sci.physics.research is a moderated newsgroup for discussing research-oriented physics questions.
The currently active co-moderators are (as at August 2004):
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:
There is one important exception to the above. If the Reply-To address in your post is not your real email address, then of course the moderators won't be able to send you a rejection letter. If your post is sent from an invalid address because you use a simple and easily decipherable spam-block, there's a good chance the moderator will notice this and send any rejection emails to the correct address; however, we do not promise that we will always notice and undo spam-blocks. (In fact, if your spam-block is at all difficult or annoying to undo--for instance if it requires us to visit your web site to find out your real address--then you can be quite certain that we won't do it.)
Confusion occasionally arises about cross-posted articles. An article that is cross-posted to sci.physics.research and one or more other groups will not appear on any of the newsgroups to which it was posted until it has been approved by a moderator. When a moderator approves a cross-posted article, the article is posted to all of the groups on the Newsgroups line. If a cross-posted article is rejected by the moderators, then it will not appear in any of the newsgroups. You are of course welcome in this case to post your article to the other newsgroups, omitting sci.physics.research.
Of course, the moderation 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 email to the submission address; this solves the problem in every case we know about.
If you want to send email to all of the moderators, you can use the address
physics-research-request@ncar.ucar.edu
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.
There is now an archive of sci.physics.research posts available at:
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/
This was created by Dan Riley in October 2000, and it contains posts dating back to November 1998. A more complete collection of posts before this date can now be found on Google, but it would be nice if someone put copies of those older posts onto the sci.physics.research archive.
Posts must consist primarily of substantive discussion of physics. For instance, a joke (even a very funny one), or a post to inform other readers that you won't be reading news for a while, is acceptable only if it is accompanied by substantial physics content. Posts about the workings of the newsgroup or about moderation policy are also unacceptable, since they're not about physics. If you want to comment on the newsgroup's moderation policy, the best way is to send email to the moderators at
physics-research-request@ncar.ucar.edu
Furthermore, 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).
The Usenet Physics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list answers a lot of common questions about physics. Before posting a question to sci.physics.research, you are strongly urged to read this!
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.
[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 email 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.
(Please note that the WWW prefix is for articles consisting of pointers to Web sites, not for articles that are themselves HTML documents! HTML documents should not be posted to the newsgroup: posted articles should always be plain ASCII text. You may read news from your Web browser, but not everyone does.)
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! New readers are especially urged to consult the section "An Introduction to the Physics Newsgroups". This FAQ can be found at the following sites:
Thanks for your cooperation. Let's try to make sci.physics.research a useful and interesting forum for talking about physics!