Is it just me or is PF dying?

[Greg Bernhardt]

It could be that I'm searching inefficiently.

Don't forget to check the side bar for recent Insights and Featured Discussions

 

[dlgoff]

Posts decreasing?

No.
PF's message is mainsteam science.
PF's signal-to-noise ratio has been increased - by filtering the noise.

To add to your list. I lurk/post in the EE forum mostly, trying to be helpful. And over the years, I'm sure I've posted less. But the reason isn't because PF is dying, it's because there are so many more knowledgeable members that provide better answer and quicker than I.

 

[DiracPool]

Well, since this has become a popular thread, I will add my opinion. Personally, I don't think PF is dying at all. In fact, I think right now it's the best I've ever seen it. I can post a question on virtually any topic and get a quality and authoritative answer within hours or even minutes. What else can you ask for?

Also, as I said in an earlier post, PF has been a kinder and friendlier forum (for what reasons I don't know and, frankly, don't care) since the switch over to the new interface. So I feel more comfortable contributing here. In the old days, I felt like the mentors here dished out infractions and bans like UNICEF hands out bottles of water in disaster areas. And these always seemed very capricious to me, like they were summarily executed simply by the caprice of one individual without any consensus among the staff or otherwise oversight.

I don't know if that's changed or not, but I feel much more comfortable again, today, contributing to the forum.

As far as the issue of closed threads, to be honest I really don't care if someone closes my thread or deletes my post. If the staff isn't enamored with my wisdom, I'll find somewhere else to publish it

As far as the harsh attitude of mentors, science advisers, and otherwise senior members toward newbie questions, I don't really have a problem with that either. Science is serious stuff and nobody's doing you any favors by sugarcoating anything. Back in the early days, I used to submit papers to journals that I labored for months or even years on only to have to wait 3-4 months to get a harsh response that may have been only a paragraph or two, much less than you'd get here. So you're getting off easy here by only having to wait an hour or two.

Why do referees in journals seem so harsh? Because referees don't get paid to do what they do (typically). And they take what they do very seriously. Or else they wouldn't do it. So if they get a paper that they feel the author has sent in prematurely without having been adequately proofread or adequately referenced with the standard rigor that they, themselves, had to be held to when they submitted a paper, they tend to get VERY cranky. Case in point, I recently reviewed a paper where almost a third of the in-text citations were not included in the reference list. I was furious that my time was wasted referring this paper that the authors didn't take time to proofread. Forget about the rest of the article (which stunk accordingly, btw). That particular instance, though, was something of an anomaly as the chief editor usually screens for these gross problems in the submission. I'm not one to criticize an editor directly, but I think he felt my dissatisfaction with what I sent in as my review.

So there you have it. I personally think PF would be served better by a more vitriolic and battle-scarred diatribes in these threads. In my experience this is how science is done mostly in the refereed journals. In the scholarly conferences though, you don't really see this. You'd think there'd be these bitter debates there where people had "hand-to-hand" access to each other, but it's really the opposite. When people put down there money to fly to a conference, they're more often than not looking at it as a vacation; some opportunity to spend a weekend or a week to be around hundreds of like-minded people which you can't get back home. So these are typically really tame and friendly experiences.

Lastly, I think that if you are a member that has 900 posts or more, you should really be given a little more of a break, a little "senior" status, just my opinion

 

[Drakkith]

I'd like to thank everyone who's given feedback on this topic so far. Even if you feel like the staff ignores/picks-apart your feedback, I assure you that we take it all into consideration. Any perceived negativity or backlash is just our attempt to understand and process your suggestions or complaints. Please do not be scared to give feedback.

 

[DaveC426913]

Lastly, I think that if you are a member that has 900 posts or more, you should really be given a little more of a break, a little "senior" status, just my opinion

Yeah, but till then ...

That latrine needs some lovin'. Here's a toothbrush.

 

[DiracPool]

That latrine needs some lovin' Here's a toothbrush.

Ok, I don't have to clean BEHIND the toilet too, do I?

 

[WWGD]

One issue to consider is that the (supposed) downturn may be a blip and not necessarily a general slowing/down trend.

 

[cellurl]

You need advocates to always care about this hive. I left stackoverflow after they pissed me off, and I left Slashdot after they pissed me off. This site seems a little more caring, but you need full time "I care" people to keep sensitive people here. One thing I have always wanted on Quora or here is a tree of expertise, eg, some way to bubble unanswered questions up to super-experts and not waste their eyes watching noise. Its fair and sustainable. Crack that nut and you have innovation.

 

[mfb]

Lastly, I think that if you are a member that has 900 posts or more, you should really be given a little more of a break, a little "senior" status, just my opinion

I don't think a fixed limit is useful here. It should increase over time. Following the current example, what about "1 post more than DiracPool has"?

One thing I have always wanted on Quora or here is a tree of expertise, eg, some way to bubble unanswered questions up to super-experts and not waste their eyes watching noise. Its fair and sustainable. Crack that nut and you have innovation.

Find a new and better way to show everyone what that person is most interested in and you revolutionize the web...
Some unanswered questions don't get answers because they are too special (but then you have a hard time finding the right expert!), but some questions are also too broad, too unclear, too weird or in other ways problematic to answer.

 

[WWGD]

Is it possible to do some sort of data mining or analytics on PF ? I am not sure of what to look for, but maybe there are
proxies for good posts, good questions? I was thinking a sort of logistic regression re probability a post is good.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Is it possible to do some sort of data mining or analytics on PF ? I am not sure of what to look for, but maybe there are
proxies for good posts, good questions? I was thinking a sort of logistic regression re probability a post is good.

Does anyone use the "Top Threads" feature?

 

[WWGD]

Does anyone use the "Top Threads" feature?

I was not even aware it existed. Ref., please? Maybe if we have a data bank of good posts, we can mine them.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I was not even aware it existed. Ref., please? Maybe if we have a data bank of good posts, we can mine them.

To the right of top pagination at the forum thread list level. It's a filter button.

 

[mfb]

To the right of top pagination at the forum thread list level. It's a filter button.

It filters away your announcement of the new space news forum :p.

Data mining is possible, of course, but I don't see any automatic way to judge the quality of posts.
Number of likes received is a very weak and variable indicator and not useful for posts older than a year.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

It filters away your announcement of the new space news forum :p.

Must not be interesting :)

 

[DaveC426913]

Is it possible to do some sort of data mining or analytics on PF ? I am not sure of what to look for, but maybe there are
proxies for good posts, good questions?

Stack Overflow has an 'Answered' flag that the OP can set. It helps subsequent readers skip to the answer.

I don't think that would work here, since, unlike programming, answers are not definitive.

 

[RJLiberator]

I like PF. I don't think PF needs to compete against any other service. PF and the posters here have helped me tremendously through a lot of courses.

I think the discipline/rigor is very high here, but it is high in any science related field/lab setting. I don't want to be on a forum with people discussing outlandish conspiracy theories -- i have facebook for that. I come to PF to learn and for me, out of all of my tabs / internet searches, PF is always #1 for my learning process.

High quality content, posters that help and produce good reading quality. I do also highly enjoy the insights section as well.

 

[WWGD]

Would it be too difficult to implement some measurements like, say , a rating of 0-5 by OP on quality of answer/satisfaction,
similar for moderators involved assigning a number for quality, originality etc. and then finding correlates/proxies? Maybe then a databank with the higher posted ratings and one for the lower-rated
postings can be kept and analyzed?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

a rating of 0-5 by OP on quality of answer/satisfaction

We had thread ratings for the first 8 years and they were rarely used.

 

[WWGD]

We had thread ratings for the first 8 years and they were rarely used.

Do you think it would be worthwhile mining them? I am no expert, but maybe I can look into it and learn more myself, hopefully helping
in the process?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Do you think it would be worthwhile mining them?

Mining what and looking for what?

 

[WWGD]

Mining what and looking for what?

Just doing some regressions to find proxies for good posts, e.g., patterns of traits that seem to correlate with highly -rated posts. Or maybe
logistic regression, which assigns a probability ( of a post being high -quality) from given traits? I am not 100 % , but AFAIK, this is done in many
corporate settings, maybe can be adapted here?

 

[micromass]

Just doing some regressions to find proxies for good posts, e.g., patterns of traits that seem to correlate with highly -rated posts. Or maybe
logistic regression, which assigns a probability ( of a post being high -quality) from given traits? I am not 100 % , but AFAIK, this is done in many
corporate settings, maybe can be adapted here?

I don't think we have that much data...

 

[WWGD]

I don't think we have that much data...

I don't mean to be pushy, but is it possible to somehow set aside posts that are good in order to be analyzed? I know mentors are already overworked,
so maybe this can be done gradually until a relatively large amount of data is available?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I don't mean to be pushy, but is it possible to somehow set aside posts that are good in order to be analyzed? I know mentors are already overworked,
so maybe this can be done gradually until a relatively large amount of data is available?

Feedback and suggesting are good. How would you analyze/evaluate a post?

 

[WWGD]

Feedback and suggesting are good. How would you analyze/evaluate a post?

Maybe a combination of numbers: one of them is a measure of satisfaction with answer by OP, others are measures by mentors of : originality, quality, opening up new avenues, good example. Say from 0-5. Then we can average the measures given by all mentors and select those with, say, score from 4-5 as the good ones and those in 0-1 as the worse ones and look for patterns, for qualities . Maybe we can also link to these from the main page to illustrate what we consider to be quality posts. These types of analyses are done at corporate level under the general term " metrics" with, e.g., measures of product satisfaction.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Maybe a combination of numbers: one of them is a measure of satisfaction with answer by OP, others are measures by mentors of : originality, quality, opening up new avenues, good example. Say from 0-5. Then we can average the measures given by all mentors and select those with, say, score from 4-5 as the good ones and those in 0-1 as the worse ones and look for patterns, for qualities . Maybe we can also link to these from the main page to illustrate what we consider to be quality posts. These types of analyses are done at corporate level under the general term " metrics" with, e.g., measures of product satisfaction.

Identifying good posts is not hard, what is hard is developing an automatic system. Companies spend millions to develop such technology and I think it's likely beyond our capabilities. Furthermore I'm starting to get lost on the purpose of this. Is it to teach people to write good posts or to list good posts for people to read? And are we talking about good posts or good threads. We already have the featured thread area. I don't think linking random good posts from various points in different threads would be cohesive.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Also one of the best and easiest ways to measure a post's worth is by "Liking" it.

 

[WWGD]

I would say the idea , or at least an idea is to get people to write better posts and to allow mentors, others, if possible,to steer low-quality posts up into better ones by having a better idea of the traits to identify as being conducive to better quality. This way creating a positive feedback loop of motivation and quality posts. And, yes, another measure of quality would be the "liking" . Other measures could be, e.g., : enlightening/motivating, clear explanation, etc. If we could find commonalities to these high-quality posts, could this be used to try to steer "lower-numbered" posts into being better ?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I would say the idea , or at least an idea is to get people to write better posts and to allow mentors, others, if possible,to steer low-quality posts up into better ones by having a better idea of the traits to identify as being conducive to better quality. This way creating a positive feedback loop of motivation and quality posts. And, yes, another measure of quality would be the "liking" .

We do have measures to inform members if we think their post is low quality. Unfortunately given human nature and the flighty nature of online communities it's very difficult to actually make big gains in post quality. The best way is to simply find a way to attract those who just already have it. Those low post members aren't going to be very receptive and suddenly turn into journal quality writers.

 

[WWGD]

We do have measures to inform members if we think their post is low quality. Unfortunately given human nature and the flighty nature of online communities it's very difficult to actually make big gains in post quality. The best way is to simply find a way to attract those who just already have it. Those low post members aren't going to be very receptive and suddenly turn into journal quality writers.

Yes, I guess 20-80 law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

 

[DaveC426913]

The idea of assigning some objective quantity of "goodness" to posts raises some alarm bells in my head.

Seems to me, the spirit of scientific inquiry is a democratic and merit-based one. By merit, I mean 'any good post' as opposed to 'someone who has a high goodness score'.

An inquisitive mind should read as much as possible before drawing a conclusion as to what the most helpful or wise answer is. A goodness rating - especially an automated one - interrupts that, and inches us down the slippery slope of the "appeal to popularity" and "appeal to authority" fallacies.

I think it will damage PF.

 

[WWGD]

The idea of assigning some objective quantity of "goodness" to posts raises some alarm bells in my head.

Seems to me, the spirit of scientific inquiry is a democratic and merit-based one. An inquistive mind should read as much as possible before drawing a conclusion as to what the most helpful or wise answer is. A goodness rating - especially an automated one - interrupts that, and inches us down the slippery slope of the "appeal to popularity" and "appeal to authority" fallacies.

I think it will damage PF.

These are supposed to be used more as rules of thumb than as deterministic rules. To help guide, but can always be overruled if the context suggests the rule does not apply.

 

[DaveC426913]

These are supposed to be used more as rules of thumb than as deterministic rules. To help guide, but can always be overruled if the context suggests the rule does not apply.

I'm afraid I don't see how that alters my point at all. Popularity is a snowball effect. A nobody writing a good post isn't enough anymore, now they also need a 'reputation' to be heard over the 'high goodness score' people.

We already have Insights and FAQs, if people are looking for succinct, approved posts.

 

[WWGD]

I'm afraid I don't see how that alters my point at all. Popularity is a snowball effect. A nobody writing a good post isn't enough anymore, now they also need a 'reputation' to be heard over the 'high goodness score' people.

But the measure is intended to be a weighted average that will not give full weight to popularity alone, other factors will also be considered.

 

[atyy]

The idea of assigning some objective quantity of "goodness" to posts raises some alarm bells in my head.

Seems to me, the spirit of scientific inquiry is a democratic and merit-based one. By merit, I mean 'any good post' as opposed to 'someone who has a high goodness score'.

An inquisitive mind should read as much as possible before drawing a conclusion as to what the most helpful or wise answer is. A goodness rating - especially an automated one - interrupts that, and inches us down the slippery slope of the "appeal to popularity" and "appeal to authority" fallacies.

I think it will damage PF.

We are always on this slippery slope (for example, we already have mentors and science advisors), but I do agree with the spirit of your post.

 

[WWGD]

We are always on this slippery slope (for example, we already have mentors and science advisors), but I do agree with the spirit of your post.

But again, this is intended to serve as an aide, not as a substitute for judgement.

 

[mheslep]

PF is trying to "compete" with Redditt??

Reddit is the most common website visited immediately prior hitting PF (aside from google).

 

[mfb]

I don't know the timescale they use for the analysis. That number could be a bit biased from the nearly 400,000 hits this article got from being on the reddit front page recently.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I don't know the timescale they use for the analysis. That number could be a bit biased from the nearly 400,000 hits this article got from being on the reddit front page recently.

And alexa data is near useless because it relies on people using their toolbar, which is about exactly no one.

 

[DaveC426913]

But again, this is intended to serve as an aide, not as a substitute for judgement.

At the risk of sounding trite, the road to heck is paved with good intentions.
What it is 'intended' to do is meaningless. The issue is how will it be used. And PF has little control over that.

PF can't prevent posters from saying 'Your best answer is over here. Listen to this guy instead'.
PF can't prevent people from simply stopping with discussions, and preferring what they think is The One True Answer.
PF can't prevent low-rep posters from feeling intimidated into not posting.

 

[WWGD]

At the risk of sounding trite, the road to heck is paved with good intentions.
What it is 'intended' to do is meaningless. The issue is how will it be used. And PF has little control over that.

PF can't prevent posters from saying 'Your best answer is over here. Listen to this guy instead'.
PF can't prevent people from simply stopping with discussions, and preferring what they think is The One True Answer.
PF can't prevent low-rep posters from feeling intimidated into not posting.

I don't intend to force, nor pressure anyone to accept this, but you can design a measure that takes these issues into account.

 

[DaveC426913]

...you can design a measure that takes these issues into account.

Well, that's the question that's on the table, isn't it: Can you design a system that helps rather than hinders? Help what? Hinder what? You wouldn't know if you had until you saw it working.

I think the first hurdle, which is one of the things that triggers my alarms, is:

What exactly is the intent here? Define what it is intended to accomplish, specifically with reference to what PF is about (a place for answers, yes, but also for discussion).

Let me set up a situation. Let's set aside the 'how', let's say it is magic. As a user with a question, I press the Big Red Button, and what happens? I am taken to The Answer?What if this became so successful that we managed to post a definitive answer for every question asked to-date? Would PF become simply a physics-Wiki with post-traffic dropping precipitously? Is that a successful outcome?

 

[WWGD]

Well, that's the question that's on the table, isn't it: Can you design a system that helps rather than hinders? Help what? Hinder what? You wouldn't know if you had until you saw it working.

I think the first hurdle, which is one of the things that triggers my alarms, is:

What exactly is the intent here? Define what it is intended to accomplish, specifically with reference to what PF is about (a place for answers, yes, but also for discussion).

Let me set up a situation. Let's set aside the 'how', let's say it is magic. As a user with a question, I press the Big Red Button, and what happens? I am taken to The Answer?What if this became so successful that we managed to post a definitive answer for every question asked to-date? Would PF become simply a physics-Wiki with post-traffic dropping precipitously? Is that a successful outcome?

I will try to come up with something more concrete to illustrate my idea.

Still, at the end of the day, you can test-drive any new idea and drop it if you think it is not helpful

 

[mkay]

I remember browsing the general discussion and it had new and interesting posts/threads every day. Nowadays, it seems to be the same person creating new threads, perhaps in order to keep it alive?

Even though my account is new, I've been with PF for some years. The change of forum-software was an absolute god-send and a fantastic move. The forum is much much better. I'm not sure what causes the decline in activity (obviously), but it probably comes down to fewer people being interested in physics and forums.

I recently browsed a bitcoin's forum (bitcointalk.org) and was amazed at how many people used that forum. The software is bad (SMF) and much of the activity is spam/trash but one can argue that forums are not, by itself, a dead media.

Perhaps with the recent physics related movies/news PF will gain some much needed users.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

but it probably comes down to fewer people being interested in physics

Physics in general does need to get some mojo back
https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=physics

 

[mfb]

You mean it was more popular than bread in 2005?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

You mean it was more popular than bread in 2005?

I've learned not to doubt the minds at Google. Who searches for bread anyway :D

 

[Guapa]

Well, that's the question that's on the table, isn't it: Can you design a system that helps rather than hinders? Help what? Hinder what? You wouldn't know if you had until you saw it working.

I think the first hurdle, which is one of the things that triggers my alarms, is:

What exactly is the intent here? Define what it is intended to accomplish, specifically with reference to what PF is about (a place for answers, yes, but also for discussion).

Let me set up a situation. Let's set aside the 'how', let's say it is magic. As a user with a question, I press the Big Red Button, and what happens? I am taken to The Answer?What if this became so successful that we managed to post a definitive answer for every question asked to-date? Would PF become simply a physics-Wiki with post-traffic dropping precipitously? Is that a successful outcome?

You have a very interesting forum, Joe/Jane we (a nobody) has no easy access to ask questions of Science (unless we are in some sort of school) and you guys have experts that answer those questions. And reading through them every one has a different way to state the same fact, (Helps a lot). Some guys use simple words and very direct, others could come from top to bottom a bit more complex for my taste. At the end you guys helped someone.

All the way from kids to students, also kids that are homeschool ( I am a home-school sort of person) can reach one of your people and get a good answer or help. A Wikiphysics will not do that, or could not and we had to go trhough pages and pages and pages until get some concrete answer, or not even get the answer to the question because the article tend to go more complex and it never got my answer, what I need to know, but a bogus idea. And some times those articles could be more complex than what the questioner was interested to know. I understand that some questions does not have simple answers, and having several experts in the same filed can come up with different ways to explain, than an simple book answer, that might not really answer the question. Sorry if I am redundant.

I would say your experts love their area so much to come here and share with anyone that is willing to know about their subject. You do a great favor to society in many ways. I think it will be great that your forum should be known in libraries and also for the people that home school their kids, you certainly are a big helping hand (if that was the initial intention)

But to get the bran off the grain, which for the very best or important might be Ok, but has render not so nutritionally benefits as the whole grain.

Or in different terms we absolutely wants the positive but we do not want the negative, but for effects of having the greatness of electricity we need both!

Anyhow, I enjoy your forum over a good cup of coffe, Just like I enjoy solving math problems after breakfast.
Cheers!

 

[dlgoff]

I've learned not to doubt the minds at Google. Who searches for bread anyway :D

When mfb said,

You mean it was more popular than bread in 2005?

he wasn't considering this.

... Science Colloquium, students explored the chemistry, microbiology and physics involved in transforming seed into bread ...