Proposal: Sociology Threads Should Have Their Own Subforum

[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 :-(

 

[Doc Al]

Gang,

Please take a look at the all new https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=178075".

Thanks!