Questions tagged [faq]

These questions are the most frequently asked and answered questions on Meta. They are often policies.

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130 votes
3 answers
43k views

How do I ask homework questions on Physics Stack Exchange?

What is the policy on asking homework questions on Physics Stack Exchange? What kinds of questions are considered homework questions? Are homework questions allowed? What should I include in a ...
78 votes
1 answer
2k views

Please don't use computer-generated text for questions or answers on Physics

For the impatient reader, the guidance is in the title: please don't use computer-generated text for questions or answers on Physics. Computer-generated text violates our expectation that users are ...
rob's user avatar
  • 89.4k
53 votes
15 answers
6k views

My question was closed on Phys.SE. Can you recommend me another Internet site where my question might be on-topic?

My question was closed1 on Phys.SE. Can you recommend me another Internet site where my question might be on-topic? Here we keep a list of other Internet sites that might help students2 of physics. ...
sigoldberg1's user avatar
  • 4,487
46 votes
3 answers
3k views

What counts as sufficient prior research when asking a question?

On Physics Stack Exchange, people asking questions are expected to demonstrate that they've put a certain amount of effort into answering the question themselves. What exactly counts as sufficient ...
David Z's user avatar
  • 76.4k
36 votes
1 answer
5k views

Are resource recommendations allowed?

What is the policy on asking for recommendations of books or resources on Physics Stack Exchange? What is a resource recommendation question? What sort of resource recommendation questions are ...
Manishearth's user avatar
  • 18.9k
33 votes
2 answers
6k views

Is non-mainstream physics appropriate for this site?

Is non-mainstream physics allowed here? What defines non-mainstream physics? What sort of questions and answers are disallowed by this policy? What should I do if I see a question or answer containing ...
31 votes
3 answers
936 views

Should history of physics questions be on topic?

When we last visited the issue of history questions, the dedicated History of Science and Mathematics Stack Exchange was in its early stages. At that time, we decided against closing questions for ...
David Z's user avatar
  • 76.4k
31 votes
1 answer
7k views

How do we write good question titles?

Writing a good title can require some thought. A title, while short, must help other users get an idea of what your question will ask so they can decide whether or not to click and read the entire ...
DanielSank's user avatar
  • 24.4k
30 votes
6 answers
9k views

Should any check-my-work questions be made on topic?

It's long overdue that I make this post revisiting our policy on "check-my-work" questions. These are questions, often (but not necessarily) homework-like, that present a complete mathematical or ...
David Z's user avatar
  • 76.4k
22 votes
5 answers
5k views

Are engineering questions appropriate for this site?

Often we get questions of the form "How do I build this particular device?" or "Why was this design implemented in such-and-such product?" Are these questions appropriate for the Physics Stack ...
19 votes
1 answer
915 views

How do you cite yourself?

In this answer I cited some work I did a while ago. To what extent should we allow self-linking? I have noticed in some cases there is self-linking that is only tangentially related to the ...
Mark Eichenlaub's user avatar
18 votes
4 answers
2k views

Is there a standard place to point people to learn how to typeset their equations?

I've seen a number of questions in which the moderators change html equations into LaTeX, or else people writing in the comments that the site supports LaTeX. Do we have a standard place where we can ...
Mark Eichenlaub's user avatar
18 votes
2 answers
660 views

Community, help us moderate the site!

Related: A guide to moderating Physics Stack Exchange yourself: close voting Community, help us close questions! When I first discovered community moderation on this site, I was pretty ...
Manishearth's user avatar
  • 18.9k
17 votes
1 answer
562 views

How do I dispute a moderator's action?

A moderator closed/migrated/deleted a post, and I disagree with this. How should I proceed in getting this reversed? Return to FAQ index
17 votes
0 answers
738 views

FAQ for Physics Stack Exchange

Frequently Asked Questions This thread is an index of Frequently Asked Questions, and other resources, for Physics Stack Exchange. General questions about Stack Exchange For general questions about ...
16 votes
2 answers
630 views

Should abbreviations and acronyms be discouraged?

Occasionally, I pass over a question merely because I don't understand an abbreviation or acronym. I wonder if the instructions should encourage the definition of these things in the body of the ...
garyp's user avatar
  • 22.2k
14 votes
1 answer
611 views

What is the policy for linking? E.g.: Why should we link to abstract pages rather than pdf files? How do we cite arXiv preprints?

As a comment to one of my contributions, I received the comment: In the future please link to abstract pages rather than pdf files. Fine. I am happy to follow up on this suggestion. Can anybody ...
14 votes
5 answers
526 views

How should we handle how-to-find-a-specific-reference requests?

We occasionally get "find me a PDF" requests, where a user knows exactly the paper she needs and (presumably because of a paywall) asks how to obtain an electronic copy of it. This has typically been ...
Emilio Pisanty's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
293 views

How can I cite a question in SE?

Is there a way to cite a StackExchange question, in a way similar to arXiv.org for instance ? For arXiv, I can just write arXiv:1303.6666 for the article at link http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.6666 and ...
FraSchelle's user avatar
  • 10.5k
9 votes
1 answer
462 views

Can I ask several related questions in a single thread?

I have several physics questions, all of which are about the sloshing mode of water. Should I ask all the questions in a single thread, or create separate threads? Return to FAQ index
Mark Eichenlaub's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
1k views

Are physics-related notation and terminology questions on-topic?

This is prompted by What is the origin of the naming convention for position functions? which asks why s is used as the letter for position. Here are some more examples. which letter to use for a ...
David Z's user avatar
  • 76.4k