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Similar questions have been asked here before, for example Are we creating too many different Stack Exchange sites?, but my point is slightly different. I have absolutely no issue with the total number of SE sites, on the contrary. However I don't think it makes sense to split topics if there is a high correlation between the users interested in these topics. Here is an example which I personally find a bit annoying:

The Stack Exchange site which I find most helpful and in which I am most active is Stack Overflow. Now as a professional software developer I am not only interested in coding issues but also in topics like project management or requirements engineering which become more and more off-topic in Stack Overflow.

To ask or answer such questions, I need to go to other sites like Project Management or Programmers. Especially the boundary between Stack Overflow and Programmers is far from being obvious.

I would find it much more convenient to have all software development related topics on one site. Of course this is my personal opinion but many questions, answers and comments give me the impression that lots of other users have the same issue.

Am I missing something?

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    How interested are you in cooking? If you are and you want to answer questions tagged apple because you're an expert in cooking apples, how well do you think you'll manage when confronted with stackoverflow's apple questions which may not quite be quite what you're expecting.
    – Robert Longson
    May 23, 2016 at 21:04
  • see also: What goes on Programmers.SE? A guide for Stack Overflow
    – gnat
    May 23, 2016 at 21:05
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    @RobertLongson I think that's a bit of a stretch... the OP clearly says "related" topics... cooking and coding are rarely related.
    – Catija StaffMod
    May 23, 2016 at 21:22
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    @Catija fibonacci-sequence then SO: how do I write fix my program that calculates it, PM: how do I use it for estimating stories.
    – Robert Longson
    May 23, 2016 at 21:28
  • Some site look similar, but they arent.. A moderator will have difficulty in such open zone in my opinion (as you cant be a expert on all topic offcourse)
    – user276487
    May 23, 2016 at 23:17
  • @ShadowWizard: Intersting link, so the Programmers site seems to be a rather special case. Programmers is for conceptual stuff and SO for programming related stuff. I have to admit that I am having difficulties drawing the line between these two classes. I also do not believe that conceptual questions automatically result in subjective answers. They might attract this type of answers but can also be answered objectively. Isn't it enough to have the option to downvote or close answers that are purely subjective?
    – Frank Puffer
    May 24, 2016 at 8:40
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    @Frank honestly, I'm not sure since I'm not really into this myself. I do read those but not getting involved too much or digging too deep. Personally I think the separation is good and needed, what Robert said (But what if you're a project manager with little to no interest in programming) is exactly what I was thinking as well, in a way. :)
    – Shadow Wizard Says No More War
    May 24, 2016 at 8:47

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Fair enough; you're a programmer, so you might be interested in (for example) project management issues. But what if you're a project manager with little to no interest in programming?

Project management isn't just (or even primarily) a programming discipline. If a professional project management specialist has a question about "Calculating Operations Cost from Man-Hours and Set $/hr" (for example), there is no logical path to seek out something like Stack Overflow: a place for programmers.

So we create a site for this under-served audience explicitly.

Most of the non-Stack Overflow sites were created because the communities showed there was an ecosystem of questions that were not covered on our existing sites. That is how the network was created.

Related: Apparently this is a duplicate

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  • In principle I agree, but when you look at the latest questions asked on Project Management (I just did that for verification) you will find that at least 90% are specific to software projects. I cannot prove it but probably the user groups of both sites (SO and PM) have a very high overlap. Of course even a software project manager need not be interested in programming, but he could use tags for filtering. Even within Stack Overflow most questions are only relevant for a tiny group of users, Therefore we have tags.
    – Frank Puffer
    May 24, 2016 at 8:26

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