Independent Research is closing

[Greg Bernhardt]

PF staff has concluded that the Independent Research forum is no longer useful or in the best interests of the community. No new or "in review" submissions will be accepted. Current active threads will remain open until June 27th to allow the participants proper conclusion. Then all threads will be locked and merged into General Physics. Thanks!

 

[arildno]

A wise decision.

 

[Evo]

Agreed.

 

[dlgoff]

Yesss!

 

[Pengwuino]

Noooooo... eh sure, why not.

 

[rhody]

Greg,

Now if only P&WA would follow a lot of us would be better off, hehe.
How many people who are banned are banned because of what they wrote in P&WA ?
I am willing to bet quite a few...

Rhody... runs for cover from all the P&WA contributors...

 

[micromass]

Good decision!

 

[bcrowell]

This was a good decision. There are other internet communities that can fulfill the same function:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sci.physics
http://www.bautforum.com/showthread...ATM-Idea-Advocates-Read-before-posting-in-ATM
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.research -- Read this first: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/spr.html
http://www.sciforums.com

-Ben

 

[yuiop]

Why not have a sub-forum ("Non-mainstream views"?) for non standard views with a disclaimer such as:

"The thread starters in this sub-forum clearly acknowledge that their views/ideas/interpretations are not mainstream and their views not endorsed by the moderators. Students following a high school or degree course are advised to avoid this sub-forum to avoid confusion and should instead refer to the mainstream sub-forums on this forum. Enter at your own risk"

I am not sure why Independent Research is being closed but it may be that the moderators think it is too much of an overhead on their time moderating it. The new sub-forum I am suggesting would not be a burden because it would be largely unmoderated except for keeping out offensive/racist/sexist/antisocial/bullying/spamming/non-physics material. At least you would have the people considered as "cranks" clearly identified and penned in one place ;)

 

[Pengwuino]

I am not sure why Independent Research is being closed but it may be that the moderators think it is too much of an overhead on their time moderating it. The new sub-forum I am suggesting would not be a burden because it would be largely unmoderated except for keeping out offensive/racist/sexist/antisocial/bullying/spamming/non-physics material. At least you would have the people considered as "cranks" clearly identified and penned in one place ;)

Sounds like it would take the same amount of moderation. Most the crap they write is non-physics :P

 

[cristo]

Why not have a sub-forum ("Non-mainstream views"?) for non standard views

No. We tried this years ago, in the form of a 'theory development' forum, which from all accounts, sounded awful. We don't want to go backwards, and allow crackpot views anywhere: PF is a place where real science can be discussed and people can learn.

 

[arildno]

Why not have a sub-forum ("Non-mainstream views"?) for non standard views with a disclaimer such as:

"The thread starters in this sub-forum clearly acknowledge that their views/ideas/interpretations are not mainstream and their views not endorsed by the moderators. Students following a high school or degree course are advised to avoid this sub-forum to avoid confusion and should instead refer to the mainstream sub-forums on this forum. Enter at your own risk"

I am not sure why Independent Research is being closed but it may be that the moderators think it is too much of an overhead on their time moderating it. The new sub-forum I am suggesting would not be a burden because it would be largely unmoderated except for keeping out offensive/racist/sexist/antisocial/bullying/spamming/non-physics material. At least you would have the people considered as "cranks" clearly identified and penned in one place ;)

That would make crackpots feel welcome at PF.
And, they do not deserve to feel welcome here.

Furthermore, as in the TD-period, they tended to ooze outside "their" domain, infecting the forums as a whole.

And, real professionals would not bother spend their time at a forum giving formal acceptance of nonsense.

 

[marcus]

The word crackpot has been mentioned. Let's not tar Arnold Neumeier with that brush. He is a professor at University of Vienna with a good publication track record.
He has a thread in IR that is still attracting people's interest. It is 6 pages and up to post #92.

A new person "my_wan" just arrived who has been reading Neueier's draft book on QM and seems to have intelligent comments (as well as I can tell.)

All Neumeier posts I've looked at seem to me calm reasonable and well-spoken. I didn't notice any evidence of moderation by Mentors in the thread. In other words the other people seem to stay calm and reasonable too.

Maybe some other people have taken a closer look and have a negative impression, but based on looking it over I would say that the thread is low-overhead, interesting to quite a number of people, and something of an asset. I want to ask if there is any way it could stay open. (Unless Prof. Neumeier himself has asked that it be locked.)

Could the Neumeier thread be moved to QM forum or BTSM forum and remain unlocked?
Does anybody with more governance&management experience than I think it would be a good idea?

If this has already been discussed, please ignore the suggestion.

In all other respects I'm content to see IR disappear.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Could the Neumeier thread be moved to QM forum or BTSM forum and remain unlocked?
Does anybody with more governance&management experience than I think it would be a good idea?

This is a possibility and staff will discuss it

 

[marcus]

Thanks, btw I just noticed I misspelled Neumaier's name. Sorry about the goof.

 

[dlgoff]

This is a possibility and staff will discuss it

As much as I am in agreement with the decision to close Independent Research, the mere fact that he said this in his introductory post:

The goal of the thread is to obtain reader's feedback that helps me to improve the presentation while I work towards a version for publication.

I have to agree with marcus that this thread is important and should be someway maintained.

But I do know you guys will do what is best for the forum.

 

[dextercioby]

As I saw Arnold's thread getting locked, I believe that:

1. From his point of view the >90 posts discussion didn't benefit him too much.
2. From the forum's perspective, the talk had probably no future, thus only the past needed to stay.

As for the fact that snippets from his book are still brought under discussion in the Quantum Physics subforum - thing I find close to breaching the forum's guidelines - perhaps a more active moderation would prevent the topics from running into a desperate need for an abrupt ending (which never occurs).

The dissolution of the IR subforum was a good idea.

 

[dlgoff]

...I do know you guys will do what is best for the forum.

The dissolution of the IR subforum was a good idea.

I'm happy the way things worked out. Admins and mentors... you're the best.

 

[jostpuur]

I noticed that although originally the IR subforum had strict rules to ensure some quality, at some point the moderators started to allow lower quality threads that actually violated the IR rules. Do the moderators have some explanation why they stopped enforcing the IR rules at some point?

I can't help thinking that that the moderators started allowing threads, that violated the IR rules, deliberately so that the quality of the IR subforum would go down, so that it would then be easier to justify the closure without much controversy.

 

[ZapperZ]

I noticed that although originally the IR subforum had strict rules to ensure some quality, at some point the moderators started to allow lower quality threads that actually violated the IR rules. Do the moderators have some explanation why they stopped enforcing the IR rules at some point?

I can't help thinking that that the moderators started allowing threads, that violated the IR rules, deliberately so that the quality of the IR subforum would go down, so that it would then be easier to justify the closure without much controversy.

Your assumption is false. No such deliberate decision was ever considered.

Zz.

 

[strangerep]

As I saw Arnold's thread getting locked, I believe that:

1. From his point of view the >90 posts discussion didn't benefit him too much.

I have similar feelings -- and sometimes wonder whether I should have kept my mouth shut and not suggested that Arnold open his IR thread.

As for the fact that snippets from his book are still brought under discussion in the Quantum Physics subforum - thing I find close to breaching the forum's guidelines - perhaps a more active moderation would prevent the topics from running into a desperate need for an abrupt ending (which never occurs).

This is a difficult grey area. Large amounts of Arnold's book are just improved and unified treatments of already-mainstream subjects. Merely because they're in a not-yet-published book, does that mean they violate PF rules? But SAs aren't violating PF rules when they compose their own explanations in response to posted questions, (unless other SAs detect something distinctly non-mainstream therein).

 

[ZapperZ]

Against my better judgment, I'm going to respond here. And I am still hesitant to do this because we're discussing a particular member.

This is a difficult grey area. Large amounts of Arnold's book are just improved and unified treatments of already-mainstream subjects. Merely because they're in a not-yet-published book, does that mean they violate PF rules? But SAs aren't violating PF rules when they compose their own explanations in response to posted questions, (unless other SAs detect something distinctly non-mainstream therein).

The problem here is that we have no control over the accuracy of an external source. So we choose to use either verified, standard sources (example: Hyperphysics), or something that has been peer-reviewed. Unless someone wants to go over his source carefully and verify the accuracy of his treatment of "already-mainstream subjects", then you have no way of knowing everything in there is actually correct. I can point to one that wasn't!

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=503304

If someone didn't have that deep of an understanding of every single one of the subject being covered, would you think mistake like this will be discovered?

So no, I am not in favor making an exception in this case.

Zz.

 

[bcrowell]

PF has tried and failed to support independent research. Given that we admit that our structure isn't good for that purpose, why in the world would we want to start making exceptions?

If someone highly competent like Neumaier wants to get feedback on original research, there are other venues, such as the sci.physics.research usenet group, which can be accessed through google's web interface: http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.research

I can't help thinking that that the moderators started allowing threads, that violated the IR rules, deliberately so that the quality of the IR subforum would go down, so that it would then be easier to justify the closure without much controversy.

Oh, please. Did it ever occur to you that maybe they just didn't moderate so closely because it was a thankless job and they got tired of it?