How do we best promote PhysicsOverflow ?

Question

As PhysicsOverflow approaches its public beta (the term beta seems still appropriate as we will start out with only the Q&A section ready first, and the full-fledged site will then include the Reviews section), it gets time to reconsider how we best promote PhysicsOverflow to the right audience. Such discussions have already been started on the blog at the beginning of last December.

Lubos Motl (who thinks our site is cool ;-) ...) gave me the advice to use some clever promotion methods, so please list corresponding ideas in the answers below.

Comments

I'm sure we all know what Ron is going to write : ) 

---

Just checking--- is what I said what you expected? I don't know what you are referring to in the comment above, I suppose everyone else knows.

---

@RonMaimon yes, it is : )  

Answer 1

Physicsoverflow will mainly promote itself by word of mouth.

So for god's sake, don't publicise the site until it's functioning at a quality level close to that of Mathoverflow. In it's current form and the work yet to do, I don't think we should be thinking about how to publicise it right now.

 

Comments

AND, @physicsnewbie, The review section will come later after Q & A, probably by late August. We can't wait till then to promote Physics Overflow.      

---

I don't think it should take until August. It's not a major programming job, I am looking at the code for q2a, it's very small.

---

@dimension10, they may be minor, but could be off-putting for the small number of academics we're tryng to attract here. We have only one shot with the initial publlicity, and a good rule of thumb right now is to try and make it look as professsional as Mathoverflow.

---

You are generally right @physicsnewby ... But you have to keep in mind that conversely to MathOverflow and other SE sites, we do not have a whole company (including teams of graphics experts, professional system developers, etc ...) backing us up, we are just a small group of people at present. So I think it will not be possible for PhysicsOverflow to look as "professional" or polished as MathOverflow or an SE site anytime soon ...

But our big advantage is freedom and independenc from any external constraints and forcings. The lack of these advantages on other places is what makes them rather inappropriate for a free hign-level academic in spirit community to develop...

---

BTW I did never intend to publicise PhysicsOverflow in a large style before its public beta. But as our present (nice!) community is rather small, I think it can help to explicitely invite some people, as for example the ones listed in the mod nomination thread who might want to be aware of their names appearing there, already now.

Things like the TRF and MathOverflow meta announcement etc are of course intended for later, at or shortly after the start of the public beta...

---

@ron on a certain level, it's working fine, but compared to Mathoverflow it's not as polished; it's 80% there though. There's many things that need to be done such as at least getting a manual input for the review section going, making the logo more polished, changing the colour scheme, informing users of new comments in their inbox when they log in, etc.

---

@dilaton Oh that's OK where anyone can join the public beta. Even if people are put off during this phase, the site can still be publicized on Lubos's blog, Mathoverflow when it's ready to come out of beta.