Proposal: Sociology Threads Should Have Their Own Subforum

[Fra]

My personal impression is that focusing on the foundations of BSM physics: discussing what is science, what directions to pursue and fund is an important point, and moving them to the sociology sections somehow doesn't seem fair.

It's like banning questioning the questions and the context generating them, which is something that disheartens me at least, and it also goes against my personal idea of openminded science.

If most people want to use this forum to discuss more hands-on theories withing a given choice of context then I guess that has to be respected but then how about something more appropriate like "foundations of BSM" section where people can discuss the foundations, scientific methodology that provide the context and breething ground for any BSM theories? After all, if the foundational platform is skewed, there seems to be at least a possible risk that the right questions aren't asked. My interpretation of many of marucs posts is to hightlight that.

To dismiss that to sociology doesn't sound like progress IMHO.

/Fredrik

 

[ZapperZ]

My personal impression is that focusing on the foundations of BSM physics: discussing what is science, what directions to pursue and fund is an important point, and moving them to the sociology sections somehow doesn't seem fair.

It's like banning questioning the questions and the context generating them, which is something that disheartens me at least, and it also goes against my personal idea of openminded science.

If most people want to use this forum to discuss more hands-on theories withing a given choice of context then I guess that has to be respected but then how about something more appropriate like "foundations of BSM" section where people can discuss the foundations, scientific methodology that provide the context and breething ground for any BSM theories? After all, if the foundational platform is skewed, there seems to be at least a possible risk that the right questions aren't asked. My interpretation of many of marucs posts is to hightlight that.

To dismiss that to sociology doesn't sound like progress IMHO.

/Fredrik

We have done it for all the other physics forums. So far, it has worked very well that philosophical issues are moved to the Philosophy forum. It doesn't relegate them to anything less, other than in the minds of some people here. It certainly doesn't impede the "progress" by any stretch of the imagination.

The problem here is that this particular forum has enjoyed a bit more leeway than others, so you are assuming that those were your "rights" in the first place. That's a faulty impression. Those leeway were totally at the discretion of the Mentors, and that covers the use of non-published sources as well. You will note that such liberal usage of only-Arxiv sources are not allowed or encouraged in other physics forums here outside of BTSM forum.

In other words, people in here become spoiled with certain relaxation in policy that is applied to the rest of the physics forums. However, since those were imposed at our discretion, it can also be changed whenever the situation calls for it. While the use of ArXiv and Spires sources are not going to be disallowed anytime soon in this forum, simply because the relevant field of studies involved here have the propensity to use them, we will tighten the type of posting that is allowed on here to match our policy with the rest of the other physics forums.

So if one posts something that isn't on physics, but rather about physics, one does that at one's own risk.

Zz.

 

[arivero]

Not those, but the "All the Lepton masses..." thread is definitely better suited to BtSM than HEP! Oops! I guess this tells you how I voted in that poll.

Indeed it is; I didn't mentioned it because it is not in the first page today (yesterday). And yep, it is an amateur and numerology thread, but it even got a citation from in a PhysRev D article, and it collected most of the bibliography on "guessing mass". In fact I think that during the live time of the thread, the total of crackpot post in the internet trying to claim predictivity was below average... they were not competition

Now I ask myself, why did I start that thread in HEP subforum instead of BtSM? First, well, because it started to review the guessings of Hans, and I thought that such guessings had been done in a HEP subforum (sociology point: I was traveling across Europe at that time, with some posts done from internet cafes in Spain, Italy and Greece, and then no time to verify all the sources). But also because I had already got the feeling that the BtSM inhabitants were only interested on Gravity.

 

[nrqed]

My personal impression is that focusing on the foundations of BSM physics: discussing what is science, what directions to pursue and fund is an important point, and moving them to the sociology sections somehow doesn't seem fair.

It's like banning questioning the questions and the context generating them, which is something that disheartens me at least, and it also goes against my personal idea of openminded science.

If most people want to use this forum to discuss more hands-on theories withing a given choice of context then I guess that has to be respected but then how about something more appropriate like "foundations of BSM" section where people can discuss the foundations, scientific methodology that provide the context and breething ground for any BSM theories? After all, if the foundational platform is skewed, there seems to be at least a possible risk that the right questions aren't asked. My interpretation of many of marucs posts is to hightlight that.

To dismiss that to sociology doesn't sound like progress IMHO.

/Fredrik

One problem I have with all those discussions on number of citations, number of books sold is that it feels very unscientific so in that sense it feels to me completely opposite to sound scientific method . And just for that reason it does not belong to this subforum but would be appropriate to a sociology or career forum maybe. Because it feels like it is saying that a valid way to evaluate what is valid science and what area of research is worth pursuing is to basically take a poll! Ok, this is maybe a valid approach if you are an administrator and wants to hire someone or if you are a politician and you are deciding how much money to grant for different fields of research. But I feel that in a forum like here, we should be judging the different theories of BSM physics based on the physics itself. And that means learning the theories to start with, which is of course much more work than taking surveys and discussion sociological aspects.

And all these comments do not even involve the even more irrelevant comments such as "who did his PhD with whom and who is a rising star and deserves a postdoc at such and such institution" which , IMHO constitute noise which lowers the credibility of the forum.

 

[Cincinnatus]

I've stumbled onto this discussion late. Though I do sometimes lurk on this subforum so I'd like to say something about it. Also, it seems like you are making decisions here that affect all of physicsforums.

It is my humble opinion that threads about the social aspects of a subject are not only merely appropriate for a forum dedicated to that subject but that they should be actively encouraged.

I've been reading physicsforums probably longer than almost everyone else here. I started lurking on this board (the original version) when I was in high school. I am now in graduate school. So I've seen these forums evolve over a long time. I have always had a layman's interest in high energy physics so I've often read the beyond the standard model subforum.

For the last few years I've looked to this subforum as exactly how I'd hoped the rest of the board (particularly the now-defunct mind and brain forum) would evolve. This is the only forum (that I've read) on physicsforums that has a critical mass of professionals in the field. Thus it is the only subforum that very often has the potential for really substantive non explicitly didactic discussions.

This includes discussions of which direction the field is ultimately going. This is a real science question (not a question ABOUT science as you are saying). It just so happens that the only way to answer it involves social as well as physical factors. So what? We are ok with this in lots of other places. No one would ever say that a discussion of political science should not make reference to specific politicians.

There is a reason that the professionals on this board are all knowledgeable about social factors affecting the way physics gets done. Because no one gets to be as involved in a field as they are without becoming aware of these issues. I find that in real-life conversations with other scientists in my own field (theoretical neuroscience) a substantial portion of our conversation is about these social issues. Particularly in theoretical fields, so driven by fashion, understanding the social landscape of a field is just as important as understanding its theoretical foundations.

Lets say someone were able to learn all about theoretical physics exclusively from this board. Let's pretend this person was equally theoretically knowledgeable as any professional. I would argue that without these threads about the social aspects of the science, this person would be missing a vital part of their education in the field. I know that I felt like I understood my own field a lot better after I interviewed at many different graduate schools and met a large portion of the researchers working in my areas of interest.

I've been trying to start discussions in the Biology forum about these kinds of "larger" issues. Such as my thread on the role of quantitative methodology in the life sciences or my thread on the definition of systems biology. Neither of these threads has any explicit biological content, they are threads about biology as a field. So by some of your arguments here, my threads are inappropriate for the biology forum.

-----

More practically speaking, are threads on the social aspects of science really so offensive? Judging from the numbers of page views and replies they get, people are definitely reading them. So what's the point in stopping them from doing that? No one is requiring you to click on them.

Also, threads about the social aspects of physics are only really productive in this environment with a critical mass of professionals on this subforum. Let's not kid ourselves into thinking that they can just be moved to the social sciences forum and carry on in the same way. This would obviously be the kiss of death at least to the kinds of things that Marcus posts.

 

[shoehorn]

And all these comments do not even involve the even more irrelevant comemnts such as "who did his PhD with whom and who is a rising start and deserves a postdoc at such and such institution" which , IMHO constitute noise which lowers the credibility of the forum.

As evinced by the recent shambles of "Where should Lisi do a postdoc" or some other such gormless nonsense. Quite how anyone could post such a topic with a straight face is beyond me.

 

[humanino]

I've been reading physicsforums probably longer than almost everyone else here.

Cincinnatus joined 05.17.05
nqred joined 08.30.04
arivero joined 03.17.03
ZapperZ joined 01.20.04
...
Not that I am merely taking the people in chronological right before. Not trying to cheat.

This is the only forum (that I've read) on physicsforums that has a critical mass of professionals in the field. Thus it is the only subforum that very often has the potential for really substantive non explicitly didactic discussions.

What is this critical mass ?
What if you have another forum with only three Nobel prize scientists in another field spending their entire days on PF ?
What if you have a bunch of PhD and post-docs spending 5 minutes here and there on this forum ?

This includes discussions of which direction the field is ultimately going. This is a real science question (not a question ABOUT science as you are saying).

No this is not real science. This is ABOUT science.

Lets say someone were able to learn all about theoretical physics exclusively from this board. Let's pretend this person was equally theoretically knowledgeable as any professional. I would argue that without these threads about the social aspects of the science, this person would be missing a vital part of their education in the field.

No he would not ! There are published reviews on those questions. They are shorter, better written, peer-reviewed, better organized and structured, have clear disclaimers involving the identity of the author...

 

[nrqed]

I've stumbled onto this discussion late. Though I do sometimes lurk on this subforum so I'd like to say something about it. Also, it seems like you are making decisions here that affect all of physicsforums.

It is my humble opinion that threads about the social aspects of a subject are not only merely appropriate for a forum dedicated to that subject but that they should be actively encouraged.

I've been reading physicsforums probably longer than almost everyone else here. I started lurking on this board (the original version) when I was in high school. I am now in graduate school. So I've seen these forums evolve over a long time. I have always had a layman's interest in high energy physics so I've often read the beyond the standard model subforum.

For the last few years I've looked to this subforum as exactly how I'd hoped the rest of the board (particularly the now-defunct mind and brain forum) would evolve. This is the only forum (that I've read) on physicsforums that has a critical mass of professionals in the field. Thus it is the only subforum that very often has the potential for really substantive non explicitly didactic discussions.

This includes discussions of which direction the field is ultimately going. This is a real science question (not a question ABOUT science as you are saying). It just so happens that the only way to answer it involves social as well as physical factors. So what? ...

My reply is the following: governmental funding is also an important factor determining the direction science takes. So politics is also an important factor. Who will be elected and appointed in certain key positions will impact how much money will be devoted to fundamental research and to different labs etc etc.

So should we allow discussions on politics in the Particle Physics forum because politics has an impact on which labs and which projects will get funded in the next 5, 10 years?
You really want a bunch of threads on politics when you visit a forum on particle physics?


The point is not that threads on sociology are not interesting to some people. The point is whether they belong to a this subforum. If I am trying to understand a technical point of loop quantum gravity and visit this forum for the first time and I see threads on counting number of citations, listing papers abstract that I can find just by looking at the arxiv, talking about number of books sold, etc...well, frankly, I would conclude that this is not the place for me to learn new things about loop quantum gravity and I would not come back.

 

[Cincinnatus]

Cincinnatus joined 05.17.05
nqred joined 08.30.04
arivero joined 03.17.03
ZapperZ joined 01.20.04

I read the forums for years before making an account. I know that it must have been before 2004 when I started since that is the year I graduated from high school and I know I was lurking here before that... Anyway, forget it 'who joined when' doesn't matter.

---

My reply is the following: governmental funding is also an important factor determining the direction science takes. So politics is also an important factor. Who will be elected and appointed in certain key positions will impact how much money will be devoted to fundamental research and to different labs etc etc.

I agree it is a slippery slope. Since threads about politics haven't been showing up here, I don't see why this is an issue. It doesn't seem to have been going quite that far.

---

Physicsforums needs to decide whether it wants to be an informal version of a journal article or a formal version of a "physicist's conversation by the coffee maker"

Some of us think the latter would be more valuable, some clearly the former. I don't really see why the conversations can't coexist on the same subforum. Surely if you want to make a good impression on a passing newcomer the best way to do that would be to post more of the threads you find interesting, not prevent others from posting what they find interesting.

 

[josh1]

I don't really see why the conversations can't coexist on the same subforum. Surely if you want to make a good impression on a passing newcomer the best way to do that would be to post more of the threads you find interesting, not prevent others from posting what they find interesting.

There's a nastier underlying problem here which is that the individuals making these sorts of posts do so for what I'll diplomatically call "personal reasons" that have nothing to do with physics as it's actually viewed by physicists and serve largely to mislead others who for one reason or another aren't able or willing to recognize this. It sounds like you might be among these, though I mean nothing personal by this. The question one must ask is why would a person who actually understands the physics instead choose to spend so much of their time making these sorts of useless posts? The answer is no one.

 

[nrqed]

I agree it is a slippery slope. Since threads about politics haven't been showing up here, I don't see why this is an issue. It doesn't seem to have been going quite that far.

---

But that's the key point. If you allow talking about citations, number of books sold, who should be hired by whom, etc, then you have no justification to remove a thread from someone talking about politics.

Physicsforums needs to decide whether it wants to be an informal version of a journal article or a formal version of a "physicist's conversation by the coffee maker"

But there is already a subforum General Discussion for coffee maker type of conversations.

Some of us think the latter would be more valuable, some clearly the former. I don't really see why the conversations can't coexist on the same subforum. Surely if you want to make a good impression on a passing newcomer the best way to do that would be to post more of the threads you find interesting, not prevent others from posting what they find interesting.

I think that this is flawed logic. Let's apply the same logic to a different situation. Let's say there are crackpots posting on a forum and someone wants to ban their posts. Applying your logic, you might say "don't ban crackpot posts, simply post more posts than the crackpots"!

 

[George Jones]

I don't think so.

Zz.

These days, BPS states usually arise in the context of supersymmetry and D-branes. In this context, their natural home is the Beyond the Standard Model forum.

The latest thread on BPS states in the High Energy, Nuclear, Particle Physics forum, doesn't appear to be in this context, but I'm not entirely sure. Even if this latest thread is in the "right" forum, it might have a better shot at being answered in the Beyond the Standard Model by people knowledgeable about BPS states.

It's not always clear where a thread belongs.

 

[robphy]

It is my humble opinion that threads about the social aspects of a subject are not only merely appropriate for a forum dedicated to that subject but that they should be actively encouraged.

One reason I like physicsforums (and don't like sci.physics.* ) is because there is some organization of topics... and, if a forum gets too diluted, some reorganization may occur.

I personally think that there is distinction between a discussion of PHYSICS and a discussion of PHYSICISTS (which includes the history and sociology of how the field of PHYSICS develops). Both are important (with PHYSICS more important for me)... but if there is sufficient interest in both, it might be better to split things off and restore the organization.

Here, I prefer the focus to stay on physics and would be willing to see an occasional discussion or two on physicists... as one would probably see in a future physics textbook on this subject, with occasional sprinkles of history and sociology. If I want to read more about the history or sociology, I'll try to find a different subforum (or book).

Maybe some threads need a label indicating it is more about PHYSICISTS than about PHYSICS.

 

[Cincinnatus]

These days, BPS states usually arise in the context of supersymmetry and D-branes. In this context, their natural home is the Beyond the Standard Model forum.

The latest thread on BPS states in the High Energy, Nuclear, Particle Physics forum, doesn't appear to be in this context, but I'm not entirely sure. Even if this latest thread is in the "right" forum, it might have a better shot at being answered in the Beyond the Standard Model by people knowledgeable about BPS states.

It's not always clear where a thread belongs.

and posts about social issues in theoretical physics have a better chance of being answered here (where the theoretical physicists are) than they do in the social sciences forum or general discussion...Maybe the original proposal of the first post in this thread is best. Why not create a sub-sub forum of beyond the standard model to house these posts? That way these conversations would be seen by knowledgeable people since there would be an explicit button you could click on when you want to find such a conversation. This would probably work much better than just requiring them to go in the social sciences forum which we know professional physicists are much less likely to click on.

 

[arivero]

About moving threads, again... are the blogs fully functional now? I tried to limit controversial topics by using the blog for the more speculative entries, this is an advantage we have over newsgroups. But they were not working... people reported of garbaged TeX and so. That was some months ago, so let's asume the problem is fixed. Then it could be possible to give admins the right to move threads not only to other subforums but also to the blog of the Original Poster. Given that the threads under discussion, say "stats of..." or "masses of..." are perceived by PF veterans as "oh, another Marcus's thread", "another arivero's thread", etc, they could be moved to the respective blogs AND marked as moved in the initial subforum.

 

[humanino]

Why not create a sub-sub forum of beyond the standard model to house these posts?

That's by far the best solution. However, it will require a lot of work and I am not sure admins will consider it worth.

 

[arivero]

And all these comments do not even involve the even more irrelevant comments such as "who did his PhD with whom and who is a rising star and deserves a postdoc at such and such institution" which , IMHO constitute noise which lowers the credibility of the forum.

Again, I think it is my fault here. Time ago I did some queries about the PhD advisor/student relationships in theoretical physics; in fact it is also my fault the existence of a "tree mode" in SPIRES HEPnames database (Not that I programmed it, but I suggested it). When my page on this genealogy was about to dissapear, it was transplanted into the wikipedia.

Whatever. The observation of this genealogy is that about one half of the Nobel Prizes are awarded to people whose "family" has already a Nobel Prize. And also the same seems to apply to minor rewards, as "topcites".

The interpretation is that it happens because there are only a few groups leading, across time, the research on key topics of fundamental/theoretical/particle physics. Why does it happen, that should be worth of a real sociology discussion. But the point is that adscription to one of the "key families" is a hint of possible hotness of a topic.

This was discussed a lot of time ago, and perhaps not even in PF. So when some mention of this kind appears here, it lacks context, I am afraid.

 

[Cincinnatus]

Again, I think it is my fault here. Time ago I did some queries about the PhD advisor/student relationships in theoretical physics; in fact it is also my fault the existence of a "tree mode" in SPIRES HEPnames database (Not that I programmed it, but I suggested it). When my page on this genealogy was about to dissapear, it was transplanted into the wikipedia.

Whatever. The observation of this genealogy is that about one half of the Nobel Prizes are awarded to people whose "family" has already a Nobel Prize. And also the same seems to apply to minor rewards, as "topcites".

The interpretation is that it happens because there are only a few groups leading, across time, the research on key topics of fundamental/theoretical/particle physics. Why does it happen, that should be worth of a real sociology discussion. But the point is that adscription to one of the "key families" is a hint of possible hotness of a topic.

This was discussed a lot of time ago, and perhaps not even in PF. So when some mention of this kind appears here, it lacks context, I am afraid.

This is really interesting, I wonder if the same is true for citations in theoretical neuroscience. I'll definitely look into it when I have time...

 

[josh1]

A compromise solution might be a sticky. But the initiating post would have to make quite clear the sociological and therefore fundamentally unscientific and even meaningless nature of the thread. It might even be a kind of trash thread.

 

[Cincinnatus]

A compromise solution might be a sticky. But the initiating post would have to make quite clear the sociological and therefore fundamentally unscientific and even meaningless nature of the thread. It might even be a kind of trash thread.

Hey now, that might be an ok compromise.

but why claim social issues are "meaningless"? Just because you aren't interested in them? Clearly some of the members of this forum are interested enough to track down real statistics and data on these matters.

Discussion of social issues in theoretical physics may not be appropriate for this forum but that certainly doesn't make them meaningless.

 

[humanino]

but why claim social issues are "meaningless"? Just because you aren't interested in them? Clearly some of the members of this forum are interested enough to track down real statistics and data on these matters.

One can be interested in those issues and still feel that they are innapropriate as such.

 

[ZapperZ]

These days, BPS states usually arise in the context of supersymmetry and D-branes. In this context, their natural home is the Beyond the Standard Model forum.

Then hit the REPORT button and suggests that it be moved.

We (the Mentors) do this all the time, moving threads into forums that are more suitable. There's zero issue here.

Zz.

 

[arivero]

Then hit the REPORT button and suggests that it be moved.

We (the Mentors) do this all the time, moving threads into forums that are more suitable. There's zero issue here.

Zz.

Then the remark
Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising messages, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts.
should be also be enhanced to "unappropiated".

 

[Gokul43201]

Then the remark
Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising messages, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts.
should be also be enhanced to "unappropiated".

Unfortunately, that description can not be changed. But it is to be understood that any issue with a post/thread that you believe requires moderation can be addressed by the REPORT feature.What do the Mentors say about a subforum under BtSM, or a sticky thread?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Unfortunately, that description can not be changed. But it is to be understood that any issue with a post/thread that you believe requires moderation can be addressed by the REPORT feature.

It can, and it has :)

 

[Gokul43201]

Hmmm...I was under the impression that this was a difficult change to implement. Well, I'm sure rivero's happy to make full use of it now!

 

[josh1]

...but why claim social issues are "meaningless"?

Sorry. I meant meaningless in the sense that sociological considerations cannot be used to accurately assess the viability of physics theories. Maybe "useless" would have been a better choice.

 

[arivero]

Sorry. I meant meaningless in the sense that sociological considerations cannot be used to accurately assess the viability of physics theories. Maybe "useless" would have been a better choice.

Well the difference between mathematical considerations and sociological considerations, both of which can not be used to accurately assess the viability of physics theories, is that mathematical considerations show "causes", while sociological considerations show "symptoms". A problem in theoretical physics is that very frequently these symptoms reflect the math, not the physics.

 

[Fra]

We have done it for all the other physics forums. So far, it has worked very well that philosophical issues are moved to the Philosophy forum. It doesn't relegate them to anything less, other than in the minds of some people here. It certainly doesn't impede the "progress" by any stretch of the imagination.

I see and understand the good point about this and about rights. I agree that if a particular discussion are moved from here to there, it doesn't matter. And no subforum is inferior of another of course. That's great.

But is that the way it works?

I see the chance is that if some discussions are banned here, they might not move, but change/disappear. Because who would expect discussions of funding and trends in research in the sociology section? Not me at least. I don't look for things that interest me in places where I don't expect to find it.

It seems desirable that potential participants in discussions are to be likely to locate them. If there is too much partitioning and too low activity in each subforum I think at least I would tend to miss it.

Except for obvious spam/crack-posts, which as I understand is not the topic here, I personally see the topics as a pure matter of effiency of indexing, so that the users can find what they are interested in?

/Fredrik

 

[nrqed]

As evinced by the recent shambles of "Where should Lisi do a postdoc" or some other such gormless nonsense. Quite how anyone could post such a topic with a straight face is beyond me.

I would really like people to comment on this.

Because this shows how things can degenerate into once we start letting sociological discussions flourish in a science forum.

 

[BenTheMan]

I would really like people to comment on this.

Because this shows how things can degenerate into once we start letting sociological discussions flourish in a science forum.

I was pretty disgusted about that thread---I would hate the field to descend into some damned soap opera with ``good guys'' and ``bad guys'' and the evil twin who we thaught died in Namiba, etc.

I think that I started this thread because the things I saw posted somehow reached a critical mass in my mind, and the whole thing kind of made my head explode.

I don't mind talking about the sociology of the field occasionally---exactly as someone pointed out, by the coffee maker. But I also don't mind talking about politics occasionally. That doesn't mean that I want to see it in this forum. The value of Physics Forums is that there IS a place to discuss physics in a serious manner, among serious people. I remember one of the earlier posts I made here was in trying to prove that N=4 SYM theory WAS conformally invariant---and in fact it was Garrett Lisi who answered my question.

The problem is that there are some people here whose whole contribution here can be sumarized as "captain of the Lee Smolin fan club". And I personally would rather have a place to talk about physics. If you want to tell me WHY spin foams reproduce the standard model, or WHY the new Smolin paper (which predicts four neutrinos) isn't ruled out by electroweak data, I would LOVE to hear. But I don't care, and judging by the response many here don't care, about how many people cite that paper.

 

[ZapperZ]

I see and understand the good point about this and about rights. I agree that if a particular discussion are moved from here to there, it doesn't matter. And no subforum is inferior of another of course. That's great.

But is that the way it works?

I see the chance is that if some discussions are banned here, they might not move, but change/disappear. Because who would expect discussions of funding and trends in research in the sociology section? Not me at least. I don't look for things that interest me in places where I don't expect to find it.

It seems desirable that potential participants in discussions are to be likely to locate them. If there is too much partitioning and too low activity in each subforum I think at least I would tend to miss it.

Except for obvious spam/crack-posts, which as I understand is not the topic here, I personally see the topics as a pure matter of effiency of indexing, so that the users can find what they are interested in?

/Fredrik

And I don't see it that way. I can easily argue that you've also missed several other "important" issues in various other physics forums. Why not simply have just ONE big physics forums so that no one would miss anything?

I have seen how a forum gets bogged down with peripheral issues unrelated to the actual physics. Since these physics forums are meant to discuss physics in the first place, we are trying to bring it back to where it should be, not trying to change it. All the other physics forums follow that rule. Why should be one be any different?

If you do not read other forums and missed what might interest you, that's your loss. No forum can protect you from your own choices and decisions. And no forum can be everything to everyone. We had similar complaint when we got rid of "crackpot forum" a while back, that we are stunting "creativity" and that no one would want to be here. Look at where this forum is now!

Zz.

 

[Gokul43201]

I would really like people to comment on this.

My diagnosis is that there's a close-knit community of BtSM regulars that don't much venture outside this sub-forum and hence use it for all forms of interaction between themselves (from discussion of science, to chatting about vacations, conferences and poetry). The above topic, if at all, belongs in GD, though I'm sure the intended audience would never find it there. I can empathize with the regulars who fear the loss of a coffee table, but I think they should just learn to find their way to the one in GD.

The main forums are not meant for coffee table discussion, and any such threads should be allowed only at the discretion of Mentors.

Having said that, I recognize that there is definitely the need for permitting some kinds of threads not directly discussing physics, such as announcements of conferences, seminars, etc. that are relevant to the community. I imagine the Mentors will have no problems with such communication residing within the subforum.

 

[Kea]

My diagnosis is that there's a close-knit community of BtSM regulars that don't much venture outside this sub-forum...

As an old poetry loving, only-BtSM regular, who doesn't come here much any more, I say Thank You for doing something about this. It is with great dismay that I have watched the deterioration in the general quality of posts since people like Careful stopped coming here, and people like selfAdjoint (RIP) passed on.

 

[marcus]

My diagnosis is that there's a close-knit community of BtSM regulars that don't much venture outside this sub-forum and hence use it for all forms of interaction between themselves (from discussion of science, to chatting about vacations, conferences and poetry). The above topic, if at all, belongs in GD, ...
The main forums are not meant for coffee table discussion, and any such threads should be allowed only at the discretion of Mentors...

Can't speak for others but my interest in BtSM is approximately that of science journalist or contemporary science historian. I try to keep track of the shifting approaches to QG. Incidentally this involves keeping track of rates of peer-reviewed publication and rates of citation. But, as you suggested, I also watch the lineup of topics and invited speakers at major conferences. And I read as many papers as I have time for, in a number of different QG approaches. I am skeptical of all the approaches, they all have problems, but alert for signs of progress. This is not a merely social or "coffee-table" interest---although occasionally I start or join a lighthearted thread for fun---I'm primarily trying to get an accurate overview of the rapid changes occurring in BtSM.

I get invaluable help in this from interacting with certain other people at the subforum and thinking about what they have said----others who are open to various QG approaches and trying to get a whole picture...

don't have time to complete this or edit. Thanks for some of your expressions of understanding, Gokul.

 

[Kea]

Marcus, get real. You have shown no understanding or interest whatsoever in stringy physics, let alone some other non LQG/foam/CDT approach to BTSM physics.

 

[marcus]

As an old poetry loving, only-BtSM regular,..

you should come around more, Kea. Both you and Sabine H. started your own blogs and almost immediately cut back on participating here.

people like selfAdjoint (RIP)...

loved the guy. civility, humor, grace, understood several different approaches. brought out the best in us.

...You have shown no understanding or interest whatsoever in stringy physics, let alone some other non LQG/foam/CDT approach to BTSM physics.

Perhaps you are right. Perhaps not shown. My interest do go outside loop-foam-CDT. I try. Baez stuff comes to mind. We've had several threads where he participated actively. But not since he started his blog. (n-category cafe)

 

[josh1]

Marcus, get real. You have shown no understanding or interest whatsoever in stringy physics, let alone some other non LQG/foam/CDT approach to BTSM physics.

You know what's really funny about this thread? It's that it's largely about the devisive influence of one member on this forum, without which there would never have been any need for this thread.

 

[Fra]

Why not simply have just ONE big physics forums so that no one would miss anything?

Then people would certainly miss things, because the filtering time gets significant, and people don't want to spend their days filtering. People get sick of sorting out things and go elsewhere. It's not efficient either nor favourable.

If you do not read other forums and missed what might interest you, that's your loss.

Yes that is true. I accept that responsibility. But OTOH, any forum is dependent on the collective, the sum of the participants.

My impression is that in this case, we are not near overload here? The point seems to be to keep some people from beeing annoyed by certain posts because they take on different views. The sorting times are hardly the issue?

We had similar complaint when we got rid of "crackpot forum" a while back, that we are stunting "creativity" and that no one would want to be here. Look at where this forum is now!

Is that a trick question? I didn't know there was one? All I'm aware of is the independent research forum?

I'll stop arging here, and I indirectly appreciate posts that doesn't interest me directly in the sense that I want to participate, because it gives an image of the interest of the collective. That does interest me. It gives an overview over the reasoning of the other participants.

I appreciate this forum and you are all doing a great job to keep the signal to noise ratio high that's for sure. I just recall an analogt to the dolby noise reduction systems who got rid of some noise but also introduced a good distortion of the original signal and I could never decide which I like better. The original noisy signal, or the distorted noisefree one.

/Fredrik

 

[vanesch]

My diagnosis is that there's a close-knit community of BtSM regulars that don't much venture outside this sub-forum and hence use it for all forms of interaction between themselves (from discussion of science, to chatting about vacations, conferences and poetry). The above topic, if at all, belongs in GD, though I'm sure the intended audience would never find it there. I can empathize with the regulars who fear the loss of a coffee table, but I think they should just learn to find their way to the one in GD.

I fully agree with you. I can also say that BTSM regularly gives grey hair to the mentors, because many practices here are used as arguments with crackpots about our policies not being uniform throughout PF. Regularly the suggestion comes up to simply close down BTSM, simply because it seems to fit into a totally different spirit than all the rest of PF, where we tend to ban the "highly speculative" and to stick to "generally accepted science". The nature of BTSM means of course that there is no "generally accepted science". Now, as long as BTSM is just a discussion between knowledgeable people in these speculative fields, this is part of physics of course, but it gives us problems as where to draw the line. Hence the "loose moderation" of this forum, and hence sometimes the accusations of double standard.

To all those interested in the "social" and "chatty" part of this forum, as Gokul points out, we have a good place for that, which is GD. If the social study is to be more serious, then we have "social sciences". If it has to do with career choices, we have "career guidance". If it is philosophical, we have the philosophy forum.

Now, of course, a thread can evolve, and something that was purely physical can get some social or philosophical twist. So be it.

But the "congratulations for your paper" is not so different from "happy birthday", and should go in the GD forum. However, the "in paper this and that, it is said that, blah blah, but I would think that so and this...", THAT belongs here.

Things like "there are only 3 postdoc positions open for this and that kind of research" belongs more in the career advice section.

And finally and most importantly, most mentors, if not all, just get nervous at "string bashing" versus "LQG bashing", openly or hidden.

The point about wandering about in different fora is also that other people would see a bit about this world (and that the regulars here would see something about the others :-)

 

[Moonbear]

My diagnosis is that there's a close-knit community of BtSM regulars that don't much venture outside this sub-forum and hence use it for all forms of interaction between themselves (from discussion of science, to chatting about vacations, conferences and poetry). The above topic, if at all, belongs in GD, though I'm sure the intended audience would never find it there. I can empathize with the regulars who fear the loss of a coffee table, but I think they should just learn to find their way to the one in GD.

I also agree. If a topic is sociological in nature, it should be discussed within the context of sociology in the social sciences forum. To not do so only perpetuates the myth the social sciences is all about touchy feely stuff that has no relevance to the real world or other sciences. And, it's not like our social sciences forum is swamped with tons of threads every day that would bury such topics. If the people who enjoy discussing the sociology threads know to look there for them, they will get just as much discussion as when posted here...perhaps more so since others may not hesitate to get involved in what looks like an off-topic discussion. For that matter, there may be others on this site who typically do not venture into the BTSM forum who might find such discussions of sociological issues more interesting and would participate in them should they find them in the more appropriate forums. Keep in mind that ALL the forums here fall under the purview of PHYSICS Forums. Even the non-science topics here are present because they are of sufficient interest to the scientists (or budding scientists) who frequent the site to be worthwhile to include. The present concerns are a perfect example of it. Clearly there are people here who enjoy discussing sociological topics, and for those who don't, they are a distraction when placed in a science-focused subforum. So, we have a social sciences subforum where such topics can be discussed for those who enjoy it.

Given that this is not a new problem here in the BTSM forum, however, and that there are quite a lot of threads/posts that are not strictly about physics going back for some time now, it's not a matter of just moving a couple threads around and being done with it. So, the mentors ARE discussing this issue and figuring out the best way to deal with it...a final decision has not yet been made. One of us will make a formal announcement within this forum when we reach a consensus decision. In the meantime, I suggest that anyone starting NEW threads consider if there are better forums here for the topic than this one if they are not directly discussing science but another primary subject (i.e., science policy, science book sales data, science funding), and place those discussions there voluntarily.

 

[grosquet]

Seems to me the simplest thing to do, is to create a new subforum titled “sci.physics.loops” to match the existing “sci.physics.strings”, and to move all future threads & posts relating to either strings or LQG to these 2 subforums. This would avoid all controversies & would help those seeking these subjects in particular.

"The human mind is an extraordinary thing - the most complex entity we have encountered anywhere in this vast Universe." John D. Barrow

 

[jal]

the mentors ARE discussing this issue and figuring out the best way to deal with it...a final decision has not yet been made.

Nothing stays the same.

Getting a guest speaker explaining and answering questions on his latest paper (even if it is not peer reviewed) would be a great idea to generate interest.

Look around you! ... everyone has his page ... his blog ... the pop science journals have comment abilities for the readers.
University student have their private network ... etc.

Everyone is trying to attract a very small group of people to their site.

This forum will need to change to stay alive.

Marcus, understood what I had previously said, work on it ... get it right ...

...Kea. Both you and Sabine H. started your own blogs and almost immediately cut back on participating here... Baez stuff comes to mind. We've had several threads where he participated actively. But not since he started his blog. (n-category cafe)

 

[robphy]

I'd suggest "Beyond the Standard Model community" as a subforum here [so that it's close to the BtSM folks] to handle topics that are more about PHYSICISTS than about the [maybe-someday textbook] PHYSICS... in the spirit of the original post in this thread.

 

[shoehorn]

Seems to me the simplest thing to do, is to create a new subforum titled “sci.physics.loops” to match the existing “sci.physics.strings”,[/I]

This idea is a non starter. Sci.physics* are newsgroups; setting one up would therefore require going jumping through hoops for RFCs, finding people who could be bothered to moderate it, and so on. In fact, one of the reasons sci.physics.strings is such a graveyard is precisely because it's a newsgroup.

For what little it's worth, I'm quite happy with the forum as it is at present apart from the horrible anti-string bias and the cheerleading for Smolin et al. Smolin's a perfectly decent fellow but it irritates me no end when people use this forum to promote his ideas (and, by extension, denigrate ideas that have come from string theory) seemingly without the slightest clue as to what those ideas actually are; this isn't an example of sociological discussion, it's puerile junk that doesn't belong on a forum which is otherwise doing quite well (thanks in large part to the mods).

As to the larger question of the degree of latitude afforded the posts here, I think that's largely something that comes with the territory when the purpose of the forum is as speculative as to discuss physics "beyond the standard model." There's nothing wrong with speculative ideas in this context; indeed, what we work on is entirely speculative, although usually at least grounded in solid mathematics. The point, I think, is that there's a world of difference between speculative ideas which make sense at least a priori and those crackpot ideas which pop up here from time to time. Most everyone can spot a junk idea if they're familiar with standard ideas including, presumably, the mods. I'd be disappointed if there was a crackdown on the type of posts which limited things solely to discussions of the two main approaches to QG. A simple pruning of the weeds (including the interminable market research data on book sales) will allow the rest of the garden to grow quite nicely.

 

[jal]

Forgot to say...
YOUTUBE ... FACEBOOK ETC. can get more hits on one thread in one day than all the threads of physicforums has gotten since it started.
I'm not suggesting that this is a fair comparison but rather suggesting that the forum leaders have got to look at what is happening "out there" and come up with a target audience and a way to reach them.

 

[jtbell]

So far I've seen two main proposals for separating the "non-physics" discussion here:

1. Move it to existing forums on those general areas: Social Science, Academic & Career Guidance, etc.

2. Create a sub-forum called "Sociology of Physics" or something similar. If it were up to me, I'd call it "BtSM People, Institutions and Publications" to make it more explicit. This requires work from PF's technical admins, to re-configure the forum software.

Here's another possibility, sort of a lightweight version of #2 that doesn't need any work from PF's technical administrators:

3. Create dedicated sticky threads for these posts, perhaps one for "People and Institutions" and another for "Publications and Statistics". Mentors would merge new threads or posts into those stickies as they deem appropriate. This is a straightforward process, very similar to moving threads to a different forum.

 

[Hans de Vries]

1. Move it to existing forums on those general areas: Social Science, Academic & Career Guidance, etc.

The regular crowd probably don't want to see their cozy place to be split up all over the place.

2. Create a sub-forum called "Sociology of Physics" or something similar. If it were up to me, I'd call it "BtSM People, Institutions and Publications" to make it more explicit. This requires work from PF's technical admins, to re-configure the forum software.3. Create dedicated sticky threads for these posts, perhaps one for "People and Institutions" and another for "Publications and Statistics". Mentors would merge new threads or posts into those stickies as they deem appropriate. This is a straightforward process, very similar to moving threads to a different forum.

The high percentage of posts would probably justify sub-forums instead of sticky
threads but I would use your qualification in point 3, so something like:1) Trends in theoretical physics: (For the statistics and pro/contra discussions)
2) The theoretical physics community: (To keep it cozy)Regards, Hans

 

[marcus]

...
1) Trends in theoretical physics: (For the statistics and pro/contra discussions)
...

Constructive idea "trends in theoretical physics" and I think such a discussion might have only a minor proportion of statistics and pro/con struggle! It's important to mention there are major trends in BtSM physics which have nothing to do with people's egos and A versus B partisanship. For example:

*recent papers of Loll connecting CDT quantum gravity with no-extra-dimensions (could call it "NXD") string
*papers of Baez, Perez and others with spinfoam background connecting also to NXD string
*the general theme of CONVERGENCE in nonstring quantum gravity:
1. joining loop and foam approaches (e.g. Rovelli's talk at the main conference and the Zako workshop)
2. joining the full loopfoam theory with LQC (cosmology, numerous recent papers and Rovelli's seminar talk in April)
3. joining loopfoam with NQC (central agenda of this years QG2 conference)

BtSM not static, with set topics. New stuff is changing the rules of the game. Trends are clearly reflected in preprints available online, and online seminar talks. It would be nice to discuss these things---and not necessarily contentious!

Good idea anyway, Hans.

 

[arivero]

*recent papers of Loll connecting CDT quantum gravity with no-extra-dimensions (could call it "NXD") string
*papers of Baez, Perez and others with spinfoam background connecting also to NXD string
*the general theme of CONVERGENCE in nonstring quantum gravity:
1. joining loop and foam approaches (e.g. Rovelli's talk at the main conference and the Zako workshop)
2. joining the full loopfoam theory with LQC (cosmology, numerous recent papers and Rovelli's seminar talk in April)
3. joining loopfoam with NQC (central agenda of this years QG2 conference)

BtSM

Also, I'd suggest the main subforum to be renamed B-GR. Even most of the string theory discussions here and in the paralised sps group were more B-GR than BtSM :-(