... and perhaps Meta in general.
I just had a question quickly and heavily down-voted on MSE. In the comments it was pointed out that the question was more relevant to SO than SE generally (and thus MSO not MSE) -- where the same suggestion has been heavily up-voted. I found my way here straight from SO (twice!) and there are clearly several paths that encourage it:
- The top question in the "Featured on Meta" box on SO (currently) links here (and the box doesn't explain the MSE/MSO icon difference)
- MSO isn't listed on the All Sites while MSE is
You have to be new to meta at some point along the way. These folks certainly have thicker skin, but it wouldn't hurt to make some effort to drive them to the right place. Some ideas include:
- Consider calling MSE simply "Stack Exchange" in the list of sites to avoid monopolizing the keyword "meta"
- Only show MSO links on SO; show MSE links on MSO
- The MSE homepage could make some effort to inform and direct folks to the child meta sites:
- A featured section highlighting questions like Which meta am I supposed to post on? and How does Meta Stack Exchange work? and VERY IMPORTANTLY What do votes mean on Meta? since I probably deleted the idea too quickly (assuming the down-votes were about quality/appropriateness and not objections).
- A graphic with a bunch of child meta sites displayed
- A drop-down or other navigation to child sites
- The ask page could watch for child-specific terms like "SO" (all-caps and not in back ticks, links, or the like) or "stack overflow" and prompt you to post elsewhere (MSE users would quickly adjust and use the SE equivalents).
- The hover text on the up/down-vote could be changed to reflect the meta-purpose