Robert Cartaino

After 10,000+ proposals with hundreds trying these types of applications, I don’t how how else to covey that we are not currently pursuing these off-format subjects

Questions in this math space that would fit our Q&A format would be on topic on math SE or Math Overflow. Thank you for the suggestion, but we are unable to build and support this site.

We are not currently considering proposals which try to repupose the Q&A in a way not well supported by our format. We talk more about why here: area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/24050/…. Sorry about the confusion. It sounds like and interesting project, but in our experience, Stack Exchange simply has not been a good solution to these types of problems and we no longer wish to compound the lack of support our Q&A provides for those needs.

So one of the approaches/answers will be voted on as THE one correct answer, without any further collaboration, debate, or discussion in the process? That is the Stack Exchange design. Stack Exchange is not designed to support the type of thoughtful, ongoing, back and forth discourse this type of subject would need. We are not able to thoughtfully support subjects this far outside our core Q&A design at this time.

@apaul34208 Then that makes every "How do I convince people [news item of the day] is wrong?" on topic. That's concerning. It's not an edict, but watching out for a back door way this becomes a broad sociopolitical debate and rant forum.

@Tycho'sNose Or better stated, whether these questions can be productive in the context of a Stack Exchange-style Q&A site (i.e. questions that can be answered and not just discussed).

Do these questions about "how to change society's behavior?" feel more like a thinly veiled social debate rather than an issue that be resolved by 'Interpersonal Skills'? What kind of answer can we expect beyond showing support or disagreement? Is this type of debate or rallying for a cause on topic here?

@kenorb You can't edit a closed question into something else simply to misappropriate those votes for a question they were not cast for. You know better and crap like that will get an account suspended.

I posted a response here:

Don't forget to mention that, with this investment, Stack Overflow will now only support the Netscape Browser.

@abbyhairboat Maybe they did... shh.....

@WanderingLogic I only assumed the non-CS users were finding the proposal through Google search. I guess it could just as easily be through Area 51 ads on SO (although I believe the click throughs have been called "virtually zero.") Regardless of how they're finding it, it's the existence of the subject and the questions that obviously intrigued them. So whether it's an Area 51 ad or the 'hot questions' list, if folks aren't asking the questions, it's not obvious the site covers that subject at all

Ubiquitous sites like "Great Outdoors" and "Sports" have that problem in spades.

@WanderingLogic What you are likely seeing with the lack of awareness of these subject in CS SE is a catch-22 problem. People are finding these subjects in Area 51 because people are asking the questions. (Google Search) If people are not asking the question in CS SE, then there's no way for the interested parties in these subject to discover your site. Area 51 was never designed (nor intended) to become a marketing channel for existing sites to fill out missing parts of their scope.

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@vzn Community Ads on proposals: I suspect not. That's really what discussion is for... to discuss the viability of a proposal and to "nudge that audience" to perhaps a better SE solution.

@vzn I have plenty of pet peeves about Area 51. I keep diving into completely redesigning our site-creation process that looks nothing like Area 51 at all. I'm working on a rough spec with an idea right now, but it is a really hard problem to make site creation both easy (for subjects that have the audience) and to keep every ill-conceived idea from getting through and figuring out what to do with these "site experiments" when they don't work out in actual practice.

@WanderingLogic Permanent redirect? No. I would suggest discussions again. If there's a closed proposal that I can leave an 'announcement', that might be okay, but those proposals (once closed) do not stay in Area 51 for very long (maintenance deletes them after about a month or so). But we do not have a preemptive way to redirect users who may suggest similar ideas.

> Is there a way that we could get some kind of permanent alias, redirect, or something in Area 51...

@WanderingLogic Not directly (as in contacting them via email or something). The intended way is to start a discussion linked to those proposals. Since the "necessity" of those proposals are in question, raising the issue that they should support CS or CSTheory instead seems apt.

> Is there some friendly way to encourage the people who are following these two Area 51 proposals to come ask their questions on cs.stackexchange.com?

@WanderingLogic I wasn't talking to you specifically about a (potential) relaunch. Just talking over your shoulder to the rest of the room to anyone who might be considering the prospect.

I have to duck out for awhile. I'll check back, but I hope that answered most of your questions.

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And that is truly... just my opinion.

In my opinion, this isn't simply a "do over" situation trying to again more support. I think there is a fundamental lack of need for this site as defined. The combination of CS+Stack Overflow is where this belongs.

I generally allow these "ideas" to be explored through the normal process of Area 51, but if something doesn't change radically — and I mean radically — with how and why this site is being created, I would suggest that it is largely a waste of time to simply repost the proposal.

And if you're trying to tap into an existing SE site to simply break that "sub-reddit" off into a different topic space, I think you are missing the point of creating a new site.

Long gone are the days were you can simply post and idea for a site and expect folks to simply flood in and make it happen. If there isn't a pre-existing community or audience out there with a definite need for a solution, I think you will have a hard go of it.

On relaunching the proposal:

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That's certainly an arguable point for "Operating Systems", but when the turnout and participation of the launch was so low, that discussion became pretty much moot.

"Spin off" topics have a much higher bar than a brand new subject because the community essentially needs to show that there is a body of questions that, for whatever reason, are not a good fit for the site we already created (e.g. there's a much larger ecosystem of questions well beyond the original site's scope, etc.)

It is my opinion that the deeper questions of "operating system development" are a perfect fit for CS and CSTheory SE. That's why they were created.

My personal post-mortem of the Operating Systems launch:

@AJHenderson No problem. We just don't want folks fretting too much over which CM to contact about what. We're all here to help anyone with whatever y'all need.

@AJHenderson Done. And FYI, you can pretty much ask any CM in the Teachers' lounge for anything you need like this... or just send an email to community@. There's really no one "in charge" of any particular site, but we do tend to divvy them up for routine patrolling. But we all have access to do these sorts of things.

No problem. Sorry about the confusion.

@AwalGarg If you could just link to the chat msgs you want pinned, I'll stop guessing. <grin>

@Undo Great. Sorry about the confusion.

Yeah, the deeper, more specific the tag, the more self-evident why you would need it is. It's the broader concepts that trip up most of the excerpt writers.

@3ventic When the terminology used in a tag is not obvious (obscure or not well-known) sometimes simply letting folks know what the tag or acronym means is pretty much all that is needed.

Yes, essentially that's exactly what wiki excerpts are for. Meta for the tag. Not what the "word" means, but why and how it is being use here (the site).

[Windows] For software requests needing to be available on the Windows operating system specifically. For version-specific requirments, please specify the [windows-7] or [windows-xp] or [windows-vista] tags.

For example... (I don't know this example to be accurate, so I am totally making this up)

User's aren't asking about "windows", the software. So Certainly there is a use case for having the tag. What is it?

Saying [windows] for questions about [windows] (isn't any more helpful that saying "for questions about the operating system written by microsoft"

@Undo No that wouldn't be instructive about why you would use this tag. You're just defining the "word", not how the tag would be used. Let's use a real tag like [windows].

Sorry about the confusion, rejections start going down fast as folks learn how to best write these things. But SoftwareRecs have added a few twists and new challenges.