5

My question has similarities to this one, but it also has other aspects to it. The answer points out that the top tags on all three websites differ. But here are a few points to consider:

  1. In practical scenarios, people working in one of these areas end up using all of these sites due to overlap in technical topics. There is a lot of overlap between the technical topics and their underlying principles.

  2. Right now, the computer-vision questions are divided between various Stack Exchange websites like Signal Processing, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science and others. Even Stack Overflow has theoretical computer vision questions. If the above sites are combined to the AI Stack Exchange site and computer-vision questions are moved there, the site will grow in popularity and computer vision will have a good home.

  3. This will also help new emerging topics related to AI as the website will grow from the merger. Right now, a very small number of people know about the existence of the AI Stack Exchange site. Also, this site does not encourage implementation questions. So, if not combined, will this site ever have any significance?

  4. Users often find it confusing to figure out where to post their questions.

Is there still a possibility of combining these sites? I am also curious if this idea would work out better if Data Science is taken out and only the other two are combined with computer-vision topics?

3
  • 1
    Keep mind that scope is a per site decision and there are no hard boundaries., by design. You have to start with making sure that your preferred target site is actually open for the questions that you want to direct there. Then you can start making some noise, for example using Community Ads, tag wiki updates, comments to make users aware they have an alternative for their questions and there are experts that can provide better answers.
    – rene Mod
    Commented Mar 9, 2020 at 15:23
  • "Is there still a possibility of combining these sites?" I think there is such a possibility, at least I cannot imagine why not. It may even have happened already. Combining similar topics and using synergies to draw in more users and visitors might make sense. It depends on how the communities and how the companies see it. Commented Mar 9, 2020 at 16:12
  • 1
    What you see here is a meta-effect. In AI we often have the problem of choosing between exclusive and overlapping categorizations. From an MSE perspective, SE follows the exclusive model. Every question lives on exactly one site, and migration moves it from one site to another. But on each site, the question tags allow overlapping categorizations. Tagging a question "Java Javascript Python C C++" gets it closed in 60 seconds, but the data model allows it. Commented Mar 10, 2020 at 16:32

1 Answer 1

7

It is possible that different sites could be combined, but not to serve as a repository for a single subject; computer vision. Few of our sites specifically mention "computer vision" (or "intelligent vision") in their help files, even modern security cameras are intelligent; arguably cellphone (and other) facial recognition falls under the computer vision umbrella. Yet, as you mentioned, certain computer vision questions are appropriate for more than one site (and a better fit on a particular one).

From their https://SiteName.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic:

  • Artificial Intelligence:

    "... social issues in a world where artificial intelligence is common, concept/theory of AI AI as an academic discipline/science, or human factors in AI development reference requests for papers or text books ... and it is not about ... the implementation of machine learning, or asking for a development tool or career path recommendation.".

  • Computer Science:

    "... theoretical and applied computer science at any level, including but not limited to: algorithms, models of computation, programming language semantics, formal methods, computer architecture, networks, machine learning, artificial intelligence, knowledge representation, natural language processing, vision, and graphics. Not programming questions, how a particular piece of software or hardware works, or numerical computation.".

  • Data Science:

    "Questions are most appropriate here if they are concerned with putting statistical concepts into practice, focus on implementation and (business) processes. Compared with statistics, data science is concerned with implementing whole analytical systems that can ingest (mainly large and diverse) data sets and estimate quantities of interest by incorporating advances from multiple fields.".

  • Signal Processing:

    "Signal Processing Stack Exchange is for practitioners of the art and science of signal, image and video processing. The sorts of topics that are on-topic are: Conceptual, theoretical, and practice questions, algorithm recommendations and debugging questions, homework questions, and some software requests ...".

  • and others, including Stack Overflow: see that huge list.

You link to this question: Data science, Cross Validated and Artificial Intelligence, but there is also How to decide where a machine learning question belongs: the AI Stack Exchange site, Cross Validated, Data Science SE, etc and in particular the duplicate mentioned in the banner: Build and strengthen the Stack Exchange community with "crossover questions" between sites (which has been tagged for several years).

IF you want a site dedicated to "computer vision" it would be better to propose a new site and attract followers from the other sites rather than attempt to combine other sites to better suit a single subject. Despite the subject's popularity I think it would be difficult to start a new site based upon it alone. Less desirable would be to eliminate some of our sites to accommodate it.

0

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .