Cap'n Refsmmat Posted May 28, 2004 Author Share Posted May 28, 2004 I suppose people that don't know what they are talking about are sometimes nice, because they ask question, and without that, this wouldn't be much of a forum. If we all knew everything there would be no point in this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Well, quite. There's a lot of difference between those people that are coming here looking for actual answers and those that come on here and deliberately spam/say "the laws of physics are wrong!!!!! cheese is a new fundamental constant!!!!!11"/etc, and I think YT was probably referring to those of the latter kind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted May 28, 2004 Author Share Posted May 28, 2004 Some of the latter can be entertaining, but not too many. Like ExtraSense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 ExtraSense did get quite annoying after a while though, as they all do. But on the whole, we have some of the best quality posters around here that I've seen on any of the forums that I frequent. (desperate drag to get it back on topic ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YT2095 Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Well, quite. There's a lot of difference between those people that are coming here looking for actual answers and those that come on here and deliberately spam/say "the laws of physics are wrong!!!!! cheese is a new fundamental constant!!!!!11"/etc, and I think YT was probably referring to those of the latter kind I was indeed! I have all the time in the world (appart from when I`m at work) for those that ask and genuinely wish to learn, absolutely infinate patience with them, they are part of what make this forum an admirable and worthwhile endevour! as for the troll fool, country bumpkin, village idiot types... well they won`t and don`t last long anyway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted May 31, 2004 Author Share Posted May 31, 2004 I just looked at Physics Forums, it looks a lot better than SciForums but you have to pay to get a signature or avatar. I wouldn't like that... Are the admins around here considering advertising? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 I think you should be number one in both[/i']. More dedicated members that know what they are talking about would be nice. the "most users ever online" thing is broken it would be nice to have some gauge of activity I would expect the view-rate and post-rate to grow now that LaTex is working and with the format, which is attractive and usable I cant think why more people, including knowledgeable ones, shouldnt keep showing up moderation keeps down the sheer foolishness and also can, if applied, prevent personal attacks, insulting arrogance, etc to some extent. there is a real need for places like this to discuss new research so much of which is online at arxiv. I go to bull. boards to a large degree because there I can learn of new work, new observational results, etc. and get other peoples take on it. I get news I wouldnt find on my own and I get links to stuff. if this board doesnt take a growth spurt in the next month or two, let me know and i will personally do something-----that is why I would like the "most ever" gadget to work, so I can tell whether or not I should be a booster or whether things are just naturally improving on their own. BTW the main physical science menu could use a little slight tweaking or editing. for some reason there seems no place for classical EM to go (like rail guns and coil guns) and so they wander into "modern physics" which should really be more particles, standard model, and that. Personally a slight awkwardness of categories in the menu doesnt put me off---am quite comfortable with little disorder! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 I just looked at Physics Forums' date=' it looks a lot better than SciForums but you have to pay to get a signature or avatar. I wouldn't like that... Are the admins around here considering advertising?[/quote'] Have you not seen the ads around the place? Why does Physics Forums look better, out of interest? Is it just high post counts on the forums, or something to do with the general style of the place? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 BTW the main physical science menu could use a little slight tweaking or editing.for some reason there seems no place for classical EM to go (like rail guns and coil guns) and so they wander into "modern physics" which should really be more particles' date=' standard model, and that. Personally a slight awkwardness of categories in the menu doesnt put me off---am quite comfortable with little disorder![/quote'] I agree that the subforums need to be tidied up a bit. I'm hoping the latex system should help people convey what they're trying to say with a bit more clarity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 I agree that the subforums need to be tidied up a bit. I'm hoping the latex system should help people convey what they're trying to say with a bit more clarity. having LaTex is great! whether or not to tidy up the subforum menu categories depends on whether you have time for it---and how pressured you feel by competition from the larger more established board. I think its great to be smaller, younger, looser, less crowded. I think SFN is great---I just found it or re-discovered it after some format changes gave it a new look. From a strictly personal perspective, I'm interested in research news in astronomy cosmology and quantum gravity (the newer background independent approaches). what I would like to see is other people here who watch for research news and arxiv preprints in those areas and who have an interest in those things and tell me about it or give me a link when they find something. Are you in London? There is a great conference on Quantum Gravity scheduled for around the 6 or 7 of September at London's Imperial College. Leading people will be there, john baez, carlo rovelli, renate loll, lee smolin, chris isham, laurent freidel, abhay ashtekar, (names in no particular order). would you like the Imperial College website that has the announcement describing the conference? A lot is happening, including mathematics, in quantum gravity. you should go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 Unfortunately at that time I'm going to be away, but thanks for the offer (fyi, I'm nearer Birmingham, currently at Warwick University) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted June 1, 2004 Author Share Posted June 1, 2004 Have you not seen the ads around the place? No, I mean like put an ad for Science Forums somewhere. Perhaps maybe in Popular Science magazine, or the like (depending on how expensive it is). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 Quite expensive for magazine ads. I think we're being advertised to some extent by the online ads thing we have going here (at the top of the page). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted June 1, 2004 Author Share Posted June 1, 2004 What's your rate of growth in members per month? I mean, physicsforums has 8,000 some members, and you have maybe 1,500 (most of which who don't post at all). I'd like it if we had experts in certain fields like Glider, by maybe asking professors you like to sign up. Then we would have a much more expert group of people and we wouldn't argue as much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fafalone Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 New members: May 2004 216 April 2004 186 March 2004 129 February 2004 114 January 2004 102 December 2003 77 November 2003 78 So it's steadily increasing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NSX Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 by maybe asking professors you like to sign up. Then we would have a much more expert group of people and we wouldn't argue as much. That's a good idea, but professors usually have alot to do. Although, most of them are for encouraging Science, so you could give it a shot. [edit] Actually, i'm quite intrigued by the number of guests we have on the forum [usually much more than the number of active members] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fafalone Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 Most of the guests are usually search engines, particularly Google and Inktomi, but we do have alot more real people guests too. As far as number of users online, I think I've seen around 160. We do need to fix that tho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 That's a good idea, but professors usually have alot[/b'] to do. Although, most of them are for encouraging Science, so you could give it a shot. Quite a few professors would probably be interested I would have thought, but as you said it's them being able to find the time to do it. Perhaps trying to get onto people like PhD students would help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NSX Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 yep Well, when we all go for our PhDs, there will be lots of Doctorate students on the board! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 Well, that's the plan at the moment for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jordan Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 I'd like it if we had experts in certain fields like Glider, by maybe asking professors you like to sign up. Then we would have a much more expert group of people and we wouldn't argue as much. I don't like this idea, myself. Then we'd have people who ask a question the next post is a long post written by a professor that gives the perfect answer that no one can debate. The fact that people aren't always right is what makes it fun. Also, I would bet people will shy away from posting becasue they don't want to look like an idiot when the professor comes along and picks apart everything they say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 There is that problem; however, it does bring a certain kind of authority to the forums - at least you know you're going to get an answer. Plus, I don't know a single professor that hasn't made a mistake at least once a lecture, nobody's perfect Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jordan Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 True, but I can really see the conversation going: <question> <"wait for ______"> <"yeah, he'll know"> <"just wait for him"> <"he knows all this stuff"> <lengthy response from professor> end of thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 Doesn't always happen that way. For example, swansont is pretty knowledgable in the area of physics, and we don't often see threads going that way. People don't always have the time to write a very lengthy reply about something either, but rather just give the jist of the argument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fafalone Posted June 1, 2004 Share Posted June 1, 2004 Of course when two professors disagree about something, we'd see some really good debating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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