:PhysicsOverflow
{{Infobox website
| name = PhysicsOverflow
| logo = File:PhysicsOverflow Logo.svg
| url = {{Official URL}}
| commercial = No
| registration = Optional
| type = Question and answer
Open peer review
| owner = Roger Cattin{{cite web |title = Legal |url = http://whois.domaintools.com/physicsoverflow.org |publisher = Roger Cattin|date = 2014-01-28 |access-date = 2017-03-22 |work = PhysicsOverflow}}
| author = Abhimanyu Pallavi Sudhir, Rahel Knoepfel and Roger Cattin
| launch_date = {{start date and age|2014|4}}
| content_license = User contributions under CC BY-SA 3.0
}}
PhysicsOverflow is a physics website that serves as a post-publication open peer review{{cite web|url=https://physicsoverflow.org/faq|title=FAQ - PhysicsOverflow|website=physicsoverflow.org|access-date=2017-03-19|archive-date=2017-03-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320054011/https://physicsoverflow.org/faq|url-status=live}} platform for research papers in physics, as well as a collaborative blog and online community of physicists. It allows users to ask, answer and comment on graduate-level physics questions, post and review manuscripts from ArXiv (which lists PhysicsOverflow discussion pages among its trackbacks{{cite web|url=https://physicsoverflow.org/30425|title=We have ArXiV trackbacks!|last=dimension10|date=23 April 2015|website=PhysicsOverflow}}) and other sources, and vote on both forms of content.
In addition to the two primary forms of content, the PhysicsOverflow community also welcomes discussions on unsolved problems, and hosts a chat section for discussions on topics generally of interest to physicists and students of physics, such as those related to recent events in physics, physics academia, and the publishing process.
History
PhysicsOverflow was started in April 2014 as a physics-equivalent of MathOverflow by Rahel Knöpfel, a physics PhD at the University of Rostock, high-school student Abhimanyu Pallavi Sudhir, and Roger Cattin, a retired professor of computer science at the University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland. The site was initially a mere question-and-answer forum, as it was started by users dissatisfied by the policies of the Physics Stack Exchange, but it was eventually expanded to include a Reviews section in October 2014.{{Needs citation|date=May 2025}}
Moderation practices
PhysicsOverflow is well-known for its liberal moderation policy and hesitation to block contributors except for spam, as reflected in the website's bill of "user rights".{{cite web|url=https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6196/what-is-physics-overflow-and-how-is-it-linked-to-physics-se|title=What is Physics Overflow and how is it linked to Physics.SE?|website=Physics Meta Stack Exchange|access-date=2017-03-19|archive-date=2017-03-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320053801/https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6196/what-is-physics-overflow-and-how-is-it-linked-to-physics-se|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=https://physicsoverflow.org/user-rights|title=User Rights - PhysicsOverflow|website=physicsoverflow.org|access-date=2017-03-19|archive-date=2017-03-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320053816/https://physicsoverflow.org/user-rights|url-status=live}} The content is largely community-moderated, much like MathOverflow, although exceptions have been recorded.{{cite web|url=https://physicsoverflow.org/31863|title=Violation of policy to close questions?|last1=drake|last2=Dilaton|last3=dimension10|date=10 June 2015|website=PhysicsOverflow|access-date=19 March 2017|archive-date=17 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151017221054/http://www.physicsoverflow.org/31863|url-status=live}}{{Cite web | url=https://physicsoverflow.org/review | title=Moderate {{pipe}} PhysicsOverflow | access-date=2017-03-19 | archive-date=2017-03-20 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320053935/https://physicsoverflow.org/review | url-status=live }}
Although the site's moderation policy is publicly available as part of the moderator manual, the site has been criticised for the excessive dispersion of policy-related material, such as the FAQ, the Bill of Rights, the moderator list and the Community Moderation threads, leading to reduced transparency.{{cite web|url=https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6196/what-is-physics-overflow-and-how-is-it-linked-to-physics-se|title=What is Physics Overflow and how is it linked to Physics.SE?|website=Physics Meta Stack Exchange|access-date=2017-03-19|archive-date=2017-03-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320053801/https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6196/what-is-physics-overflow-and-how-is-it-linked-to-physics-se|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=https://physicsoverflow.org/22268|title=Who are the Physics Overflow moderators, and what is their exact role and powers?|last1=SaddlePoint|last2=Dilaton|first3=Ron|last3=Maimon|date=14 August 2014|website=PhysicsOverflow}} In response, the site's administrators posted a bulletin of all moderation-related content on the site on the homepage.
Technical details
File:PhysicsOverflow Discus.svg as it appears in the PhysicsOverflow logo.]]
PhysicsOverflow runs Question2Answer, an open-source Q&A software, with a custom theme and several plugins and patches. Some of its plugins have been used by other Question2Answer websites, such as the Open Science Q&A and the Physics Problems Q&A.{{cite web|url=https://openscience.uni-bielefeld.de/768/how-do-i-regain-access-to-my-imported-account|title=How do I regain access to my imported account? - Ask Open Science|website=openscience.uni-bielefeld.de|access-date=2017-03-19|archive-date=2017-03-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320052546/https://openscience.uni-bielefeld.de/768/how-do-i-regain-access-to-my-imported-account|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=https://blog.wikimedia.de/author/christopher_schwarzkopf/|title=Christopher Schwarzkopf – Wikimedia Deutschland Blog|access-date=2017-03-20|archive-date=2017-03-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320145257/https://blog.wikimedia.de/author/christopher_schwarzkopf/|url-status=live}}
Usage
Quantcast records around 3000 monthly visitors and between 20,000 and 50,000 global page views to PhysicsOverflow every month, over half of whom are located in four countries: the United States (26.8%), India (9.2%), the United Kingdom (8.5%), and Germany (6.4%).{{Needs citation|date=May 2025}} However, according to PhysicsOverflow's own data, only around 1500 users actually contribute content to the site, and 440 are active at a given point in time.{{cite web|url=https://physicsoverflow.org/statistics|title=PhysicsOverflow|website=physicsoverflow.org|access-date=2017-03-19|archive-date=2017-03-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320052926/https://physicsoverflow.org/statistics|url-status=live}}
Recognition
The creation of PhysicsOverflow was well-received by the MathOverflow community.{{cite web|url=https://meta.mathoverflow.net/questions/1608/physicsoverflow-just-went-live|title=PhysicsOverflow just went live|website=MathOverflow Meta|access-date=2023-06-10|archive-date=2021-09-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210925025455/https://meta.mathoverflow.net/questions/1608/physicsoverflow-just-went-live|url-status=live}} PhysicsOverflow was also featured at the 5th Offtopicarium{{cite web|url=https://physicsoverflow.org/22788|title=We have a talk at the Offtopicarium !|last=Dilaton|date=24 August 2014|website=PhysicsOverflow}} and World Scientific's Asia-Pacific Physics News Letter.{{cite journal|title=PhysicsOverflow: A postgraduate-level physics Q&A site and open peer review system|first1=Abhimanyu|last1=Pallavi Sudhir|first2=Rahel|last2=Knöpfel|date=23 October 2015|journal=Asia Pacific Physics Newsletter|volume=04|issue=1|pages=53–55|doi=10.1142/S2251158X15000193}}
- John Baez suggested the website as a platform for discussing research-level physics questions.{{cite web|url=http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html|title=books|website=math.ucr.edu|access-date=2017-03-19|archive-date=2019-07-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190726010538/http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html|url-status=live}}
- Greg Bernhardt, the founder of Physics Forums, acknowledged the site as a "very interesting development for the physics discussion communities".{{cite web|url=https://motls.blogspot.com/2013/08/discussion-on-old-and-new-theoretical.html|title=The Reference Frame: Discussion about old and new theoretical physics forums|first=Luboš|last=Motl|date=14 August 2013|access-date=10 June 2023|archive-date=22 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922232912/https://motls.blogspot.com/2013/08/discussion-on-old-and-new-theoretical.html|url-status=live}}
- Arnold Neumaier, a professor at the University of Vienna, employs PhysicsOverflow as the platform for discussion about his Theoretical Physics FAQ.{{cite web|url=https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/physfaq/physics-faq.html|title=A theoretical physics FAQ|website=www.mat.univie.ac.at|access-date=2023-06-10|archive-date=2023-05-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230526045935/https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/physfaq/physics-faq.html|url-status=live}}
- String theorist Lubos Motl referred to the website as a "very promising competition [to Physics Stack Exchange]".{{cite web|url=https://motls.blogspot.com/2014/05/physics-overflow-is-live.html|title=Physics Overflow is live|access-date=2023-06-10|archive-date=2021-10-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211019075656/https://motls.blogspot.com/2014/05/physics-overflow-is-live.html|url-status=live}}
- Urs Schreiber publicised the site, claiming it could act as a catalyst to make physics academia more open like mathematics.{{cite web|url=https://plus.google.com/+UrsSchreiber/posts/SoWhSAqmUJ1?loc=us|title=New PhysicsOverflow forum for research-level physics discussion A new site...|date=2 February 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190202090712/https://plus.google.com/+UrsSchreiber/posts/SoWhSAqmUJ1?loc=us|archive-date=2019-02-02}}