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The new site is now up and running (outside the SE network) here

https://www.physicsoverflow.org/

PhysicsOverflow is meant to be some kind of a rebirth of the untimely passed away Theoretical Physics SE and a little physics brother of MathOverflow.

Compared to the former theoretical physics site, we have slightly lowered the bar to ask questions to graduate-level upward and broadened the scope to include experimental physics and phenomenology.

Apart from the high-level Q&A, PhysicsOverflow will offer in the future a Reviews section, dedicated to discuss and peer review (mostly ArXiv but other sources can be considered too) papers publicly and "in real time".

We would be very happy to welcome some of the nice people here, who are interested for example in theoretical/mathematical physics too, on PhysicsOverflow.

Cheers

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  • $\begingroup$ Please feel free to close this, if it is off-topic ... $\endgroup$
    – Dilaton
    Apr 6, 2014 at 9:06
  • 32
    $\begingroup$ No, I think it's very much on-topic, and best wishes for the new site! $\endgroup$
    – Todd Trimble Mod
    Apr 6, 2014 at 12:32
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Godspeed, and don't abuse set theory too much, eh! (Something that was rarely done on physics sites, but when it happens, it always causes me to irk and grind my teeth.) $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Apr 6, 2014 at 15:41
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Physics Overflow is temporarily down for a while due to a technical glitch with the host. This has occurred only about twice or thrice, unfortunately, shamefully enough, always after we went public. $\endgroup$ Apr 6, 2014 at 16:02
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ The site looks good and quite functional. Congratulations. After reading this post on the underlying software, I am curious. I hope either you or @Dimensio1n0 can provide some information. Can you share your impressions so far on using Q2A compared to using the stackexchange platform? Also, how much did you have to modify Q2A to get to the current state? $\endgroup$ Apr 6, 2014 at 22:01
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    $\begingroup$ Hi @RicardoAndrade, of course SE is much more "polished", and has many features native Q2A does not offer. But Q2A has also some advantages, for example posts can not only be categorized by tags but by higher level categories too to partition the site a bit. One of the most difficult tasks was to import the TP.SE questions from the data dump, and making LaTex work correctly was not exactly stright forward either. Our philosophy when modifying Q2A was to modify or add "external" components such as plugins, customizing the site them for design issues, install java scripts, etc whenever possible $\endgroup$
    – Dilaton
    Apr 7, 2014 at 9:59
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    $\begingroup$ and modify the core code of Q2A only if inevitably needed, to not lose compatibility with updates Q2A implements. $\endgroup$
    – Dilaton
    Apr 7, 2014 at 10:01
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    $\begingroup$ @RicardoAndrade In addition to what Dilaton said, Q2A allows the ability to (logically) link questions two answers. Unfortunately, there are no inbuilt review queues, and the tag description plug in is not that great, so we achieved these by meta posts, pages on a separate wiki, etc. $\endgroup$ Apr 7, 2014 at 10:41
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    $\begingroup$ Also, through a plug-in, we have comment voting (both up and down), while SE only offers upvoting for comments. And we can make vote counts appear separately (+ and -) by default without any reputation barrier, or needing to click. See here for the full list. $\endgroup$ Apr 7, 2014 at 11:46
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    $\begingroup$ "+1" and congrts. Just signed up to upvote. One day I shall be an expert and will be a part of that community. Although I have given a shot to one of my question from Phys.SE there. :-) $\endgroup$
    – user31782
    May 2, 2014 at 14:12
  • $\begingroup$ Isn't PO a part of the SE network? Why doesn't it show there? $\endgroup$
    – 299792458
    Sep 1, 2014 at 6:05
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @New_new_newbie PO was launched outside the SE network, to avoid having to fullfill any externally prescribed activity criteria. $\endgroup$
    – Dilaton
    Sep 1, 2014 at 8:24
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    $\begingroup$ @Dilaton - Thanks. I was contemplating joining PO and apparently I can't do that automatically using the SE profile. Your page mentions that users whose questions are imported should reclaim their Physics.SE account, but what about the others? I mean I had a grad-level question on P.SE that's unanswered over there, so maybe that can be imported in the future. $\endgroup$
    – 299792458
    Sep 2, 2014 at 6:03
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    $\begingroup$ @TheDarkSide That's fine, you can register as a new user and ask for your posts to be imported here. $\endgroup$ Mar 29, 2015 at 10:46
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ I’m voting to close this question because it is no longer relevant in 2021. $\endgroup$ Oct 13, 2021 at 8:30

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