12

What will happen to a graduated site if the product it is based on is no longer relevant and no questions are being asked?

I thought about this when I saw the Windows Phone site graduate out of beta. It has received 35 new questions this year. No new question is asked for a month.

This site is just for example and I am asking about general policy.

When a site becomes completely irrelevant that no questions are being asked then what will Stack Exchange do? Some things that come to mind are,

  1. Leave the site as it is (but in due time it might be difficult to deal with spam, etc... without a community).
  2. Make the site readonly.
  3. Merge it with another site.

Has this happened before? Does Stack Exchange have a policy or official way regarding this?

2
  • 3
    Your example has just been sunset. Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 14:05
  • 1
    A number of technical SE sites could reasonably fall under Retrocomputing once they have passed-away. (not sure of the right phrase there, no offense intended)
    – Criggie
    Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 0:18

1 Answer 1

14

As noted here:

If there's enough moderation for a public beta site to consistently remain free of spam, for flags to be cleared, and for our Code of Conduct to be upheld, your site will remain open. However, if community leaders drop off, flags sit without being addressed, and we can’t find any suitable volunteers to step forward, the site gets closed.

As of this post, not a single site currently active in our network is at risk of being closed. Closing public beta sites is a rare occurrence; we expect it to stay that way.

That refers to beta sites in particular, but it's pretty much the same policy that's upheld on all sites — as long as there are folks willing to step up and moderate, so that flags and spam aren't piling up, they're good to go!

Our focus here is to maintain the communities, not the products.

You must log in to answer this question.