This is a follow-up of How can a community know who outsiders think a community is for?.
While it could be argued that people posting "bad" don't read the directions of the Ask Question form among other things, they should have read something. This post focus on users that at least read the site name and site description.
The site name and description (blurb) are shown in https://stackexchange.com/site, the site card shown in the Featured Site box in https://stackexhange.com, the site welcome banner for anonymous users, the site tour and probably in other places.
The 7 Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta and The Real Essential Questions of Every Beta don't make explicit emphasis in the site blurb, but they mention "elevator pitch", tagline, "blurb under the logo", etc. Apparently for sites created before the launch of Discussion Zone, an Area 51 equivalent to per-site meta, in January 2011, Staff proposed the initial site blurb. Some communities discussed the corresponding site name / description on the per-site metas and changed it. Some have posts about site name and description, but never changed the site name, the description or none of them.
Despite the Web Applications site description is
Q&A for power users of web applications
we get a lot of questions from people that clearly don't know what is on-topic in the site. I.e., we got a lot of questions about creating, administering, programming / developing web applications, help requests, not questions, about problems. i.e., with services like Facebook, WhatsApp, and even requests to develop a tailored solution to a certain problem.
I have read that there are people that got banned in Stack Overflow who desperately look for another site where to post their programming questions. In Web Applications Meta someone argued that powers users know programming, so probably the problem comes from the user of "power user", but in such case other sites using "power user" will have similar problems
Site blurbs using power user (from the list of sites on stackexchange.com)
| Image | Site Blurbs | Links |
|---|---|---|
 |
Q&A for computer enthusiasts and power users | |
 |
Q&A for power users of web applications | proposal |
 |
Q&A for power users of Apple hardware and software | proposal |
| Electronic Gadgets | N/A | proposal |
 |
Q&A for enthusiasts and power users of the Android operating system | proposal |
Lately I have participate frequently in Super User. I have seen programming questions questions that are off-topic. I'm wonder how frequently this happens in Ask Different and Android Enthusiats that use "power user" in their site description.
Most of the traffic to Web Applications, as apparently happens to most Stack Exchange sites, comes from Google. There have being feature-requests to make the site description more prominent and others assuming that might have an effect on the attracted audience and the quality for first questions.
Is there data somewhere that tell us if, for the kind of people that comes to Stack Exchange sites, the site name and descriptions are helpful? Are there studies that tell us if the site description make a user take the decision to create a site account or desist from creating one? Have we ever have made an A/B experiment hiding the site name / descriptions to see if that have an effect in the quality of first time questions?
Related
Site names
- Standardizing & Simplifying SE Site Names
- Was Programmers (now Software Engineering) the first SE site to change its name?
Site blurbs
- Make the purpose and function of SE sites clear: Put it on the page
- Update the intended participant descriptions for Area 51 sites
- Can we continue to show the "Take a tour" banner after a user has created an account?
- Show site blurb also for logged-in users
- Why doesn't the homepage of SE sites explain what the site is for?
- Make "What's on topic for this site?" visible
- Show a description of each site in the header, in smaller font
- Where can we find a site charter/purpose that tells us the types of question on/off topic?
Per site discussions
Discussions to set or change the site name / description in https://stackexchange.com/sites and other places. The way that the site description is referred on the per-site meta sites varies. Some called it the site tagline, "elevator pitch", site short description, etc.
Artificial Intelligence Meta
- How can we change the site description to match our current topic guidelines, and past votes on the description?
- What should the AI.SE Site Description be?
Arts and Crafts Meta
Blender Meta
Code Review Meta
Graphic Design Meta
Philosophy Meta
Space Exploration Meta
Software Engineering Meta
Unix and Linux Meta
Web Applications
- Who do outsiders think Web Applications is for, developers/power-users or Joe-user?
- Add a few-word description to the masthead
- Questions off-topic because they are about developing web applications
- Still daily web development questions. Should we tweak the site name?
Workplace Meta, The
"power user" sites timeline
Super User was launched before the Area 51 process.
Area 51 was announced in April 2010.
The first mention of Web Applications site description is Jeff Attwood's answer from July 8, 2010 to a post in Meta Stack Exchange.
The Electronic Devices proposal was split between Ask Different and Android Enthusiasts sites on September 2010. Details.
The Area 51 Discussion Zone was launched in January 2011. Very few sites having 12 years old have discussions there. None of the above had them.
Chat was launched in August 2010.
Web Applications was the first private beta (June 30 - July 7, 2010) and the first graduated site (September 30, 2010). There was no chat room during the private beta and the early days of the public beta.
The oldest capure in archive.org of https://stackexhange.com/sites is https://web.archive.org/web/20100815040625/http://stackexchange.com:80/sites from August 15, 2010.
