Some proposals on Area 51 are already covered on Superuser

Question

There are some proposals related to computer software (Unix & Linux, Ubuntu) with more than 70 followers. Superuser has been already covering these topics. Is it proper to split Superuser into atoms and create lots of sites from it this way? IMHO, this is not the right direction. What do Stackexchange executives think about this?

Answer 1

I'm the creator of Unix & Linux (We're almost in the commit phase, and just need one more "off-topic" question).

My proposal doesn't overlap with Superuser. Your Superuser overlaps with my proposal ;)

I created Unix & Linux for several main reasons:

1. I knew it would be a little controversial and confusing. I wanted to see what the community would do with this proposal. The SE community is omnipotent and can fix any and all conflicts ;)
2. SO, SF and SU all have overlap themselves. Many basic sysadmin questions could be asked on either SF or SU. If I Google for system administration questions, I'm often led to SO, because SO itself contains many system administration questions which are left over from before SF or SU existed.
3. The Trilogy sites are too broad., and are filled with noise. If I want to search for Linux or Unix questions, I don't want to have to wade through similar-but-irrelevant questions related to programming, Windows sysadmin questions, a PHP question which happened to be tagged 'Linux'.
4. I keep remembering the simple elegance of Usenet, many years ago. It was often easy to ask questions and find answers to my questions. Today we have all of these these big, broad, cluttered web-forums where you could ask many different types of question. In the Usenet days, it all felt better organized. Posters were encouraged to post the question to the appropriate forum, like comp.unix, or comp.os.ms-windows or rec.arts.disney. Maybe I want Usenet with SE's superior moderation system.

Perhaps this isn't the best strategy. Perhaps Unix & Linux itself is too broad, and it would be better to create smaller facets like "Ubuntu", and "Shell-hackers" instead. However, that doesn't seem to be the direction that the community was headed.

Answer 2

Concerning duplicates on Area51 in general, see here.

I'm not a StackExchange Exec, but are you familiar with SuperUser? Sure, it gets questions, but it's not doing well - for various reasons. In another Meta discussion (forget where) it was quoted that Jeff and Joel have given up and no longer care about SuperUser.

SuperUser has become a catch-all for most everything "computer". As long as the proposal is viable (and if nessissary, the proposer defends it), I'm all for it, because it helps organize and undo the catch-all-ness of SuperUser.