The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.
9
votes
8answers
164 views
Thoughts, comments, and reactions about the FEniCS experiment
A little over two months ago, Anders Logg posted Can scicomp.stackexchange be used for project-specific questions?, asking if it would be all right to use SciComp StackExchange as a replacement for ...
4
votes
0answers
33 views
Computational modelling vs. mathematical modelling
My request for discussion is prompted by this recent SciComp.SE post, Definition of incompressible flow, and relates to the scope of the forum.
As commented there I feel the topic falls just far ...
8
votes
2answers
212 views
Can scicomp.stackexchange be used for project-specific questions?
Is scicomp.stackexchange the right place to ask questions that relate to the usage of specific libraries?
To be more precise, we are contemplating moving the FEniCS Project from Launchpad, which has ...
3
votes
1answer
31 views
Should we migrate signal processing questions to dsp.stackexchange.com?
In light of a recent question, I'm wondering to what extent we should accept digital signal processing questions and when we should migrate them to dsp.stackexchange.com?
5
votes
2answers
65 views
What does it mean that this is a “beta” site?
What are the criteria for it to be official and is there a risk of it not continuing?
2
votes
1answer
42 views
One of my questions of stackoverflow was closed - would it be more appropriate here?
I asked a question about resource allocation (kind of) on stackoverflow which was closed as off-topic. My problem is that I need to allocate climbing hold colors to wall sectors, while some rules have ...
4
votes
2answers
59 views
Policy on homework?
I've just replied to a question where the poster was honest enough to add a tag "home work". The question itself was not really the home work I guess (it was this question), but more how to do ...
2
votes
2answers
58 views
what is computational science difference from the computer science?
I mean there are two general-purpose computer science stack exchanges: http://cs.stackexchange.com and http://cstheory.stackexchange.com. When should I prefer this site?
10
votes
0answers
28 views
Tag graph for scicomp
I made a graph of connections between the top tags on scicomp, using this code and Gephi. Enjoy!
4
votes
1answer
58 views
Undelete question 4650?
I wrote a five-minute answer to this while disconnected, during which time the author deleted the question. Discard my answer or undelete and post? Not a big deal to me either way.
...
0
votes
1answer
20 views
Tag for rejected questions?
Should a tag be created for "closed"/"rejected" questions? It might make sense to have them tagged if they're being kept for archival purposes—it would also mean that a question like this one on Win32 ...
6
votes
0answers
25 views
Tag Merge Request: fem & finite element
I think we should merge the fem tag into the finite-element. Any objections?
2
votes
1answer
22 views
Should open questions be closed?
So far a decent chunk of the questions I've asked on this site are open in the research sense. E.g., a question like "does problem X have complexity Y" will result in answers giving the best known ...
2
votes
1answer
30 views
Cross-posting on non-stackexchange sites?
The guidelines (see this discussion) discouraging cross-posting duplicated questions seems to be limited in scope to multiple posts on SE sites only. In light of a recent post here, I realize that we ...
1
vote
0answers
10 views
Scope of Data-Analysis Tag
I added the "data-analysis" tag to the question here since I felt it was the best fit for the author's request of a "post-processing" tag.
While I see those two terms as almost identical, I was ...
2
votes
1answer
27 views
Should non-numerical MPI questions go here or Stack Overflow?
Should general questions on MPI go here or Stack Overflow? An example of such a question is
http://scicomp.stackexchange.com/questions/2876/nonblocking-version-of-mpi-barrier-in-mpi-2
4
votes
2answers
80 views
When is a question/answer too program-specific, and what is the policy on redirecting to other forums?
The question came up in this thread about an OpenFOAM-problem: user asked a question on the appropriate forum where he didn't get an answer too (or didn't find it in the first place) because he didn't ...
1
vote
1answer
34 views
How do we resolve the overlap among 3 Python and serial performance-related questions?
It was recently brought to my attention by AlexE that my question What tools or approaches are available to speed up code written in Python? might be a duplicate of (or overlap heavily with) (how to) ...
12
votes
0answers
75 views
Use scicomp like our collective computational science blog/encyclopaedia!
I'd like to call everybody's attention to a recent Stack Overflow blog post by Joel Spolsky, the CEO of the StackExchange Network. In it, he explicitly encourages a more blog-like approach to using ...
3
votes
1answer
29 views
FAQ still references Theoretical Physics
The FAQ still mentions Theoretical Physics, which was closed (and is now essentially part of Physics):
Physics, ask on http://physics.stackexchange.com/ or ...
1
vote
0answers
33 views
questions on SLURM configuration or setup
Are questions on setting up and configuring SLURM on an HPC cluster on topic for this site? The particular question I have in mind is getting SLURM to work well with the license manager for ...
5
votes
0answers
57 views
Chemistry.SE is now in public beta!
Just a quick word to let you know that Chemistry.SE has now launched into public beta. We welcome computational chemistry questions there too, so the boundary between the two sites is something we ...
1
vote
1answer
45 views
Are questions related to Hadoop welcome on scicomp?
I've been using Hadoop for some time now, and after carefully looking it seems that the only place to ask questions about implementation details is still the official Hadoop mailing lists.
I'm ...
2
votes
2answers
72 views
Can we get a cluster list/community hardware guide going on?
Asking this question about when it makes economic sense to build one's cluster in the cloud has led me to some interesting thoughts. Everyone seems to have a slightly different idea of what a ...
1
vote
0answers
9 views
MathJax buttons/hotkeys script
I've written a script that lets you insert dollar symbols automatically(via a keyboard shortcut or button) in the editor window on Stack Exchange sites that support MathJax. Feel free to check it out.
...
4
votes
10answers
162 views
SciComp Self Evaluation: How ARE You Doing? [closed]
There are lots of metrics we can use to "measure" a site, and we do, but none of them matter as much as having a healthy and happy site full of interesting questions and expert answers.
So, let's ...
2
votes
1answer
38 views
Economics.SE closing; candidates for migration
The Economics board is closing Friday, May 4, and they want to move as many questions to new sites as possible. These appear to be relevant for scicomp.SE:
Simulation in Economics
Best program for ...
1
vote
1answer
34 views
What topics should my questions cover on Computational Science?
From what I've seen on Area 51, this site is supposed to be a more general-purpose Q/A place than most of the others StackExchange sites.
I'm a bit confused about what kind of questions I should ask ...
0
votes
0answers
28 views
Are questions about scientific computing employment on topic?
This question just came up about where to find jobs in scientific computing / modeling. While certainly an important question for many of us, it seems a bit off-topic to me. Also, it is phrased as a ...
1
vote
1answer
60 views
Anti-list question vigilante - thoughts?
I just received a single downvote on each of the two list-like questions that I had asked, one downvote right after the other. Considering that both of the questions are at least a month old and quite ...
1
vote
2answers
59 views
Is this BST code-debugging question on topic?
This post seems to ask just for debugging. The user seems to have thought about the problem, and seems understandably stuck. However, I feel that this question is more suitable for the ...
3
votes
3answers
103 views
What should the policy be on the phrase “One (book/solver/package/library/etc.) per answer please”?
Something I've noticed occasionally is that posters will include the phrase "One (book/solver/package/library/etc.) per answer please". Questions asking for a list of resources tend to include this ...
1
vote
1answer
42 views
Should we wikify a question on “interior eigenvalues”
Several questions have arisen concerning the interior of the spectrum of an operator. The answers and solutions to these questions are very similar or related. I feel we should wikify these answers.
...
4
votes
2answers
72 views
Are the questions about the career path as a computational scientist appropriate here?
Mods and friends
I am myself a PhD candidate, and I am now preparing and studying for my thesis which is about the 4D space-time finite element method for hyperbolic conservation law. Actually I am a ...
2
votes
1answer
20 views
What kinds of solver package questions are considered relevant?
I've read this question, this question, and this question which all address a similar topic, but I guess I was looking for further clarification. I noticed there aren't any tags like "Overflow". I ...
4
votes
1answer
29 views
Has anyone tried to migrate users from the CFD Online forums?
Has anyone tried to convert CFD Online Forum users to the dark side? I'm not a member there, but I used to visit occasionally when I wanted to learn more while I was in school. Obviously I'm biased, ...
3
votes
4answers
98 views
What should the site name be?
I hope I'm not out of line asking this, but I thought it was especially important for this beta, since there is fairly large potential for confusion with computer science.SE.
So, in the vein of such ...
2
votes
0answers
50 views
How can we fix/answer the modern language features question?
This question has already raised a bit of controversy on the site. I'd like to take advantage of this and work together as a community to formulate a series of questions (and responses) that serve as ...
2
votes
0answers
37 views
New Beta Theme Launched
Your site looks a bit different today. Yes, we are getting rid of the 'Sketchy' look and replacing it with a more-polished and finished design for sites in beta.
You can read more about the redesign ...
2
votes
2answers
56 views
Request for Comment: Tag clean-up
Acknowledgments
First, thanks to GertVdE for going through the tags and proposing changes. AronAhmadia and I have looked at GertVdE's list, and now I'm going through and cleaning up and merging some ...
1
vote
2answers
80 views
Tags for each algorithm (GMRES, MINRES, ERK, IRK, BDF, …)?
Should we allow tags for each and every different method/algorithm? Or should these be combined in topical tags like "iterative methods"? I'm a bit afraid that many tags will only be used in a single ...
1
vote
2answers
40 views
Are questions about non-numerical aspects of numerical libraries on topic?
I've been reading the PETSc documentation, and I having a lot of trouble figuring out what PetscBag and some the functions that relate to it are supposed to do.
It's part of Petsc, but PetscBag is ...
1
vote
1answer
27 views
Would a question on evaluating computational science students be on topic?
I'd really like to ask a question about "best practices" in evaluating the performance of students taking computational science classes. Is there a way to do that within the current scope of the ...
1
vote
0answers
19 views
What should we do with the geometry and computational geometry tags?
In a similar scope to my previous question, there is a geometry and a computational geometry tag... Should we merge them or keep them separate, but with synonyms. Furthermore, under what conditions ...
2
votes
2answers
38 views
What should we do with the meshing & mesh-generation tags?
I noticed that both meshing & mesh-generation are included as tags. Should we merge them or at least suggest a tag-synonym?
4
votes
4answers
49 views
How much editing is too much?
I've noticed that I keep coming back to reedit my own questions because I am not satisfied with the clarity and the apparent focus of the question. "Luckily", my questions haven't drawn too many ...
1
vote
1answer
112 views
Do we welcome Operations Research questions?
This post has an Operations Research flavor. Although the author does not explicitly phrase the question in OR terms (and it might be a homework assignment), I think it's on-topic (contrary to some ...
2
votes
1answer
39 views
Is using computational techniques to automatically generate natural-sounding writing in our scope?
The question Markov Chain/n-gram make more natural sounding? has been flagged as out of scope. I am not an expert in computer language generation (natural language processing? I'm not sure what the ...
1
vote
1answer
30 views
How to deal with generally useful but specifically irrelevant answers?
In this question a provided answer is very detailed and informative, but due to a misunderstanding of the question potentially irrelevant. It would be a shame to lose that answer and delete it. How ...
3
votes
2answers
54 views
What questions do we want to encourage as on-topic in our FAQ?
The question Are questions about the presentation of algorithms on topic here? makes a good point that our FAQ talks mostly about what is off-topic. We should include examples of what is on-topic. Any ...
