Edit time for conversation replies is too short

[strangerep]

I'm having a nontrivial conversation with Micromass (and dextercioby) about Micro's thesis, but there (seems to be) no full latex preview when preparing conversation replies. After I posted a reply, I needed to do a lot more editing, as the topic (extensions of the nuclear spectral theorem) is quite difficult. But the editing time is only 5 mins(!). Can this be lengthened please?

(In view of the vast amounts of help that Micromass has given on PF, I think he deserves all the comments and suggestions, etc, that sufficiently knowledgeable people on PF could offer.)

Separately, it occurs to me that (sub-)forums for discussion of theses-in-preparation might be useful for many PhD students, if the student so wishes. Currently, that's probably outside the PF guidelines, but if the thesis is being prepared in a formal tertiary environment, maybe that would be ok (since crackpots would be excluded). You could even regard it as a super-advanced extension of the "homework" forum concept... oo)

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I've extended it to 15min for now.

For your second part, the staff is actually discussing it at this moment and hope to unveil a solution in the coming weeks.

 

[dlgoff]

(In view of the vast amounts of help that Micromass has given on PF, I think he deserves all the comments and suggestions, etc, that sufficiently knowledgeable people on PF could offer.)

That's outstanding!

 

[vanhees71]

The only trouble with such public discussions on PhD theses in progress is that perhaps somebody could steal an idea from the thesis before the one who really works on the subject publishes it. I've never experienced something like this in my field, but I'd be a bit careful.

 

[mfb]

Well, you shouldn't make sensitive parts public. This is a much more general rule, not limited to this forum.

 

[strangerep]

The only trouble with such public discussions on PhD theses in progress is that perhaps somebody could steal an idea from the thesis before the one who really works on the subject publishes it. [...]

Yes, that thought occurred to me also. Initially, I thought that having a snapshot of thesis stored at PF might establish priority, but... that's probably more trouble than it's worth.

In any case, I wonder how many PhD students would actually make use of such a facility, and whether the PF community is indeed large enough to engage productively with all the subtle nooks and crannies of the myriad obscure lines of research out there. (Just look at all the reams of new papers appearing daily on the arXiv...)

I begin to suspect a new law of Nature: "Thou shalt not conduct useful scientific research on Internet forums".

 

[Matterwave]

Don't SA's have infinite time to edit posts? I can edit my own posts way after I posted it...like several days even.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Don't SA's have infinite time to edit posts? I can edit my own posts way after I posted it...like several days even.

The settings for conversations and forum posts are separate.

 

[Matterwave]

The settings for conversations and forum posts are separate.

Ah, ok.

 

[mfb]

In any case, I wonder how many PhD students would actually make use of such a facility, and whether the PF community is indeed large enough to engage productively with all the subtle nooks and crannies of the myriad obscure lines of research out there. (Just look at all the reams of new papers appearing daily on the arXiv...)

Could be useful for some non-critical parts like the description of the experiment, the physics the research is based on, sometimes the analysis method (without result, unless it is public at that time).

For the interesting scientific parts, something I wrote before:

Same here.
Work-related questions are (1) way too specialized, (2) often require knowledge of the software packages we are using, and (3) usually involve things I cannot make public.
I would have to limit the discussion to members of my collaboration (or keep them extremely abstract). We have some of them here I think, but the chance that they worked on a similar topic is small. It is much easier to send a mail to colleagues where those conditions are no problem.