David, though I would agree that "non-mainstream theories which have been rejected by the scientific community" should not bee encouraged, on the other hand one has to be careful not to fall into the "consensus science" trap. The other day I heard a lecture by somebody working on bohmian lines. He is a good physicist, and I would think hard before rejecting his studies because they are not fashionable. An experiment is being planned on the lines their research is suggesting. That is good.

I would add my favorite "please don't raise discussions" postulate -- BTW @anna it filters out most "crackpots" from good-margin-scientists; the first class mostly want to make their idea visible regardless of the context, and an argument is a perfect tool to achieve this.

@annav a good point, and that's why I didn't stop at "non-mainstream theories." But I think avoiding the responsibility of the consensus science trap is the responsibility of the people who are doing the enforcement (downvoting and closing questions).

Plus, this is not really supposed to be a place to present original research, IMO. The answers we give should have a basis in well-established physics, otherwise how can we really be sure we're giving out accurate information? That in turn means that the questions we accept have to be answerable using established physics.

Well, it should be trial and error. If it becomes too strict, it can be relaxed later. Certainly we need no perpetual motion machine builders in the mix :).

Winners are mbq, David Zaslavsky, and dmckee.

Details:

Ballot file contains 5 candidates and 76 ballots.
No candidates have withdrawn.
Ballot file contains 76 non-empty ballots.

Counting votes for Physics Moderator Election 2011 using Meek STV.
5 candidates running for 3 seats.

 R|mbq        |David Zasla|Sklivvz    |dmckee     |Tobias Kien|Exhausted  |Surplus    |Threshold
  |           |vsky       |           |           |zler       |           |           |
==================================================================================================

Congratz! :-)

ah, time to set my nefarious scheme for world domination in motion :-P

(just kidding, of course!)

@DavidZaslavsky Ooohhhh...can I be Vice Overlord?

@dmckee Sure!

That works on shotgun rules, right?

@DavidZaslavsky Sounds good to me.

Whenever an official announcement is made (I assume this is coming very soon) I'll alter the permissions on the moderator chat room, unless @mbq gets to it first, then we can get scheming.

anyway I have to go for now, but congrats on your election

and thanks to all the candidates for running

Well, we are all at least pro-tems, so we have access to all rooms; anyway I added dmckee in a proper place.