Are questions about general life on topic here?

Question

Referring to this question in particular:

Is a work/life balance incompatible with becoming an international scientist?

According to experts, in order to become an international scientist, you have to put in 80 hour weeks for a decade. Is becoming an international scientist incompatible with a work/life balance?

Answer 1

The question is not pertinent to physics at all and should probably fit in a personal help column.

Compare with this hypothetical question:

According to experts, in order to become an <insert career of choice>, you have to put in 80 hour weeks for a decade. Is becoming an <insert career of choice> incompatible with a work/life balance?

It's only a variation of the more general: "Is it worth it to put in 80 hour weeks for 10 years in order to become successful at work?" which has nothing to do with physics, is subjective and, frankly, not the kind of question we should have here.

Answer 2

When I read the title what came to mind was some blog post I read in the last few months. FSP and other bloggers have written about work/life balance issues for early career professors, and about the possibly gender differentiated interpretation of choices that people face in these circumstances.

We do have several career related questions scattered around the site---though it is not clear that we have a consensus about when or even if those are OK:

• What is an effective way to search for post-doc positions in physics?
• Starting a physics Ph.D. at 60?
• Is it possible to restart formal higher education in physics at a later age?
• Is there any reason to major in physics if you're certain you will never do a Ph.D? [closed]
• Is it possible to work on physics independently outside academia?
• What sort of jobs do physics graduates with B.Sc/M.Sc get?

and also some question concerning the sociology or culture of physics

• Can a web community write papers?
• Are the results from models considered “data”?
• Are all theoretical physicists like Sheldon Cooper? [closed]
• What does it take to become a top physicist? <== Note the relationship between this one and the one under discussion!
• Are collaborations needed to be productive in physics?

My take on this particular question is much like Sklivvz: there is nothing physics specific there, but we want to have a set of clearly-articulated, easy-to-understand metrics for telling when career-related or sociological questions are or are not on-topic.

Answer 3

As long as it's truly specific to a career in physics and not generically applicable to, say, careers in other sciences.. or any career at all .. it can be OK.

It's also important that such questions don't become too dominant on the site; the focus should remain on hard(ish) Physics.