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  History of PhysicsOverflow

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Below is the History, or timeline, of PhysicsOverflow. 

asked Mar 21, 2014 in Public Official Posts by dimension10 (1,985 points) [ revision history ]
retagged Apr 12, 2014 by dimension10

1 Answer

+ 5 like - 0 dislike

 First of all, I think we need to give special thanks to PolarKernel. He helped with all our technical issues, starting from installing Q2A, to installing plug-ins, to uploading the site to a host, to solving all sorts of bugs. And as his (very humbly written, given all the work he has done for the site, for all the effort and time he has spent for this site) "About Me" states, he is not a physicist.     

  • 2010-11-13 - Joe Fitzsimons proposes the creation of a research-level Theoretical Physics SE site on Area51.
  • 2012-05-04 - After 233 days in public beta Theoretical Physics SE was shut down by StackExchange, citing "low-traffic" as the reason for the company to do so.
  • 2013 - A group of users decided to revive Theoretical Physics SE in the context of a  future new Q&A site for graduate-level and beyond physics that should have no content censorship, and criticism should not be discouraged or limited in any way. The role model was chosen to be MathOverflow, with the goal to create an analogue site for Physics.
  • 2013-08-14 - Lubos Motl agrees to help set up a thread on his blog, The Reference Frame (TRF), to help such users continue their discussion.  
  • 2013-09-10 - Dilaton sets up a blog, called Schrodinger's Cat Strikes Back for the systematic and relatively more calm-headed discussion specifically about the new site. It was the idea of John McVirgo to set up a blog.     
  • 2013-09-12 - polarkernel, agrees to help setting up PhysicsOverflow, from a technical point of view.  
  • 2013-10-13 - Vote conducted for site name; PhysicsOverflow wins. 
  • 2013-10-23 - Q2A successfully installed, an offline test site is created.  
  • 2014-01-24 - TP.SE questions successfully imported to test site; polarkernel writes plugin to import PSE questions   
  • 2014-02-20 Technical Private Beta of PhysicsOverflow begins
  • 2014-04-04 - Public beta begins
  • 2014-05-31 - The first version of the reviews section, Reviews I is launched earlier than planned.
  • 2014-08-24 - The hierarchial tag system released; leading to the phase Reviews II. The PhysicsOverflow software development has now branched away significantly far from the Question2Answer software development.
  • 2015-11 - PhysicsOverflow is featured in the APPN and in PhysikJournal.

Who is responsible for the founding of the site?

While the community on the blog Schrodinger's cat strikes back  was responsible for the creation of the site, for practical purposes polarkernel, Dilaton, and dimension10 may be considered as the "founders" of PhysicsOverflow.

answered Mar 21, 2014 by dimension10 (1,985 points) [ revision history ]
edited Apr 30, 2017 by Dilaton

Pretty good. I'd leave out the special thanks to PolarKernel since he stands out in the time line anway, and the important part he played is obvious from this.

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