Welcome to sci.physics.research, the group for moderated discussions of research-oriented physics questions! The currently active co-moderators are: John Baez baez@math.ucr.edu Ted Bunn bunn@leporello.berkeley.edu Matt McIrvin mmcirvin@world.std.com Please read what follows before posting to this newsgroup! Important Must-Read Stuff ------------------------- This section contains practical details about posting to this newsgroup. It is followed by more detailed information about the history of the group and the kinds of posts that are appropriate. Sci.physics.research is a moderated newsgroup. This means that each article must be approved by one of the co-moderators before it can be posted. One consequence of this is that you will NOT see your post appear in the newsgroup immediately after you post it. Some people mistakenly assume that their article wasn't posted when they don't see it right away. They then resubmit their articles (often several times in rapid succession). Needless to say, this is a bad thing. Don't do it. There are two ways to submit an article for posting to the newsgroup: 1. Post as you would to any newsgroup (e.g., with 'f' from rn). 2. E-mail your post to . Either way, your post will get routed at random to one of the active co-moderators, who will decide whether it is acceptable or not. If it is accepted, it will be posted; if not, the moderator will send you e-mail explaining the reasons. This means that every time you post something, you should either see it appear on the newsgroup or receive a rejection letter. If neither of those things happens, something has gone wrong with your post. (IMPORTANT EXCEPTION: If the post is sent from an invalid e-mail address, you obviously won't get a rejection letter.) Of course, this process is not instantaneous. There may be delays of up to a few days in any particular moderator's processing of submissions. (It's usually less than that, but not always.) Add to that an additional delay for your article to propagate back to your site. This means that you should wait at least a week or so before concluding that your article was lost. Some small percentage of people have trouble posting to moderated groups from their sites -- their posts sometimes disappear en route. These people should post by sending e-mail to the submission address; this solves the problem in every case we know about. If you want to send e-mail to all of the moderators, you can use the address . This address should not be used for submitting articles to be posted; it is for administrative comments that you want to be seen by all active moderators. What Is sci.physics.research? ----------------------------- Sci.physics.research is a newsgroup intended to facilitate relatively noise-free discussions of issues in and about physics. It grew out of the unmoderated group sci.physics in February 1993 as a response to a perceived signal-to-noise-ratio problem in the unmoderated group, which, it was claimed, had diminished the value of that group to the working physicist (among others). Matt Austern of LBL recognized the problem, argued that a moderated group would be an appropriate outgrowth of sci.physics, and conducted the voting for the new group. A problem recognized early in the discussions of sci.physics.research was that of obtaining a qualified moderator who would be able to devote the necessary time and effort to the purely voluntary, basically avocational job of moderating a Usenet group. After exploring possibilities, it was decided that the group would be proposed with "co-moderators" who would each receive some fraction of all submissions, concentrated under the alias physics-research@ncar.ucar.edu and then distributed randomly among the co-moderators via routing software. Each co-mod would then be able to accept or reject any article routed to him/her for posting. Sci.physics.research Charter ---------------------------- As noted above, the charter of this group is aimed at discussions of research-oriented physics issues. Much of the early discussion of the group revolved around the detailed interpretation of this charter. It was generally agreed that the charter implied "light" moderation, aimed not at restricting subject matter but at reducing noise. Under this guidance, "appropriate" material is any posting that is not *in*appropriate by dint of having one or more "forbidden" characteristics given in the CFV: (1) Personal attacks (i.e. flames); (2) Discussion that isn't about or related to physics; (3) Multiple responses that all say the same things; and (4) Overly speculative posts. Posts must be in ordinary readable ASCII text. Binary files are not appropriate for sci.physics.research. The Usenet Physics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list also serves as the FAQ list for sci.physics.research. Before posting a question to sci.physics.research, you are strongly urged to read the FAQ list. (See below for a list of places where the FAQ may be found.) Polls of the readership have indicated a desire by a majority of the respondents to limit advertising on sci.physics.research. The only advertisements we accept are advertisements OFFERING jobs (not job wanted ads) and "non-commercial want ads", that is, individuals seeking equipment, books, and the like (not ads offering to sell things). Finally, note that requests for solutions to homework problems are looked on very unfavorably by the newsgroup's readers. If you want help understanding the concepts and techniques in your physics course, feel free to ask, but asking for solutions to specific problems is frowned upon. Remember that the purpose of moderation is to ensure that articles meet the charter criteria, not to guarantee "research-quality" articles as would a journal referee. The moderators usually will not edit articles either for content or for grammar/spelling, although particularly illegible material may be returned to the author for repair. As the newsgroup grows, it will undoubtedly change, and questions of appropriateness will probably arise from time to time. In judging the moderation process, keep in mind that (1) the co-moderators are doing this for fun, not profit :-), (2) the unmoderated sci.physics will continue to exist for those that find sci.physics.research too restrictive, and (3) the co-moderators recognize the need to be responsive to the readership's desires. We'll do the best we can. Miscellaneous Information ------------------------- On some occasions accepted articles will be posted with the inclusion of "moderator's notes" having the format [Moderator's note: {whatever the moderator wants to say}] These notes may contain a request that followups be sent to a different newsgroup or conducted via e-mail to the author. Material sent in defiance of this request will generally be viewed *very* unsympathetically by the moderators. With the growth of the World Wide Web since the inception of the group, the moderators have devised a simple convention for identifying articles that point the reader to a Web site: "Subject" lines are modified to include the symbol "WWW:". This will allow readers to read or ignore WWW articles as they see fit, using a kill file. A similar convention exists for non-commercial want ads, which have subject lines that begin "AD:", and job-offered articles, which begin "JOB:". You can save us some work by including these symbols in the material that you post. As with all Usenet groups, it's a good idea to "lurk" for a while before posting -- that is, to read the group traffic to get some idea of how your message will be received, and whether it will likely be accepted by the moderator. Try also looking in some of the related newsgroups and FAQ files. In particular, we strongly urge you to read the Usenet Physics FAQ, because many basic questions are answered there! The Usenet Physics FAQ is currently available from these sites: USA: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/faq.html http://www.public.iastate.edu/~physics/sci.physics/faq/faq.html http://www-hpcc.astro.washington.edu/mirrors/physicsfaq/faq.html http://www.weburbia.com/physics/faq.html http://physicsfaq.home.ml.org/ UK: http://www.weburbia.demon.co.uk/physics/faq.html Netherlands: http://www.dra.nl/~antoine/physics/faq.html Australia: http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/physoc/physics_faq/faq.html Taiwan: http://hep3.phys.sinica.edu.tw/physics-faq/faq.html http://www.phy.ncku.edu.tw/mirrors/physicsfaq/faq.html Japanese language version: http://kekux1.kek.jp/~morita/phys-faq/ New readers are especially urged to consult the section "An Introduction to the Physics Newsgroups". Other Usenet Resources Relevant To sci.physics.research ------------------------------------------------------- A comprehensive list of newsgroups covering subject material related to this group is probably too long to include here, physics being as diverse as it is. A partial list is: sci.physics sci.physics.fusion sci.med.physics alt.sci.physics.new-theories sci.math sci.math.research sci.chem sci.astro sci.energy sci.environment talk.environment sci.astro.research sci.physics.accelerators sci.physics.cond-matter sci.physics.electromag sci.physics.plasma sci.physics.relativity -- plus a wealth of site-specific groups that may be accessible to the public. Check the monthly guide to Usenet groups posted in news.lists and elsewhere for other possibilities. Thanks for your cooperation. Let's try to make sci.physics.research a useful and interesting forum for talking about physics!