questions about them like any other questions. This works OK, and I applaud the efforts of those involved.
In this case (and in many similar cases), the announcement was anticipated. Though admittedly such occasions aren't that common, I wondered whether we were failing to exploit the full potential of PSE during similar moments of intense interest in a scientific result.
We could, e.g.,
- Prepare high-quality questions and answers in anticipation to make a cool resource, and e.g. display something like "Coming here for LIGO? Click here" on the main page, or
- Invite/encourage experimental groups to utilise PSE by e.g. having verified users (like on e.g. twitter) spending time answering a few questions, or
- Organize a set of the best questions and answers recieved about the topic (no prepared answers as in 1.), and as in 1., display them prominently
- ...
Thoughts? (preferably on the general idea rather than the concrete examples).