Been a few blogs on Why not one site, and I get the point. However, would a staging SE help solve some of these issues like community overlap.
I understand respecting the community, but how can someone not yet a part of a community know to do so.
Some of the point of SO is that you often don't know what to ask exactly, and we help clear that up.
So, I wonder, rather than "playing hot potato" would it be useful to have a site that's simply for temporarily holding questions and such.
- It would be the alternative to migrating to another site where you dump all responsibility on that site. This area, all communities are responsible for.
- It would be a good place to ask a question if you don't know where to ask. The blog I linked talks about phrasing to a specific audience. For someone that doesn't know, the audience is better at selecting which questions are directed at them.
- As SE grows, the amount of communities will mean more overlap. Right now it may be reasonable to expect people to be able to predict the best community, but will it always be that way?
Some restrictions:
- It would be accessible by all communities.
- The question could be edited, but not answered.
- The question could be exposed to more easily tracked/understood/etc. automated janitorial work.
Just a helpful thought.