Review section: limitations

Question

I think that the reviews should not have to be limited to papers on the arXiv, but it should be possible to review entries on serious blogs, videos of talks, books, etc.

However, i do not know whether or not there should be some sort of limitation. For example, should reviews of entries on non-serious blogs or newspapers be allowed? If yes, what is the best and most objective way to discriminate between serious and non-serious science?

Comments

There's no way to distinguish between serious and non-serious physics. We should keep the reviews section limited to physics research papers and other stuff on the arxiv. Importing from journal databasesor ViXrA should be allowed too. 

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OK. Then only journals, arXiv, and ViXrA. It wouldn't be possible to review a video of a recent important seminar, right?

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@drake No, I think you're right actually, probably important seminars, conferences and conference proceedings should also be allowed.   

Answer 1

As this has obtained the required number of community votes, consider this an official PhysicsOverflow policy.

I see that this is a good point. After all, even the ArXiV has lecture notes, etc., which are not really "original" in nature.

When reviewing things like blog articles, lecture notes, etc., there is no "originality" in them. This is not necessarily a problem since the formula for overall score is 

\(x= \mathfrak{S} \exp\left( \sqrt[3]{\frac{\mathfrak{\times}}{5}} \right) \)

So, even if the originality is 0, which it usually is, the overall score will just be the accuracy score.  

I don't think newspapers should get reviewed, for obvious reasons. 

Not even blog articles. It is difficult to make an objective criteria between a real physics blog and a troll one. Some are extremely debatable. Also, many blogs are devoted to reviewing themselves.       

Great blogs, such as TRF, are not necessarily devoted only to physics. TRF for example is also about politics, and so on. Now, the bot doesn't know that Barrack Obama is a politician, or that Joseph Polchinski is a physicist. 

So, in conclusion, it is safe to import research papers, review papers, conference papers (from their proceedings), and seminars. The sources can be ArXiV, ViXrA, journal databases, proceedings, wherever. Direct uploads aren't supported yet.