Add a "related SE sites" section to the sidebar [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Incorporate off-topic migration route content into Ask Question page

Many questions asked on Programmers have to do with career-related stuff like interviewing, recruiting, etc. Often, these questions get closed or are marked as "off-topic" just because they are only marginally related to software development, even though they might be useful questions in their own right.

There's a site proposal in the works, Professional Matters, that's supposed to handle these types of questions:

Proposed Q&A site for people in a workplace interested in discussion that relates to general office or business without a specific tie to any professional field.

And as the creator puts it:

I created this to counter the large number of "not programming related" closures on P.SE because they pertained to a more general business sense. – Josh K Apr 2 '11 at 22:07

I propose adding a new, "related sites" section to the sidebar near the "related questions" section that shows up at the right margin while the user is editing a new question. Something like:

Hint: Ask career-oriented questions on "Professional Matters"

Other similarly-related sites, like Personal Productivity, could also be shown.

This would help expose Area 51 and smaller Stack Exchange sites to the user base who might not know or have the inclination to go looking for more appropriate Stack Exchange sites.

Answer 1

I have recently started adding a list of relevant sister sites to tag wikis¹. I thought of adding Area51 proposals as well, but as Mark notes from the perspective of the asker the point is to get answers; there is no guarantee that an Area51 proposal will ever become a full site.

But I really love your idea! I think an easier way would be to associate tags with related sites, even betas, and include a notification to the tag suggestion box:

By associating tags with sister sites, the lists I've been making by hand will now be automated, yay!

There is a problem though. When a user reaches the point to select tags, (s)he has probably finished writing the question, and may be a little bit reluctant in doing the whole other site dance:

1. Checkout proposed site,
2. Read FAQ,
3. Search for similar questions.

And of course I'm also assuming people will tag appropriately².

_{¹ One of my many delusions is that people actually read those.
² Second delusion in the same post. Achievement unlocked.}

Answer 2

I like it! A few notes:

• The goal is to get a question answered: suggesting an Area 51 site proposal when they're about to ask a question seems like a bad user experience. It'd be saying, "to get the best answer, ask on Professional Matters: but, nope, sorry, not available yet. Sorry!" I wonder if, for Area 51 proposals, closing and leaving a comment is still the best user experience.

• Beta sites—even though there are a number that are working well and take our off-topic questions—are generally kept segregated from launched sites: no community migration paths, no footer cross-linking, etc. If such a feature were implemented, I'd like to see an exception be made for beta sites, as the purpose would be for discovery of unknown (but far more appropriate) Stack Exchange sites.