PhysicsOverflow explained

PhysicsOverflow
Commercial:No
Registration:Optional
Type:Question and answer
Open peer review
Owner:Roger Cattin[1]
Author:Abhimanyu Pallavi Sudhir, Rahel Knoepfel and Roger Cattin
Content License:User contributions under CC BY-SA 3.0

PhysicsOverflow is a physics website that serves as a post-publication open peer review[2] platform for research papers in physics, as well as a collaborative blog and online community of physicists. It allows users to ask, answer and comment on graduate-level physics questions, post and review manuscripts from ArXiv (which lists PhysicsOverflow discussion pages among its trackbacks[3]) and other sources, and vote on both forms of content.

In addition to the two primary forms of content, the PhysicsOverflow community also welcomes discussions on unsolved problems, and hosts a chat section for discussions on topics generally of interest to physicists and students of physics, such as those related to recent events in physics, physics academia, and the publishing process.[2]

History

PhysicsOverflow was started in April 2014 as a physics-equivalent of MathOverflow by Rahel Knöpfel, a physics PhD at the University of Rostock, high-school student Abhimanyu Pallavi Sudhir, and Roger Cattin, a retired professor of computer science at the University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland.[2] The site was initially a mere question-and-answer forum, as it was started by users dissatisfied by the policies of the Physics Stack Exchange, but it was eventually expanded to include a Reviews section in October 2014.[4]

Moderation practices

PhysicsOverflow is well-known for its liberal moderation policy and hesitation to block contributors except for spam, as reflected in the website's bill of "user rights".[5] [6] The content is largely community-moderated, much like MathOverflow, although exceptions have been recorded.[7] [8]

Although the site's moderation policy is publicly available as part of the moderator manual, the site has been criticised for the excessive dispersion of policy-related material, such as the FAQ, the Bill of Rights, the moderator list and the Community Moderation threads, leading to reduced transparency.[9] [10] In response, the site's administrators posted a bulletin of all moderation-related content on the site on the homepage.

Technical details

PhysicsOverflow runs Question2Answer, an open-source Q&A software, with a custom theme and several plugins and patches.[2] Some of its plugins have been used by other Question2Answer websites, such as the Open Science Q&A and the Physics Problems Q&A.<ref>Web site: How do I regain access to my imported account? - Ask Open Science. openscience.uni-bielefeld.de. 2017-03-19. 2017-03-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20170320052546/https://openscience.uni-bielefeld.de/768/how-do-i-regain-access-to-my-imported-account. live. [11]

Usage

Quantcast records around 3000 monthly visitors and between 20,000 and 50,000 global page views to PhysicsOverflow every month, over half of whom are located in four countries: the United States (26.8%), India (9.2%), the United Kingdom (8.5%), and Germany (6.4%).[12] However, according to PhysicsOverflow's own data, only around 1500 users actually contribute content to the site, and 440 are active at a given point in time.[13]

Recognition

The creation of PhysicsOverflow was well-received by the MathOverflow community.[14] PhysicsOverflow was also featured at the 5th Offtopicarium[15] and World Scientific's Asia-Pacific Physics News Letter.[16]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Legal . Roger Cattin. 2014-01-28 . 2017-03-22 . PhysicsOverflow.
  2. Web site: FAQ - PhysicsOverflow. physicsoverflow.org. 2017-03-19. 2017-03-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20170320054011/https://physicsoverflow.org/faq. live.
  3. Web site: We have ArXiV trackbacks!. dimension10. 23 April 2015. PhysicsOverflow.
  4. Web site: The reviews section is out of beta!. dimension10. Ron. Maimon. 5 October 2014. PhysicsOverflow. 19 March 2017. 23 December 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20161223124107/http://physicsoverflow.org/24235. live.
  5. Web site: What is Physics Overflow and how is it linked to Physics.SE?. Physics Meta Stack Exchange. 2017-03-19. 2017-03-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20170320053801/https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6196/what-is-physics-overflow-and-how-is-it-linked-to-physics-se. live.
  6. Web site: User Rights - PhysicsOverflow. physicsoverflow.org. 2017-03-19. 2017-03-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20170320053816/https://physicsoverflow.org/user-rights. live.
  7. Web site: Violation of policy to close questions?. drake. Dilaton. dimension10. 10 June 2015. PhysicsOverflow. 19 March 2017. 17 October 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20151017221054/http://www.physicsoverflow.org/31863. live.
  8. Web site: Moderate | PhysicsOverflow . 2017-03-19 . 2017-03-20 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170320053935/https://physicsoverflow.org/review . live .
  9. Web site: What is Physics Overflow and how is it linked to Physics.SE?. Physics Meta Stack Exchange. 2017-03-19. 2017-03-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20170320053801/https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6196/what-is-physics-overflow-and-how-is-it-linked-to-physics-se. live.
  10. Web site: Who are the Physics Overflow moderators, and what is their exact role and powers?. SaddlePoint. Dilaton. Ron. Maimon. 14 August 2014. PhysicsOverflow.
  11. Web site: Christopher Schwarzkopf – Wikimedia Deutschland Blog. 2017-03-20. 2017-03-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20170320145257/https://blog.wikimedia.de/author/christopher_schwarzkopf/. live.
  12. Web site: Login. www.quantcast.com.
  13. Web site: PhysicsOverflow. physicsoverflow.org. 2017-03-19. 2017-03-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20170320052926/https://physicsoverflow.org/statistics. live.
  14. Web site: PhysicsOverflow just went live. MathOverflow Meta. 2023-06-10. 2021-09-25. https://web.archive.org/web/20210925025455/https://meta.mathoverflow.net/questions/1608/physicsoverflow-just-went-live. live.
  15. Web site: We have a talk at the Offtopicarium !. Dilaton. 24 August 2014. PhysicsOverflow.
  16. PhysicsOverflow: A postgraduate-level physics Q&A site and open peer review system. Abhimanyu. Pallavi Sudhir. Rahel. Knöpfel. 23 October 2015. Asia Pacific Physics Newsletter. 04. 1. 53–55. 10.1142/S2251158X15000193.
  17. Web site: books. math.ucr.edu. 2017-03-19. 2019-07-26. https://web.archive.org/web/20190726010538/http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html. live.
  18. Web site: The Reference Frame: Discussion about old and new theoretical physics forums. Luboš. Motl. 14 August 2013. 10 June 2023. 22 September 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210922232912/https://motls.blogspot.com/2013/08/discussion-on-old-and-new-theoretical.html. live.
  19. Web site: A theoretical physics FAQ. www.mat.univie.ac.at. 2023-06-10. 2023-05-26. https://web.archive.org/web/20230526045935/https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/physfaq/physics-faq.html. live.
  20. Web site: Physics Overflow is live. 2023-06-10. 2021-10-19. https://web.archive.org/web/20211019075656/https://motls.blogspot.com/2014/05/physics-overflow-is-live.html. live.
  21. Web site: UiS Cosmology. www.facebook.com.
  22. Web site: New PhysicsOverflow forum for research-level physics discussion A new site.... 2 February 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190202090712/https://plus.google.com/+UrsSchreiber/posts/SoWhSAqmUJ1?loc=us. 2019-02-02.

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