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A “beginners” complementation to PhysicsOverflow?

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PhysicsOverflow has always been, and will always be a site for physics and has always maintained, and will continue to forever maintain a minimum level or standard for questions. Specifically, every question posted on PhysicsOverflow must be at least at a graduate level. For example, in terms of theoretical physics, quantum field theory and advanced general relativity mark the bottom level for questions.

However, we have recently had private discussions with a user who has preferred to remain anonymous, about setting up a lower-level completion to PhysicsOverflow. I personally consider this to be an absolutely brilliant idea. When we first talked about starting a new physics forum or Question & Answer site, we immediately wanted to have a site at a higher level because we felt that a free, frank, and non-censorious environment was most needed for a site at a higher level as opposed to a site for basic physics. When we conducted our poll for the level of our site nearly last year, “graduate level” won the poll. However, now that PhysicsOverflow is up and running, we realise that every community that discusses a scientific discipline needs a free, frank, and non-censorious environment to develop.

First of all, let me note that we are NOT planning to allow lower-level physics on PhysicsOverflow. PhysicsOverflow shall maintain its level forever. Our plan is to set up an additional site at a lower level than PhysicsOverflow at a domain like beginners.physicsoverflow.org. They will get to use our software (since our software contains many additional plugins made by polarkernel to the freely available, open-source Question2Answer software). This was not the first time we have seen the lack of a free, frank, and non-censorious site for lower-level physics. Another user, whose preference for anonymity is unknown, has also previously expressed that there is no undergraduate-level counterpart for PhysicsOverflow. The plan is therefore to set up an additional site (PhysicsUnderflow?) at a subdomain of PhysicsOverflow, like beginners.physicsoverflow.org or underflow.physicsoverflow.org.

Will this positively affect PhysicsOverflow?

Yes, of course!

  • Post migration – This is the main positive impact of a “PhysicsUnderflow” on PhysicsOverflow. If a question is too basic for PhysicsOverflow or too advanced for “PhysicsUnderflow”, the question can be migrated between the sites. There is a Question2Answer plugin for this.
  • More contributors – I mean positive contributors. If someone enjoys participating on “PhysicsUnderflow”, they have a greater likelihood of participating on PhysicsOverflow, when they’re ready to participate on PhysicsOverflow.
  • Post diversion – Currently, we tell new users in their confirmation emails that PhysicsOverflow is a site for physics at a graduate-level and above; basic questions go here: physics.stackexchange.com. If we have a brother site, “PhysicsUnderflow”, we can tell users to participate on PhysicsUnderflow for lower-level physics.

How can I help?

The PhysicsOverflow team is unfortunately uncapable of providing our full attention to “PhysicsUnderflow”, since we all have long to-do lists for PhysicsOverflow itself. The “PhysicsUnderflow” project requires:

  • At least one Super-administrator. This is essential. A super-administrator’s tasks include: executing the will of the community and managing the site in general, importing of posts from StackExchange, if the PhysicsUnderflow deems this necessary.
  • It would be nice to have a Developer to assist polarkernel at least in the beginning for setting up this site. This developer would have to voluntarily support the development of a “PhysicsUnderflow”, i.e. to put it straightforwardly, we, as a very small team, are currently incapable of paying an additional developer for the development of a “PhysicsUnderflow”.
  • Most importantly, the site needs to have a Community. There are no minimum criteria for activity (unlike in some dystopic settings across the internet), but people who are interested in a “PhysicsUnderflow”.

If you want to make the idea of a “PhysicsUnderflow” a reality, then please try to help out.

I am willing to be a super-administrator on “PhysicsUnderflow”! What next?

The first step in setting up a “PhysicsUnderflow”, in my opinion, is to set up a public blog for organised disucssion on this matter, like how PhysicsOverflow set up this very blog as per John McVirgo’s suggestion. You are encouraged to use as structure similar to that of this blog when writing posts for comment discussion on this blog of a “PhysicsUnderflow”. So please tell us if you are willing (and have the time, capacity, and inclination) to be a super-administrator, and tell us the URL of the blog that you have set up so we can link to it from the top of this post.

How will PhysicsOverflow support PhysicsUnderflow?

  • Helping you install all the PhysicsOverflow software (including the Question2Answer core, all our plugins, our theme, admin panel code, and everything) on it.
  • Providing you with a list of our custom pages.
  • Telling you how we deal with community moderation, provide a list of our community moderation posts.
  • Advising you on managing a “PhysicsUnderflow”, etc., ; for example, do you think it that this beginners site would also need to import posts from SE? In that case, it would be a pretty huge burden on you, since there are a lot of basic questions on SE. Maybe you should just import questions with at least 10 votes and not graduate-level+.
  • Promote the beginners site on the tpproposal blog and on the meta of PhysicsOverflow (done)

Eventually, I hope to see more and more “*erflow” (where “*” could be “und” or “ov”) sites form, and eventually form some sort of a large “Erflow” network with each scientific discipline having two sites, one overflow, and one underflow. Like a chemistryoverflow.org, etc. Anyway, that will probably take years : )

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5 Comments

  1. The Paradox says:

    Hi to everyone who is willing to be a part of this forthcoming beginner/intermediate Physics site.

    I am been, for a short time a user of Phys.SE. When for the first time I had internet this was one of the first thing that I did. I joined some other physics forms like Quora.com and Phys.forums etc. These all are not pure Physics communities. Especially phys.SE, that seem to be a physics community, is constrained in mundane rules, and has a very harsh culture. It is not friendly, open community.

    Let’s make a new Physics community for those who are intermediate, new, or beginners in Physics. I will contribute to this site. I can’t be super-admin but I will contribute otherwise in any way that I could.

    This new site will be revolutionary. It will be made by community, run by community not by the policies.

    Regards.

  2. Dilaton says:

    There is a relevant on Area51 closed and even locked(!) discussion. I hope it is ok that I “reopend” and “unlocked” the thread by import into PO meta: http://discuss.area51.stackexchange.com/q/2883/85405

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