Request for a new History of Science subforum

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Would you like a history of science forum?

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pines-demon
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pines-demon said:
post like these are why we need a history of science forum
Well, it is in the "History" forum after all... :wink:
 
berkeman said:
Well, it is in the "History" forum after all... :wink:
Yeah I mean a more specific history one, it's in the art, music, history and linguistics forum which mostly includes popular culture not necessarily science related.
 
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pines-demon said:
Yeah I mean a more specific history one, it's in the art, music, history and linguistics forum which mostly includes popular culture not necessarily science related.

Our friend with the history of science. This argument has been made before: creating a separate subforum is not an issue that there is a need for extra programming by Greg. The idea is for the new section to have both visibility and traffic. If you create a section with only 5 threads a month, it may not be worth the effort. And what Greg could do is to rename this section as "Art, Music, and Social Sciences". So that one could be represented by all social sciences, not only history & linguistics.
 
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dextercioby said:
Our friend with the history of science. This argument has been made before: creating a separate subforum is not an issue that there is a need for extra programming by Greg. The idea is for the new section to have both visibility and traffic. If you create a section with only 5 threads a month, it may not be worth the effort.
Some forums have not had an update since January, the book subforum had not had an update since November. Maybe we can at least test it. People also do not post this stuff because there is no forum for it.
 
pines-demon said:
Some forums have not had an update since January, the book subforum had not had an update since November. Maybe we can at least test it. People also do not post this stuff because there is no forum for it.
We could look into what would go into it. This string is about one event essentially with a little about Manchester's standing in the science community at that time.
I think there is a lot of content that could populate that SF.

Important scientific historical events like Chernobyl, the Manhattan project, Spanish flu, COVID 19, three mile Island, 1911 Solvay conference, LHC Switched on.

Bios. Wikipedia is ok but this is PF...there would be some actual serious physics involved!

A seminal paper, the back drop, context and impact.

I think there is a lot to aim at, most likely covered at some point on PF but a SF would put it in one place.

There would be a little historical politics in there so we would have to a little careful there.

I would also suggest a bit of an angle, a large history post would not be particularly interesting, we all know a lot about Galileo, Newton and Dirac. That's just me though.
 
pinball1970 said:
We could look into what would go into it. This string is about one event essentially with a little about Manchester's standing in the science community at that time.
I think there is a lot of content that could populate that SF.

Important scientific historical events like Chernobyl, the Manhattan project, Spanish flu, COVID 19, three mile Island, 1911 Solvay conference, LHC Switched on.

Bios. Wikipedia is ok but this is PF...there would be some actual serious physics involved!

A seminal paper, the back drop, context and impact.

I think there is a lot to aim at, most likely covered at some point on PF but a SF would put it in one place.

There would be a little historical politics in there so we would have to a little careful there.

I would also suggest a bit of an angle, a large history post would not be particularly interesting, we all know a lot about Galileo, Newton and Dirac. That's just me though.
Also obituaries of scientists
 
pines-demon said:
Also obituaries of scientists
Yeah that makes sense.
 
Poll?
 
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Some observations:
1) I do not think that subforums are visible/useful enough (in general - there are exceptions).
2) A problem with the AMHL forum is that it has been overwhelmed by music discussions.
2a) If one accepts this, an alternative solution would be to create a music (or popular culture) forum. Alternatively, one could move music to General Discussions which is where movies and tv are discussed.
3) For me the argument for a science history forum is that when a critical mass of posts is reached, it will become a place to visit just to browse for interesting information.
4) @Evo spent a lot of time weeding the lounge. It would be interesting if someone could get her thoughts on the matter.
5) The two current science history threads have become too long to read easily.
 
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We recently spun off the game threads into their own sub forum. Let's reboot general discussion with these types of threads and if we feel then we need further organization we can consider a new sub forum.
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
Let's reboot general discussion with these types of threads
It’s not clear to me what you mean by this.
 
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Greg Bernhardt said:
We recently spun off the game threads into their own sub forum. Let's reboot general discussion with these types of threads and if we feel then we need further organization we can consider a new sub forum.
It seems like music has already met the qualifications for a subforum.
 
It seems to me how people “Browse” forums is relevant to this discussion.
1) “Search” is different from “Browse”. I believe “Search” is handled fairly well.
2) I currently use “What’s New” to browse for posts.
3) I generally look at every notification I receive.
4) I was never too happy with subscribing to forums, because I generally found the signal to noise too high.
5) I periodically (multiple times per year) delete notifications for threads I have responded to because I get bored with long running threads.
6) I have looked at the titles of “every” thread in a couple of forums
7) Given my way of browsing, I am sympathetic to large numbers of highly specialized small use forums.
8) I recognize that other people interact differently.
 
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Greg Bernhardt said:
We recently spun off the game threads into their own sub forum. Let's reboot general discussion with these types of threads and if we feel then we need further organization we can consider a new sub forum.
This sorting of threads among forums in to fun and games did not come off as well done to me. There are some jokey threads left in the General Discussion:
  1. Programming Jokes: Lame, Science & Math Jokes!
  2. Bad Math Jokes
These in General Discussion seem like puzzles (or games) to me:
  1. Mathematical definition of a rigid body
  2. there are several

There are obits in both the General discussion and Fun, Photos and Games Forum.
There may be a reason for their distribution like science people in the main discussion and celebs in the other one, but it has not been explained.
Maybe dead scientists could go into the the science history forum (that seems historical to me). However, the deaths of certain scientists may be higher visibility and more appropriate for the general discussion.
I guess any non-science history stuff would go into the Art, Music, History, Linguistics forum. This forum also has some science stuff in linguistics, genetic history, and some scientific biography stuff.

Rather than making science history stuff (which seems small in number to me) its own forum or sub-forum, I favor putting all the music threads (which are not few in number) into their own sub-forum. This would greatly empty out the Art, Music, History, and Linguistics Forum and make everything else there more easily found. In this way, science history stuff could regain some of its visibility in there like it was before the explosion of the music threads.
 
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Also I'd have to move my 24K visited thread (I realize I'm probably the 20K at least :smile:) to get it away from "What's your favorite ABBA number?" and whatnot. I'd hate for it to be taken more serious. ?:)

EDIT: If that's at all possible, that is.
 
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BillTre said:
This sorting of threads among forums in to fun and games did not come off as well done to me.
It was admittedly not precise. I can't comb through tens of thousands of threads in GD :smile:. Feel free to report threads that should be moved, thanks!
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
It was admittedly not precise. I can't comb through tens of thousands of threads in GD :smile:. Feel free to report threads that should be moved, thanks!
What about music? has it reached critical mass?
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
It was admittedly not precise. I can't comb through tens of thousands of threads in GD :smile:. Feel free to report threads that should be moved, thanks!
OK, to start:
These to fun and games:
  1. Programming Jokes: Lame, Science & Math Jokes!
  2. Bad Math Jokes
These in General Discussion seem like puzzles (or games) to me:
  1. Mathematical definition of a rigid body
  2. there are several

Obits:
Maybe dead scientists could go into the the science history forum (that seems historical to me). However, the deaths of certain scientists may be higher visibility and more appropriate for the general discussion.
I guess any non-science history stuff would go into the Art, Music, History, Linguistics forum. This forum also has some science stuff in linguistics, genetic history, and some scientific biography stuff.

Music:
Put all the music threads (which are not few in number) into their own sub-forum.
This would greatly empty out the Art, Music, History, and Linguistics Forum and make everything else there more easily found.
In this way, science history stuff could regain some of its visibility like it was before the explosion of the music threads.
(In my mind this makes a subforum for history of science unnecessary.)
 
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BillTre said:
Obits:
Maybe dead scientists could go into the the science history forum (that seems historical to me). However, the deaths of certain scientists may be higher visibility and more appropriate for the general discussion.

For me, the obituaries of scientists that I post are general announcements ("news") to a broad audience of their recent passing, together with historical references to celebrate what they did.

After some time, it would be nice if such obituaries ("news") got moved into science history,
when it's not "news" anymore.

If they get moved almost immediately with a trail left in general discussion,
does further activity in that moved-thread bump up the trail left in general discussion?
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
Outside of the existing one?
If you are referring to the Art, Music, History and Linguistics Forum, yes.
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
What is the rational?
The music threads are overwhelming the forum. There are so many posts that other topics get lost.
 
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