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We're excited to announce that AWS will be sponsoring Super User beginning September 27, 2021 through December 31, 2022. We wanted to give you a heads up and walk you through what it will look like.

How and where will the sponsorship be displayed?

The sponsorship will be shown in the top right header of the site in a manner that's similar to the mockup below:

superuser homepage

What else changes?

Nothing! Quoting from the original MSE announcement on sponsorships:

First — sponsors do not own these Q&A sites. Sponsors work alongside our communities who ultimately build these sites. Communities ask the questions; communities create the tags; communities conduct elections as they do now, and we are not renaming our current sites like a garish sport stadium to the highest bidder. Any ads a sponsor submits still have go through our crazy-strict ad editorial process… as it has always been. Companies do not have access to personal data, and all Q&A content remains irrevocably licensed under Creative Commons for sharing and attribution.

Sponsorships are a tool that our clients can use to let folks who would be interested in their products know about them.

What if I think I've found a design glitch/bug?

If something looks off, please report it as a bug so we can investigate and squash it.

That's it. If you have any other questions or concerns, please leave them as answers below.

Also, thank you. These types of partnerships help us bring more resources to our communities and they wouldn't be possible without the work you've put into making Super User successful.

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    But why? Why AWS? Sep 23, 2021 at 20:28
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    The benefit for AWS is obvious, especially considering that there are far more ethical cloud companies who could be there in place of it, but I can't see what the benefit to SuperUser would be? The post mentions "resources", but by the sounds of "nothing will change" they won't be getting involved with the site at all, so contributing manpower to help with moderation, cleanup or upvoting underrated questions/answers seems unlikely. Are the "resources" simply monetary, and if so, how exactly will they be spent in a way that helps SuperUser? Sep 23, 2021 at 21:59
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    @Someone_who_likes_SE they have a pile of money, some of which is going to SE, and some of that would be spent on the network. Simple as that ;)
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Sep 24, 2021 at 1:44
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    AWS would certainly be better off sponsoring Server Fault than us SU...
    – iBug
    Sep 25, 2021 at 15:24
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    Huh, it looks like this is live? My adblock caught it and there's just the grey "sponsored by" text with no image, hah
    – GammaGames
    Oct 1, 2021 at 20:28
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    @GammaGames Yes, as the question mentions, it will be from September 27th through December 31st
    – TylerH
    Oct 7, 2021 at 15:48
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    AWS extended its sponsorship to March 31. I've updated the post to reflect the new dates.
    – Rosie StaffMod
    Jan 18, 2022 at 14:45
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    AWS extended its sponsorship to April 30. I've updated the post to reflect the new dates.
    – JNat StaffMod
    Mar 29, 2022 at 19:57
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    AWS extended its sponsorship to June 30. I've updated the post to reflect the new dates.
    – Rosie StaffMod
    Apr 29, 2022 at 13:07
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    AWS extended its sponsorship through the end of the year. I've updated the post to reflect the new dates.
    – Rosie StaffMod
    Jun 22, 2022 at 14:05

1 Answer 1

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Couple of points here - as a long time user of the site and a moderator.

One of the 'issues' us smaller sites have is that sometimes there's a 'question' of the value we bring to the broader network. And yes, sometimes this is in terms of money, rather than diversity of topics or other touchy-feely things.The fact that we're picked for sponsorship does reflect that AWS feels that even though they're not topical for us, that its a good way to reach out to the tech community.

That said - AWS remains off topic for us :), and its a slightly unusual fit 'organically' but I guess someone felt we could make it work.

As for the benefits, at the most basic level - SE gets paid. SE sees that line in the balance sheet that says 'we got $$$ via the Super User Sponsorship'. Even the most cynical exec would see value in that. Some of this money will be going back into the community, either as development expenses or as hires for folks working in and for the community. If nothing else - even with our new corporate overlords, revenue sources such as this directly tied to sites starves off the risk or restructuring, and there's a direct financial hit to sites being unhappy.

As for resources - the network doesn't run for free. One of the major pain points we've had is the company not meeting its financial goals on specific products, and figuring that they can cut back, which resulted in many teams being short handed. Its all about the Benjamins, and some of the money that is obtained for/via sponsorships goes back to development (including pub-plat hires), Community (and we're finally rightsizing our CM teams - which means more hires... finally!). Its a bit harsh, but we've all seen what happens when management disregards public platform - figuring other things would be more profitable to focus on, and its ugly. I'd rather have opportunities for folks to show we can pull our own weight and that investment in the network isn't just 'nice' - its essential for the financial well-being of the company

Its a small, relatively unobtrusive ad - see the one on infosec's top bar:

enter image description here

In addition to that AWS 'gets' half the ad inventory on the site - which means that there's an easier time filling that out, which once again, means our site kinda helps bring revenue in.

they won't be getting involved with the site at all, so contributing manpower to help with moderation, cleanup or upvoting underrated questions/answers seems unlikely.

Uh, we don't really need a bunch of random people 'helping' with that. We need investment in pubplat and community and the network/company finding a sustainable way to ensure the smaller sites get the attention and support we need.

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    there are some questions revolving around awscli / cdk / sam etc which are tangentially on-topic but are usually better suited for Stack Overflow
    – Sathyajith Bhat Mod
    Sep 24, 2021 at 6:31
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    Basically business as usual 😁
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Sep 24, 2021 at 6:36
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    "One of the major pain points we've had is the company not meeting its financial goals on specific products, and figuring that they can cut back, which resulted in many teams being short handed." That sounds like a euthamism for, "Stack Exchange got acquired by Prosus for $1.8 billion so Prosus as a for profit company with no social impact policy, we need a way to generate a return of investment on our acquisition price to satisfy our shareholders, otherwise that expensive purchase was to no avail. stackoverflow.blog/2021/06/02/prosus-acquires-stack-overflow
    – desbest
    Sep 25, 2021 at 19:51
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    I mean they downsized twice as a startup, losing valuable people, cause careers didn't do well. And even now we are suffering from the impact of that. I don't begrudge Prosus their profit, as long as they prove to be good stewards of our network
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Sep 25, 2021 at 21:49
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    I don't particularly care about any "Social impact policy" and consider those to be useless virtue signalling at best. I find it funny AWS chose to sponsor SU, and might find it particularly funny to close or migrate the AWS questions this might end up attracting over the next few months. Sep 26, 2021 at 16:14
  • What is pubplat?
    – Stevoisiak
    Oct 29, 2021 at 18:56
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    Public Platform.... Aka the public SE sites like this
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Oct 30, 2021 at 0:30

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