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How are new Stack Overflow mini-sites created?

Personally, I would like to see this rolled out. I think several sites have logical groupings. For example, on Stack Overflow, being able to have a view for .NET (platform, as well as C#, F#, VB, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, SQL Server, Visual Studio, Boo...), the Java platform (Java, Scala, Clojure, JRuby, Jython...), database development (MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, sqlite, mongodb...).

On other sites, I see this being useful too. For example, on a site like Gaming or SciFi where there are series being discussed, you don't need a "catch all" tag to make it easy to sort or view. Someone interested in all things Stargate could go to stargate.scifi.stackexchange.com and have a view of things tagged stargate, stargate-atlantis, stargate-sg1, and stargate-universe easily and cleanly, without any chance.

The big drawing point comes in with large subcommunities, though. I see this idea being used more on Programmers and maybe Project Management (when it launches). The Agile development community is, in its own right, its own community. They are Programmers and Project Managers, but they have their own interests. In fact, they wanted their own Stack Exchange site, but it was too overlapping with P.SE and PM.SE. If there are groups that want their own Stack Exchange, but it overlaps, just make it a sub-Stack Exchange of an existing site (so, in this example, agile.programmers.stackexchange.com could be used to catch all questions tagged agile, scrum, extreme-programming, dsdm, kanban, lean, and so on).

Just for a note...these are just a few examples. It would be up to each site to identify ones that actually work. I would suspect that determining which ones would be valid would be a combination of looking at what people have as favorite tags, what tags people view (something like how frequented tags works), looking at overlapping proposals for other Stack Exchange sites (especially those closed for being too close to an existing site), and feedback from the site's Meta as to which groupings would be best to ensure the mini sites actually work and would be used.

Now that it's technically possible to do, when might it be rolled out? Or is this not even on the table yet?

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  • I think the answers to How are new Stack Overflow mini-sites created? shows the current stance of SE Inc. to this topic.
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 18:15
  • @Paŭlo indeed. Thomas, you ok with voting this as a dupe of that question? I think the answer there is pretty complete
    – Pekka
    Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 18:56
  • @Eat more Twisters Yeah - I would say vote to close as a duplicate. I was searching. Not knowing the term "mini-site" made it so I couldn't find that question initially.
    – Thomas Owens
    Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 18:58

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Not an answer to your question, but my 2 cents - I wouldn't go and start sub-sites for every tag. Inflationary use of the sub-site functionality would water down its perceived value, and make it just another filtering option.

Maybe it would be worth having a tough, democratic creation process for starting sub-sites, very similar to starting an SE site? That way, it would be ensured that there is a strong community desire to have a specific site, and the perceived value of such a site would remain high.

Also, this functionality, possibly spiced up with some additional community perks like separate user leagues (as suggested previously here), might be a way to lure some - not all - programming-related SE proposals and sites back to the mother site. I would find that worth exploring first.

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  • Those were just examples that make sense to me to demonstrate a point. It would be up to each site to identify ones that actually work. I would suspect that determining which ones would be valid would be a combination of looking at what people have as favorite tags, what tags people view (something like the frequented tags), looking at overlapping proposals for other Stack Exchange sites, and feedback from the site's Meta as to which groupings would be best to ensure the mini sites actually work and would be used.
    – Thomas Owens
    Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 17:37
  • @Thomas fair enough. Interested to see what the SE team say
    – Pekka
    Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 17:49
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Personally, I would vote for getting rid of facebook.stackoverflow.com and not creating more similar subdomains. I don't see that it adds value, and I suspect it's attracting non-programming facebook questions.

But I'm not sure who has a vote on such decisions.

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  • Even though some of the questions coming in as a result of this deal make me want to cry, I disagree - mini-sites will add value in the long term. I regard the influx of bad questions as a childhood disease that will be overcome.
    – Pekka
    Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 19:50
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Many developers might not have a big benefit from such categorisation, the way you suggest it. Me for instance, I'm mostly using the combination of and , so on which view should I go? What if I need and , because I'm making a webapp?

And that's just me. There are arbitrary combinations of tags that other developers use a lot in combination. Finding good sub-groups is probably quite hard

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  • Those were just examples that make sense to me to demonstrate a point. It would be up to each site to identify ones that actually work. I would suspect that determining which ones would be valid would be a combination of looking at what people have as favorite tags, what tags people view (something like the frequented tags), looking at overlapping proposals for other Stack Exchange sites, and feedback from the site's Meta as to which groupings would be best to ensure the mini sites actually work and would be used.
    – Thomas Owens
    Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 17:38
  • @Thomas Owens: Thanks for clarification.
    – Lukas Eder
    Commented Sep 4, 2011 at 17:41

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