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02:08

0

I no longer wish to have Physics.SE associated with my parent site. How do I move my parent site from here to Space.SE? When ever I get suspended here it also suspends me from chatting from all the SE sites. I just got back on after a long year suspension and I want to fix this issue before I g...

dmckee

03:24

I was whinging about the diversity of notation int eh OpenStax physics text yesterday. Today I've been reading a number of Wikipedia pages about drag and related fluid concepts and I've encountered a similarly incoherent mess.

* The (standard) viscosity is termed $\mu$, $\eta$ and something which I suppose is $\mathrm{v}$.

* The equation for drag forces is written in magnitude term in one place and in vector form just a little lower down the page.

* The velocity of fluid flow relative ta body is both $v$ and $u$.

And of course we introduce the inertial viscosity $\nu$ into the mess where it has got to cause endless confusion.

::sigh::

Avnish Kabaj

@PM2Ring Exactly and don't get me started on his view of the Newton's three laws of motion. Apparently only one law works at a time.

@PM2Ring Aahhhh thanks

@Blue too much effortz ;)

John Rennie

06:28

@Blue thanks everyone :-) This was my birthday cake - I decided not to put 58 candles on it.

Toffee and apple cake. It was delicious!

"Did I eat it all myself?" I hear you ask. Well, what do you think? :-)

Anonymous

07:15

@JohnRennie O_O what kind of cake is that! As far as apple cakes go, I've only ever had the dry ones.

Anonymous

Is it like a caramel coating on the top?

John Rennie

@Blue it's a sponge cake with a thick layer of apple syrup in the middle. The syrup soaks into the cake and makes it very moist and rich.

The topping is buttercream with a caramel flavour, and the cubes on the top are fudge.

Anonymous

07:35

@JohnRennie I wonder how it tastes....I'm imagining it's somewhat like candies....SWEET! :P And I never really liked cakes which are too sweet (oh, and I hate caramel too). This one might be good though. I'll try someday.

John Rennie

@Blue it was very sweet. But that's OK - I like sweet food :-)

Though if you don't like caramel then this is not the cake for you!

Akash. B

@JohnRennie Wow looks delicious

John Rennie

@Akash.B it was really nice :-)

Anonymous

::Googles Why Too Much Sugar Is Bad for You:: :P

Anonymous

Dec 22 '18 at 9:25, by John Rennie

If you only ever eat healthy food you won't actually live longer, it will just feel like a longer time :-)

Anonymous

07:39

Oh, well.

Akash. B

😊😊😊

Anonymous

07:54

Oh boy, this made me chuckle: 1, 2, 3 (view in sequence). :D

3

Anonymous

@AvnishKabaj Takes 2 seconds, really. You probably use the "from my computer" option. Don't use that. If you already have the link to an image, just use the other option i.e. "from the web".

Kroob.D

08:56

@JohnRennie hi

Emilio Pisanty

-2

Q: Lost in the math

I am working through Symon's 3rd edition Mechanics book, and I'm rather stuck on problem 23 of Chapter 2. The problem gives the force $$F=-kx+\frac{a}{x^{3}}$$ and asks to find the potential and then the position $x(t)$. I do not have any issue understanding the physics, but I seem to be stuck on...

homework-and-exercises newtonian-mechanics potential-energy

My, oh, my

That's one provocative title

Kroob.D

Hello everyone I am new , is there any thing I to keep in mind while chating

John Rennie

09:32

@Kroob.D hi

@Kroob.D you got the upvotes you needed to join the chat then :-)

Anonymous

@Kroob.D Yes, our (unwritten) rules are similar to whatever is mentioned here.

Anonymous

We too should have a similar meta post on Physics. I should stop being lazy and write it up someday soon.

Kroob.D

09:46

@JohnRennie thanks for voting:)

John Rennie

@Kroob.D you're welcome. Did you want to ask about your question?

Kroob.D

@JohnRennie Yes

John Rennie

@Kroob.D did you look at the question that I linked? Did it help explain what is going on?

Sid

10:03

Happy belated birthday @JohnRennie

John Rennie

@Sid thanks :-)

Anonymous

10:20

@JohnRennie Umm...do you happen to know how to convert JSON feeds to RSS feeds? I'm trying to track the HNQs but it seems the RSS feed SE provides returns only 30 random HNQs rather than full 100.

John Rennie

@Blue I don't. Sorry :-(

Anonymous

Uh, no problem. I'll try asking the SO folks. I know almost nothing about APIs...

Emilio Pisanty

@Kroob.D not much

mainly this

> Don't ask about asking, just ask.

(see the top right.)

@Blue it should be perfectly doable, but it needs a server somewhere to actually do the processing

RSS is just xml

Anonymous

@EmilioPisanty We could use a server side script (maybe on Glitch) I think, and use the SE chat room feed to keep sending it GET requests every 15 minutes (to keep the script running).

Anonymous

But now, I don't know how to write such a script.

Emilio Pisanty

10:33

@Blue what languages does Glitch use?

Anonymous

Node.js I think...

Anonymous

Maybe more, I'll have to check.

Emilio Pisanty

=/

Anonymous

This is their Help Center.

user351417

@EmilioPisanty Isn't that the title of sabine hossenfelder's book? I doubt OP knows that though :P

Anonymous

10:39

Yes, it is. :P

Anonymous

"Lost in Math"

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue well, there's this kind of thing npmjs.com/package/jsontoxml

Kroob.D

@JohnRennie yes it was helpful john

Emilio Pisanty

I'd be more worried about all the inter-server communications working properly

user351417

I looked at the preview of that book on amazon. Didn't seem particularly striking.

Emilio Pisanty

10:41

i.e. the Glitch server staying up and not dying

the Glitch server appropriately harvesting all of the SE JSON feed and not dropping anything

and the Glitch RSS getting through to the chatroom without an intermittent connection

Anonymous

True. But rene already uses it for his KennyBot (in the Shadow's Den on Meta SE) and it seems to be working well. Worth a try I guess.

Emilio Pisanty

@Chair well, you know, it's a "totalitarian" book ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯, so stay away from it.

Anonymous

@EmilioPisanty That looks useful. Checking...

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue I mean, that's just from the first page of results from googling "node.js json to xml"

I'm sure there's plenty more out there

user351417

@EmilioPisanty Sure, it's not good career advice for a high school guy planning to enter physics, but the blogs did have some interesting stuff. Has anyone here read it?

user351417

10:47

Interestingly, there appears to be an interview with Weinberg in it.

Emilio Pisanty

@Chair I haven't read it, no.

I'm too busy reading John D. Clark's Ignition! at the moment

it's a tiny bit dry at places, particularly if you're not a chemist, but it's definitely living up to its reputation

user351417

amazon.in/Ignition-Informal-Propellants-University-Classics/dp/… sounds interesting!

user351417

Someone recommended 'the art of motorcycle repair' or something similar, but the library doesn't appear to have it.

Emilio Pisanty

The Most Dangerous Rocket Fuels Ever Tested

►

for example

John Rennie

@EmilioPisanty I've read that and I really enjoyed it.

Emilio Pisanty

10:54

@JohnRennie recently? or in the back-in-the-day print?

John Rennie

@EmilioPisanty within the last five years, though I forget exactly when. It was an old book though so it would have been from the original publication.

Emilio Pisanty

@JohnRennie btw, I've been wanting to ask a chemistry question about that book

I don't know if you remember the section about hydrazine

basically, it was great, but its freezing point was too high

so they looked for derivatives to lower the freezing point

so mono-methyl hydrazine did well

and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine was even better

John Rennie

Hang on, I've got the book somewhere ...

BTW have you seen this

Emilio Pisanty

but apparently symmetrical dimethyl hydrazine had roughly similar performance but a much higher freezing point

something like -50°C to -8°C between the unsymmetrical and the symmetrical componds

so, my question is: why is that?

is it just the symmetry that makes the crystallization easier?

@JohnRennie yes, many times =)

I think that that's the first time I saw Ignition! mentioned. @Chair will probably enjoy it, though. The whole Things I Won't Work With column is awesome.

John Rennie

@EmilioPisanty page 39?

> Hydrazine was the name of the big game. That was the fuel that everybody wanted to use. High performance, good density, hypergolic with the storable oxidizers —it had everything. Almost.

Emilio Pisanty

11:00

@JohnRennie it's not so much with the book itself

Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine

Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH; 1,1-dimethylhydrazine) is a chemical compound with the formula H2NN(CH3)2. It is a colorless liquid, with a sharp, fishy, ammoniacal smell typical for organic amines. Samples turn yellowish on exposure to air and absorb oxygen and carbon dioxide. It mixes completely with water, ethanol, and kerosene. In concentration between 2.5% and 95% in air, its vapors are flammable. It is not sensitive to shock. 1,2-Dimethylhydrazine (CH3NHNHCH3) is also known but is not as useful. == Production == UDMH is produced industrially by two routes. One, based on the ...

1,2-Dimethylhydrazine

1,2-Dimethylhydrazine, or symmetrical dimethylhydrazine, is the organic compound with the formula (CH3NH)2. It is one of the two isomers of dimethylhydrazine. Both isomers are colorless liquids at room temperature, with properties similar to those of methylamines. 1,2-Dimethylhydrazine is a potent carcinogen that acts as a DNA methylating agent. The compound has no commercial value, in contrast to its isomer, which is used as a rocket fuel.It is used to induce colon tumors in experimental animals - particularly mice and feline cell samples. == See also == Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine ��2�...

user351417

I'm quite sure we have a bit about hydrazine in our IB chem stuff. that stuff sounds extremely familiar

Emilio Pisanty

Melting point −57 °C; −71 °F; 216 K

Melting point −9 °C (16 °F; 264 K)

why are those melting points so different?

they're basically the same thing, right?

(I mean, except that obviously they're not)

Is it just that the symmetry of the second one allows for a different crystal structure which makes it much easier for it to freeze?

John Rennie

I doubt the difference in melting points can be simply explained. I'm sure there are all sorts of arm waving arguments, but T the end of the day predicting a freezing point is a really difficult business.

Emilio Pisanty

huh

still, it's a massive difference, no?

John Rennie

You just have to fire up your (really big) computer and do a MD calculation.

Emilio Pisanty

11:03

ugh

Secret

Melting point is a lot harder to predict than boiling point because the crystal packing has an influence to it in addition to the electron wavefunction of the molecule itself

John Rennie

Maybe the symmetric form allows a compact packing. You need to look at the two crystal structures.

Emilio Pisanty

and the crystal packing will indeed be different for those two, right?

Anonymous

Symmetry has a lot to do with it, yes.

Anonymous

The other handwavy explanations might include something something hydrogen bonding.

Secret

11:05

yup, I will predict the linear form packs more tightly

Anonymous

Would be a good question for Chemistry.

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue hmmmm, OK

yeah, I was thinking about asking it there

it'll take me a bit to get it together, though

Captain Bohemian

is a Wilson loop one kind of correlator?

Anonymous

1,2-Dimethylhydrazine

Anonymous

11:09

Anonymous

1,1-Dimethylhydrazine

user351417

Perhaps there's something like steric hindrance allowing only one N for hydrogen bonding in the unsymmetrical one? but that would suggest a higher melting point, if I'm not mistaken

Anonymous

@Chair Right, something along those lines. Steric hindrance is a factor here.

Captain Bohemian

I hadn't studied chemistry for long until around one week ago.

Emilio Pisanty

oh, goodness

that does sound rather more complicated than I envisioned

I'll ask on Chemistry, then

user351417

11:19

It's interesting to see how high-school chemistry and physics avoid math. Deep within the IB, there's an idiot who decided that our physics cannot involve calculus, so we use $\Delta$ symbols to analyse linear graphs only. No vectors beyond the standard 3-component stuff either. Hence you can image that our 'quantum mechanics' section is a complete joke, and the discussion of hydrogen orbitals in our physics books is pathetic.

user351417

However, I think that the handling of orbitals in our chemistry books is quite well done, and though there's no math, it never seems like they're awkwardly avoiding it.

Secret

Orbital theory gets very complicated once you start computational chemistry

user351417

Regarding that HNQ discussion, has anyone tried to borrow ideas from the creators of SOeXtras? I have SOX running, so I see a little flame next to every question which is presently on the HNQ list.

Anonymous

@Chair Yeah, I was thinking of that. I'll check.

Captain Bohemian

I didn't perceive that physics is what others call math until graduating from master.

Emilio Pisanty

11:23

@Chair link?

Anonymous

BTW everyone please ignore my (now deleted) sp2 comment above. That was completely wrong. I was thinking of N2H2 for some reason.

user351417

@EmilioPisanty I'll find the thing on stackapps. One minute

user351417

@EmilioPisanty stackapps.com/q/6091

Anonymous

89

Q: Stack Overflow Extras (SOX)

SOX v2.4.0 Stack Overflow Extras (SOX) is a project that stemmed from the Stack Overflow Optional Features (SOOF) project. The SOX userscript adds a bunch of optional features to all sites in the Stack Exchange network. These can be toggled on or off from an easy to use control panel (see s...

script tampermonkey

user351417

This is the options menu which SOX enables:

user351417

11:25

user351417

This is a labelled HNQ on the front page of Physics SE:

user351417

I think you need greasemonkey/tampermonkey running for SOX to work though.

Captain Bohemian

don't know if university chemistry uses much math; in my impression, it is just full of terms, too many to memorize.

Emilio Pisanty

I just installed it over tampermonkey but I don't see it running

Anonymous

11:28

@CaptainBohemian There is a lot to memorize, but a lot of it is very logical.

user351417

@EmilioPisanty I had a weird time customizing it and setting it up too. No idea how I got it working.

user351417

I still have trouble changing options. Additionally, the recent left nav and flag page changes broke a lot of the less important features.

Captain Bohemian

@Blue in my feeling, it's impossible to memorize all of those terms. So I always think people majoring in chemistry must have amazing momorization ability.

user351417

"If I could remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist." — Enrico Fermi (from some Physics SE user's about-me)

Captain Bohemian

and that's why I feel that part of particle physics which is full of particle names not much of my taste.

user351417

11:36

Additionally, I don't fully understand how the query in meta.stackexchange.com/a/315017 collects HNQ data, but apparently it's supposed to.

user351417

I have no idea how I came across physics.stackexchange.com/q/358697 but it's certainly madness.

Anonymous

@Chair Glorfindel mentioned using the JSON feed (in the Tavern).

Anonymous

I didn't notice the Data Explorer script. Checking...

Anonymous

> The main information is in the snapshots table, which is just the list of 100 Hot Network Questions downloaded every 10 (later 3) minutes.

Anonymous

No, that's just the "Number of questions on a certain site"...

user351417

11:49

@Blue Yeah, that's why I was wondering how it finds HNQs, since the code clearly looks like it doesn't. Turns out it's the JSON feed which is doing that, not the SEDE query.

Anonymous

@Chair Right. That SEDE script was just for finding the total number of questions during that period to calculate the percentage.

user351417

Ah yeah, it was probably for the percentages thing. I wouldn't think that script would be worth including in the answer, since it's a pretty general thing, but whatever.

Anonymous

2

A: How to add HNQ to chat room feed?

There is no such standard functionality on the site. You would need a server side implementation that responds to the Feeds bots requests and produce an RSS feed from the Hot Network Questions list. I've created a proof of concept in Glitch here (and find the implementation here) The Glitch app...

Anonymous

So https://lackadaisical-appeal.glitch.me/hnq/physics should work for us I think?

Anonymous

Lemme add it to the Physics Meta room to check. :P

Emilio Pisanty

12:08

@JohnRennie, re physics.stackexchange.com/questions/281301/…, we still don't know for sure that antineutrinos are not the same as neutrinos, right?

=P

John Rennie

I don't think anyone really believes that neutrinos are Majorana fermions, but it's not impossible ...

Anonymous

@EmilioPisanty @Chair This solves our problem. Contains all the 100 HNQ items! :D

Anonymous

Runs from the Glitch server. And apparently it's working fine in the Physics Meta room.

Anonymous

I'm setting it up the HNQ room.

Avnish Kabaj

@Blue Thanks didn't know the from the web thing

encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/…

Aaaah nice

Emilio Pisanty

12:30

ooooooooohhhh, I just figured it out

I know how to turn this into a t-shirt now

this was close, but it isn't quite there

user351417

Planets should have been called star-moons. The credentials for being called a moon are much looser.

Avnish Kabaj

13:22

In latin plaria means moon and stateius means a star

So you're not too off

Abcd

@Blue there for 1 minute?

Emilio Pisanty

@ZeroTheHero good Lord, where did you find that duplicate?

user351417

@EmilioPisanty Is the title of that duplicate you mentioned "is there a conspiracy among editors of mainstream physics journals?", by any chance?

user351417

Because that's the tooltip for the link:P

user351417

Sounds like fun.

Emilio Pisanty

13:37

@Chair if you mean this comment,

Duplicate of physics.stackexchange.com/questions/459082/… . — ZeroTheHero 8 mins ago

user351417

@EmilioPisanty Yep, that one.

Emilio Pisanty

then it wasn't me mentioning it

but yes, that's the title of the question

user351417

Wow.

Emilio Pisanty

put on hold as non-mainstream on Feb 5 at 22:52

deleted by a moderator on Feb 6 at 1:31

user351417

It was bad enough to get deleted by a mod? neato.

user351417

13:39

Bam, a moderator got to this new one too.

user351417

I didn't find it that objectionable. But perhaps there's more deleted stuff which I can't see.

ZeroTheHero

@EmilioPisanty I flagged it as a favorite. See also physics.stackexchange.com/questions/459165/… and physics.stackexchange.com/questions/459156/… by the same ranting guy.

Emilio Pisanty

@ZeroTheHero that sounds unduly masochistic to me

but hey, it proved useful

ZeroTheHero

Then @rob mentioned he suspected it was a way of getting around a ban so I thought if only for archival purposed I'd keep them around.

user351417

Do 10k rep users' favorites remain in the favorites tab after the posts are deleted?

Emilio Pisanty

13:45

@Chair apparently. I had never tried, but I can even add as favourites those now-deleted questions

not that I want to

ZeroTheHero

Yes we can see deleted post so it just shows up in my list of favorites as deleted. This person or an associate will be back... maybe not on PSE but on some other SE site or some other platform.

Emilio Pisanty

@ZeroTheHero yeah, there's a pretty case to be made that those three separate accounts are likely to be sock-puppets used by the author in question

though that depends on information visible only to moderators

ZeroTheHero

anyways case closed. You can see the original OP actually created a second account under a different name to get around the original suspension.

ACuriousMind

@EmilioPisanty three? I only saw two accounts, where's the third?

Emilio Pisanty

@ACuriousMind I see a user222004 here, a still-extant user with id 203270 here, and a user222354 here

ACuriousMind

13:50

Ah, the user222004 was already deleted earlier, that's why I didn't see it. Okay then

ZeroTheHero

@ACuriousMind watch for this guy to try his luck on satellite sites...

Emilio Pisanty

@ZeroTheHero naw, I reckon they're still going to give it one or two extra tries here before they move on to somewhere else.

ACuriousMind

@ZeroTheHero I can do very little about anything that happens beyond physics.SE, but in my experience, this type of user either vanishes into thin air or we're going to play whack-a-mole with them for months, if not years :P

user351417

Why do you think it was actually the author of that supposed facebook post (Wladimir G-something)? The user name for the post I saw was E-something.

user351417

Looked like a quotation of the Wladimir guy's letter.

user351417

13:58

(Though I didn't read it very carefully)

ZeroTheHero

@Chair the original historical post was by WGG...

Emilio Pisanty

@Chair I find it hard to believe that anyone other than this guy would care so deeply about the matter

if it were just that post in isolation, then the narrative "I saw this thing on facebook, and I'd like to understand what's going on" is indeed plausible

ZeroTheHero

@EmilioPisanty (I've told that story before) when I was a grad student I was given the task one year of answering nutcase emails that came to the department.

Emilio Pisanty

but it isn't in isolation

ZeroTheHero

some of these guys are very persistent.

Emilio Pisanty

13:59

there's four separate posts from three separate accounts

ZeroTheHero

and this guy definitely looks very persistent.

Emilio Pisanty

it's pretty implausible that we'd get three completely independent people writing extremely similar posts with extremely similar formatting over the space of one week

so it's likely to be just one person trying over and over again

ZeroTheHero

the original user was the author of the email with a username that was his full name. The second user was called wgg...

clearly the same person...

Emilio Pisanty

well, there you have it

user351417

@EmilioPisanty Of course, it would definitely be the same person, the way supersolid-dark-matter posts are always from new accounts. It's just that it doesn't necessarily need to be the author of that stuff. But ZeroTheHero said that the first account was the guy's name, so that pretty much confirms it, since the theory of it being an impersonator is a bit far-fetched.

user351417

14:02

No point in discussing it any more, I guess, since it's all deleted and creepy.

Emilio Pisanty

@ACuriousMind Thanks for the chat migration, though it'd be a bit better to have at least one comment showing that there's specific technical issues with the post

Particularly given the inappropriate attempt at donning martyr robes

ACuriousMind

@EmilioPisanty I undeleted the first three comments for exactly that reason, did you perhaps look before I did that, or do you think they do not suffice?

Emilio Pisanty

@ACuriousMind ah

they show up upon refreshing

ACuriousMind

It's easier to delete the bunch and then undelete a few than manually delete single comments

Emilio Pisanty

the current state is great

@ACuriousMind yeah, fair

I'm kinda bugged by that user's persistence at posting utterly incorrect content along that vein

user351417

14:07

@EmilioPisanty That guy's viXra paper is... interesting vixra.org/pdf/1609.0237v7.pdf

Emilio Pisanty

@Chair yeah, I saw that at some point

ACuriousMind

@EmilioPisanty Downvote, point out the wrongness, then move on.

It's rarely useful to get dragged into extended discussions of this type

Emilio Pisanty

@ACuriousMind that works for isolated cases

@Chair previous iteration

user351417

Another day, another HNQ marked as an exact duplicate after 10 votes and 5 answers.

user351417

We've had so many posts about hearing thermal motion.

Anonymous

14:11

@EmilioPisanty Huh, so this is a 4k rep guy.

user351417

I got an HNQ about hearing fire last september or so, and it looks like almost the same thing.

Emilio Pisanty

@ACuriousMind I mean, seriously. This user is using the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle to take advantage of this community. This is abuse of the site's mechanisms. How many times must this go on before it's stopped?

user351417

physics.stackexchange.com/… Yikes!

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue yes. but: data.stackexchange.com/physics/query/393837/…

Anonymous

@Chair Can't we invoke the non-mainstream reason to delete them all? :P

user351417

14:15

To be fair, JD had 7k rep, right? There's no argument in "he had 4k rep"

user351417

Non-mainstreamness is for everyone.

Anonymous

@Chair Yeah, I meant these cases are rare and interesting.

Anonymous

I deleted all of JD's answers on QCSE manually.

user351417

There's still a possibility that they produce other good answers though.

ACuriousMind

@EmilioPisanty We are usually very reluctant to take moderatorial action against a user just because they post incorrect/non-mainstream answers since moderators are not supposed to judge the correctness of a user's contribution

user351417

14:16

Even if they have completely messed up interpretations of QM (like the kpv guy), they could probably manage to not mess up Newtonian mechanics.

Anonymous

@ACuriousMind I never quite agreed with that stance. But well, if that works for PSE...

Anonymous

We have a very strict no non-mainstream policy on QCSE (which leads to deletion on sight).

Emilio Pisanty

@ACuriousMind indeed. But there has to be a point past which repeated posting of the same rubbish arguments over and over again calls for some form of intervention.

ZeroTheHero

What is amazing is the time and energy that these people devote to this.

Emilio Pisanty

The conversation that just got moved to chat is pretty much an identical re-run of the flaws that were pointed out in 2016, and even that was already abuse.

user351417

14:19

@ZeroTheHero Devote to repeatedly posting non-mainstream stuff, or devote to trying to correct that content?

ZeroTheHero

posting non-mainstream stuff.

Emilio Pisanty

this is a user who had the correct material pointed out to them more than two years ago, and the flaws in their argument clearly delineated, and who nevertheless continues to post exactly the same stuff

user351417

Creepy. I edited my comment and it ended up under blue's response :P

ZeroTheHero

I suppose the more "traditional" way I'm used to is that one of these guys gets hold of one or several mailing lists.

user351417

@EmilioPisanty Is the extent of similarity enough to mark some questions as duplicates or delete some answers?

ZeroTheHero

14:20

I used to get those about once/year until Facebook became popular.

Emilio Pisanty

@Chair the newer content is generally answers

user351417

See ya! The real world beckons in the form of dinner.

Emilio Pisanty

@Chair bon appetit.

Anonymous

14:49

As for the hesitance in dealing with cranks outright, this is one very relevant post.

Anonymous

They really take a toll on the overall health of the community.

Anonymous

This is why, while "mods shouldn't judge the correctness of posts" is all nice and good in theory, I never could bring myself to agree with it (taking my mod cap off and speaking as a general user). I've spoken to a few CMs about this issue and not once did they object to me outright deleting non-mainstream or low quality content.

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue that's one heck of a valuable post (and also saddening and disturbing).

Anonymous

SE does give individual communities a lot of leeway in these matters. If you think the PSE policy on non-mainstream and low-quality content should be made stricter, it might be time to raise it on meta.

ACuriousMind

@Blue They are not objecting because it is a valid stance a community can take. Historically, physics.SE has not pursued the nuclear option against non-mainstream content

Anonymous

14:56

> Historically, physics.SE has not pursued the nuclear option against non-mainstream content

Anonymous

Yeah, that's my point. If that stance (of not pursuing the nuclear option) has been harmful to the community, it's time to change it!

Anonymous

I don't see any reason to be welcoming to cranks at all.

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue ugh. If I find a time where I'm in a balanced-enough mood, and with a couple of afternoons to devote to it (and a corresponding stack of faith in humanity to burn), I'll give it a go

ACuriousMind

Part of the reason for this is, I feel, that physics.SE does not have the "level" restriction sites like TCS and MO have - we are not exclusively a site for researchers or professionals, so we will always have a lot of content that these exclusive sites would sneer at, making it harder to draw the line between "low quality but okay to stay I guess" and "terrible content that needs to go now"

Emilio Pisanty

but those are extremely tiring discussions

though then again, maybe the time to do this is now, before certain year-long suspensions expire

user351417

14:59

Isn't it six months now? Will check.

user351417

Excellent. It's four left.

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