Questions tagged [discussion]
The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.
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Physics.SE remains a site by humans, for humans
We, the moderators of physics.SE, are deeply concerned about the recently announced "network policy" regarding computer-generated content on the SE network, which effectively attempts to ...
ACuriousMindMod
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How do I ask homework questions on Physics Stack Exchange?
What is the policy on asking homework questions on Physics Stack Exchange?
What kinds of questions are considered homework questions?
Are homework questions allowed?
What should I include in a ...
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In praise of "... and links therein"
We've all seen them: short comments saying
Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/..., and links therein.
Also, we've all seen bunches of useful links to ...
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Stepping down and taking a break
For eleven years and five months I've been a part of an ambitious experiment in making the internet a better place. For the past nine years and two months that participation has included this site. ...
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We seem to be over-eager to downvote
Take this question:
Dark matter clumping
This is an excellent question and the answer is not at all obvious. I assume it was downvoted just because it's a duplicate, but is this really appropriate? ...
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Please don't use computer-generated text for questions or answers on Physics
For the impatient reader, the guidance is in the title: please don't use computer-generated text for questions or answers on Physics.
Computer-generated text violates our expectation that users are ...
robMod
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Congratulations to anna v, our second 200k user
With nearly six thousand answers posted over her first decade with us, anna v surpassed the 200,000 reputation milestone this week. Her patient explanations, broad knowledge, and insightful writing ...
robMod
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Qmechanic reaches 100k rep
Please join me in congratulating @Qmechanic upon reaching the 100k rep milestone. We can all agree that his/her contribution to this site has been nothing short of outstanding, and the recognition ...
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Should we get a vector logo?
Right now, we use a raster logo instead of a vector logo.
For those who don't know, a raster is an image made of pixels. If you zoom enough, you'll see the image become pixelated (as is the case with ...
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The secret to getting a massive reputation is ___
... obviously to answer simple questions about everyday life:
Why are dishwasher washed glasses "squeaky clean"?
Not that I wish to be ungrateful, but I put far more effort, and found it ...
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Resigning as a moderator
I've decided that it's time for me to step down as a moderator of this site. This has been something I've been thinking about for quite a while; it's a product of numerous events that have occurred ...
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What is Physics Overflow and how is it linked to Physics.SE?
A community ad caught my eye, and I visited http://www.physicsoverflow.org. What are the links between Physics SE and Physics Overflow and how are they different from each other?
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My question was closed on Phys.SE. Can you recommend me another Internet site where my question might be on-topic?
My question was closed1 on Phys.SE. Can you recommend me another Internet site where my question might be on-topic?
Here we keep a list of other Internet sites that might help students2 of physics. ...
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How to conduct a discussion on meta and not kill everyone in trying
Dearest Physicsmeta Stack Exchange readers,
I just got done reading through this discussion, its many supporting discussions, its answers, their comments, the answers to the supporting questions and ...
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(Almost) ten years of Physics Stack Exchange
This is something we should flag early if we want to do something in time for when it happens: the tenth anniversary of Physics Stack Exchange will happen in three months.
Specifically, the private ...
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Is Physics SE on your CV?
So there's this careers course thing I'm going to this week as part of some graduate school requirement, and I've been asked to prepare a curriculum vitae for it. I'm probably going to include ...
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Question self-destruction: why don't experts ask more questions?
I've been kicking around this site for a little while now and I've realized that I'm very rarely even tempted to post a question. I'm an astronomy grad student with a background in physics, so ...
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What counts as sufficient prior research when asking a question?
On Physics Stack Exchange, people asking questions are expected to demonstrate that they've put a certain amount of effort into answering the question themselves. What exactly counts as sufficient ...
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Stack Exchange, Prosus, Naspers, apartheid, and white supremacy
I know that this is probably off-topic but I am posting it anyway.
I am having difficulty reconciling myself to contributing content to a site that is now owned by a subsidiary of Naspers, a South ...
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John Rennie, the nerd, crosses the 200k. Congratulations!
That's it! He did it!!
John Rennie, on 23-09-2016 became the first man ever in the realms of Phys.SE to reach the summit of 200k!
For over five years, he travelled and saved people from the evils of ...
user36790
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Be nice with the comments
Just a reminder to please be nice with the comments. It seems to me (in a completely statistically unsound survey based on my own impressions) that we're getting a bit snarky with the comments at the ...
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Somebody scraped our answers and sold them as a book
I don't know if this has come up in discussion, but somebody scraped various tags on Phys.SE and copy-pasted the results together into several books, including one on QFT, one on GR, and one on optics....
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Is over-vigilant monitoring of questions driving people away from the site?
Now, I know the need to create standards for asking questions. However, particularly for first time users, the ability to ask questions in a way that this forum expects can be difficult, often due to ...
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Folks, we need to talk about the surface-area-of-a-chicken question
This question
How do I find the approximate surface area of a chicken?
underwent a severe close/reopen yo-yo cycle. It was closed once by a moderator, then reopened by community members, then re-...
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Full migration of Theoretical Physics SE questions to Physics SE
The younger brother "Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange" will abolished in a week or so,
http://meta.theoreticalphysics.stackexchange.com/questions/245/theoretical-physics-is-closing
due to the ...
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The proposed changes to the text editor would break this site
You have probably seen already a link, on the Featured on Meta sidebar, to an announcement of an upcoming upgrade to the text editor on Stack Exchange, Opt-in alpha test for a new Stacks editor.
As a ...
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Discouraging the use of textual screenshots in questions
[This was originally posted as an answer to another question and was transformed into a question following a comment to this effect.]
To discourage rapid postings of the type alluded to in another ...
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Congratulations to ProfRob on reaching 100k!
Recently, ProfRob surpassed the 100k reputation threshold on Physics Stack Exchange, and as we've done for other users, I'd like to congratulate him on his efforts and his many contributions to the ...
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What violation caused this suspension? [closed]
What violation caused this suspension? May I know the reason?
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Should we rename the homework tag as "problem-solving", or such?
The "homework" tag is often controversial among new users who complain that their question isn't from a homework assignment (so they get offended, so edit wars happen, and posts get blocked -- e.g., ...
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Are people voting less than they used to on Physics SE?
It seems to me that the level of voting on Physics SE is noticeably lower than on most other SE sites that I frequent and lower that it has been in the past (I have been a user on the site for several ...
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physics.SE's inability to deal with users who are highly persistent, have kook beliefs, and sound impressive? [closed]
Does Physics.SE's have any way of dealing with users who are highly persistent, have kook beliefs, and sound impressive? Some of these folks seem to be very successful at racking up reputation points ...
user4552
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Why don't we just ban homework altogether?
This site gets a lot of low-quality homework questions. Since I ignored the homework tag a few months ago, my experience of the site has been much more pleasant.
The current homework policy is nice, ...
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Level of questions?
The level of questions (and answers) on Physics is not high enough.
I'm not saying this snobbishly, but because if the answers are not
high quality and accurate then the website does the community a
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Can the Mods please stop overeagerly move comments to the chat?
I recently asked a question. I got some valuable comments, but the commenters and I disagreed on a few things. After like 5 comments we reached agreement.
Then @ACuriousMind stepped in and moved ...
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Have we lost the necessary critical mass of professional physicists?
A while back, we had this discussion in which we tried to measure quantitatively whether the site was gaining or losing non-novice users. Since then, I've had the distinct subjective impression that ...
user4552
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Why are all questions I visit from other sites protected by Qmechanic?
I normally only come when clicking on some questions from other StackExchange sites. Every time the questions are protected by user Qmechanic. Is that something like the Community user? I don't see ...
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Are resource recommendations allowed?
What is the policy on asking for recommendations of books or resources on Physics Stack Exchange?
What is a resource recommendation question?
What sort of resource recommendation questions are ...
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Deleting 'tHooft's comments
I am afraid that David will delete comments of 'tHooft, and others, on threads where he has participated. I don't like to see any of 'tHooft's writing go anywhere, at least not for a long time, so ...
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Turning in my diamond shortly
Heyo folks!
The time has come for me to wind down some of my activities here, and so I will be turning in my diamond and resigning as a moderator in a few weeks time. It's... been a year... and a lot ...
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Ch-ch-ch-changing the site logo to cut out the weird arrow thing
Apparently, Ch-ch-ch-changes are coming to the site navigation and theming.
Given that that's the case (and that therefore there are designer work-hours already scheduled to attend to our site design)...
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Physics Stack Exchange "Ask me anything" (AMA)
Purpose
The user base of Physics Stack Exchange is rather diverse in terms of cultural background, career progress, field of expertise, and personality.
While the discussion in hbar is lively, it is ...
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Experimental Physics & Engineering
I know that most of us are "paper theorists," but I think we need to remember that experimental physics is physics too! We have several tags for experimental physics (with tag excerpts):
...
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Strict(er) adherence to homework guidelines?
Less a question and more of a heads-up.
Due to the Covid-19 crisis, most higher education institutions (that I know of) are moving to online examination. Many of these examinations count towards ...
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Let's not have posts look like revision histories
Inspired by this meta post on RPG.SE: I think we should keep in mind that posts with lots of "Edit:" and "Update:" sections are a bit hard to read from beginning to end, and we should strive to avoid ...
user10851
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TagOverflow - an interactive graph of Physics.SE tags
I created a graph of tags from Stack Exchange sites (including Physics.SE), TagOverflow.
I made an interactive version of Map of 64 Tags from Physics.SE, with always up-to-date data.
Nodes ...
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Should any check-my-work questions be made on topic?
It's long overdue that I make this post revisiting our policy on "check-my-work" questions. These are questions, often (but not necessarily) homework-like, that present a complete mathematical or ...
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Should history of physics questions be on topic?
When we last visited the issue of history questions, the dedicated History of Science and Mathematics Stack Exchange was in its early stages. At that time, we decided against closing questions for ...
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How do we write good question titles?
Writing a good title can require some thought.
A title, while short, must help other users get an idea of what your question will ask so they can decide whether or not to click and read the entire ...
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Struggling to not draw ire in responses to my few questions ... failing
I am a novice at this, and I believe I have only asked a handful of questions in total. The first were all rapidly tagged as "opinion-based", and I can see why. I don't see how to ask for ...
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