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Misconceptions about electric theory

I made this question, but I really felt that there isn't really many people on skeptics that is capable of answer it. Stack Exchange have other parts that is made for Physics and Electrics. Is it good practice then to 'advertise' the question on those parts to bring in experts from those areas?

The question itself is about debunking/proving the topic, but expertise in the area generally is lacking on Skeptics. How should this be handled?

Looking in hindsight the question itself is kind of a mess as well.

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I asked it as a question on both Physics and on Electrical Engineering.

On Physics, they reacted suspiciously, but was open to the theoretical type of question, and the questioning of the educational system. People seemed to read my question, and accurately ask question on improvements on the question.

On Electrical Engineering, the question was treated with extremely high level of hostility. People was not used to quotes, people was not used to questioning of educational system, and did not find overly much interest in the theoretical nature of the question. Their overseer-guru-superuser (their version of OddThinking), said that this type of question might or might not be interest to the people there, but that the nature of the question was completely wrong. He recommended that I should not put it up as a question but advertise it in chat, and ask for people to answer it there instead.

Generally it seems that the rules and communities for each Stack exchange varies quite a bit, and cross-overs create "cultural friction". You are supposed to act a certain way in certain stack exchange. Whenever it's okay or not to cross promote questions, by posting them as question, is more determined WHERE you post it, and it seems you have to be aware of how to blend in better in the community.

Overall this turned out to be an unintentional social experiment, while still being within stack-exchange. And what I kinda learnt is that if you go to 'foreign' stack-exchanges you need to 'blend in'. Act the way everyone else is acting, or you will be treated with hostility, very similar to how things are here on skeptics, though overall we tend to be fairly nice to new people here, depending on HOW off they are.

The recommendation from the Electrical Engineering Guru is fairly sound as well, for a simple and least amount of friction-creation, just ask on relevant chat. Personally I think both asking as a question and asking in chat for an expert is good approaches, just that if you ask it as a question, you probably have to put down more time doing so, researching HOW you should ask it, and formulate it properly for the occasion.

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Even not being experts, we can always point to reliable third party sources (Wikipedia manages to do it this way).

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I don't think it really takes a EE or Physist to confirm/debunk those theories. An interested user with some time to look in to the specifics of each one would probably be able to find some pretty good sources of information.

Saying that, its great to bring new knowledge/experience to skeptics so if you can entice some experts by perhaps discussing this question on other meta sites then I dont see a huge problem there. Although, im not sure of the ettiquette when doing so.

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  • Yea this is the main issue, I don't know the ettiquette of doing this. What I did was more or less rallying people to the question on Skeptics, to give it most focus, and having skeptics rules enforced, with references and whatnot.
    – Wertilq
    Apr 11, 2013 at 9:26
  • I suggest you wait for a more experienced person to point out if there is an existing policy on this.
    – Jamiec Mod
    Apr 11, 2013 at 9:31
  • Is there no way to high light people, to bring them here? I assume OddThinking and Sklivvz have something to say about it.
    – Wertilq
    Apr 11, 2013 at 9:39
  • Im sure you're right. They'll no doubt comment when they can. They get notified automagically to meta posts ;)
    – Jamiec Mod
    Apr 11, 2013 at 9:57
  • No! That's not the way it should work. Don't look to Sklivvz and me for community opinions! You tell us what they are.
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Apr 11, 2013 at 10:52
  • My bad, I thought you guys would have experience with going hunting round other meta sites trying to solicit users and whether that was acceptable behaviour.
    – Jamiec Mod
    Apr 11, 2013 at 11:35
  • I don't completely agree with you there, @Oddthinking. You guys are the old ones, the gurus, you're the leaders everyone look up to, the ones everyone both love and hate. And you're not asked for your opinion as a mod now, but for your opinion, as one of the major figures on the site. It's for your experience you're wanted.
    – Wertilq
    Apr 11, 2013 at 12:05
  • @Wertliq: Yeah, fair enough, but we should include Oliver_C, DJClayworth et al on the list too. I haven't any experience with this; my recruiting has only been at real-world Skeptics events, not poaching from other SEs. Someone tried to get me to check-out a beta site via chat once. That seems acceptable behaviour. Find duplicates on their sites and point the people here for answers? Seems fine.
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Apr 11, 2013 at 14:05
  • Most people are active on more than one SE anyways, it seems like quite a few people here show some active on Stack Overflow as well, and people have their hobbies as well and the appropriate SEs for that. It feels like "poaching" is a bit harsh word thus.
    – Wertilq
    Apr 11, 2013 at 14:16

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