Well, Meta.stackoverflow really us meta.*stackexchange* (go there! [meta.stackexchange.com][1]). For historical reasons, meta questions for the whole site were shunted there, and splitting off a SO specific MSO from the site proved difficult. [It may happen eventually though][2]. MSO/MSE is pretty much a standalone site for asking *network* related questions.

I'd also note they have a different community culture and attitude towards reputation - bounties are often used to draw attention to a question (even if occationally there's no answer to them). There's also some wierdness (like confused folk posting SO questions on MSO), and such.

The simple answer, really is MSO is a wierd beast, and its a SE site about SE as a whole, rather than a support site as the metas are. It just works differently


  [1]: http://meta.stackexchange.com
  [2]: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/106453/are-meta-stackexchange-and-meta-stackoverflow-one-and-the-same/106455#106455