@knzhou you're not in the class I was trying to describe. If I Google your real name, there's no trace of SE on the first page. If I self-google, SE is the third result and ranks ahead of my (humble) homepage

@EmilioPisanty Honestly, that doesn't seem like a big problem! I mean, if you look, the vast majority of the top 20 results for my name aren't me, they're different people entirely. It took me a long time to even crack the top 10. There are at least 5 people with my name who are full professors.

That's kind of the point

Oh, I thought you were getting at the issue of getting less exposure from Google or something.

@ZeroTheHero I tutor exceptional high schoolers but I don't advertise. Some find me by my Physics.SE answers.

I've gotten the opportunity to talk to some well-known physicists on here.

I met a grad student on here that helped me find an advisor to do summer research with.

Also it served as an occasional icebreaker when I met high rep users during my PhD school visits.

If a prospective PI googles me, they will see the SE connection. I don't know how "this person is a moderador" changes the impressions they get, but I'm wary of rocking the boat.

Well, I mention Phys.SE on my website, but I get what you're getting at. You don't want that to be the first impression.

Maybe you can do what Dan Yand did and change the name? That should sink the google ranking really fast. Switch to Pimilio Esanty or something.

I stand by my decision to use my full name here, but the fact that it has turned out to be uncommon (as opposed to MO, in particular) does make me err on the side of caution generally.

Sure!

← re site benefits, have seen some amazing synergy over the years in the chat room & met many brilliant ppl & have real gratitude for that. one standout case was DS inviting new mod heather (Quantum Computing)+ her optics engr dad to visit the google QM computing lab. etc DS also invited BM etc...

@knzhou it's waaaay too late for that. The closest analogue is David Zaslavsky, but that was ages ago

@knzhou precisely.

Is it really too late? If you change it a little bit, nobody will be confused when comments tagging "@EmilioPisanty" actually refer to a user called, like, Emilio P.

@EmilioPisanty think it can only likely reflect more favorably than it does now for a variety of reasons, but yes can imagine a "backward" scenario that could go the other way. on the other hand sometimes hiring decisions tend to be nearly arbitrary among highly qualified candidates.

And a small change is probably all you need to sink it down the google rankings.

Well, actually I dunno, maybe all the years of accumulated "@EmilioPisanty" in comments will make it stick.

@ZeroTheHero I'm not sure I would add many perspectives which are not already represented, either through dmckee and David or through ACM (mainly)

celebrities probably also worry about where they are in google rankings. in the field of hollywood theres an old expr theres no such thing as bad publicity as long as they dont spell your name wrong but ofc scientists may feel differently...

@ZeroTheHero I would be very interested in seeing you run. But that is fair enough.

@knzhou that's the main reason I think it's too late. There's now seven years' worth of comments addressing me, probably over several thousand pages.

@vzn thanks for sharing your opinion about my subjective experience.

yw lol

interesting, googling DS leads to SE hits #5, #6, his profile, and Physics meta post on his participation in the chat room speaker series. other hits on his youtube videos, linked in, google home pg, google scholar citations, etc google.com/search?q=daniel+sank

@Blue well, MO is different - it's explicitly pitched as a professional forum, and (as I understand it) there's a much higher awareness of what it is in 'normal' institutional academia. Being an MO moderator can be sold as something akin to a journal editor position -- management of a professional forum where the conversation about research mathematics takes place.

@EmilioPisanty for some reason Google places my entry on the Math Overflow above the Physics SE:

→ 17 messages moved to The h Bar

there are many high profile/ elite scientists/ physicists who engage in "science communication" and there is probably some institutional support although it varies/ can be mixed. think its a worthwhile goal to keep in mind in the aims/ directions/ policies of the Physics site & attracting top talent. an example of strong/ substantial/ high institutional support/ priority for scientific communcation to public would be eg CERN etc

@EmilioPisanty There is a David McKee who wrote children's books and is notable enough to have a Wikipedia page, so I have to add qualifier to get anything related to me to show up in the first few pages.

... I just went and did that for the first time in several years. And now that I have left teaching I see that I finally have a entry on RateMyProfessor. And with mostly positive comments, too.

::sigh::