Questions tagged [area-51]
Area 51 is the Stack Exchange Network staging zone. It's where groups of experts come together to build new Q&A sites that work just like Stack Overflow. Area 51 has its own discussion site, Area 51 Discussions. If a question is only related to Area 51, then you may ask it either here on MSE or on Area 51 Discussions (https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/323571).
1,774 questions
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Area 51 Commit Percent
How is the commit percent decided for Area 51? I know it is based on rep, but how exactly does it work?
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After the recent CM departures, are there plans to shut down network sites or Area 51?
Yesterday, there were some major staffing changes, and the end result is that two long-time Community Managers, Shog9 and Robert Cartaino, are no longer with Stack Overflow, Inc. This seems to be a ...
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How can I propose a new site?
I have an idea or subject that should have a Q&A, and want to propose a new site. How can I do this?
Related: What makes a winning site proposal?
Return to FAQ index
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Why is my profile image different?
When I first signed up on a Stack Exchange site and got a profile image, it was this one (see my current user card I'm actually not sure what I look like any more):
Later, I got Area 51 and SEDE ...
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Give each site a parallel site for polling, recommendations and subjective-ish stuff
Stuff like polls, recommendations based on subjective constraints, puzzles, webcomics etc. do not belong on the serious main SE sites, where professionals should be considered at work and having just ...
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What can be done with Area 51?
I'm going to argue that Area 51 is not the optimal solution for Stack Exchange. Right now, as it stands, the following occurs:
Someone, probably an expert or at least a strong enthusiast, proposes a ...
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Add a "number of active users" statistic
Both, Area 51 and stackexchange.com display the total number of users as one of the statistics available for each site. Area 51 additionally displays the number of avid users defined by meeting a ...
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Standardizing & Simplifying SE Site Names
NOTE: We're not going through and re-evaluating / changing every site name in the network. The guidelines below are what we will use for new sites created going forward, and if the community supports ...
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Why was Apocalyptic Defense closed?
That was really disappointing.
If this whole Stack Exchange thing is going to be community-driven, then one and only one rule should apply to site proposals: if one of them can fulfill the ...
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Some suggestions for reworking Area 51
First some background: In November of 2022, I proposed a site called Programming Language Design and Implementation, which has slowly progressed through the Area 51 process, and is now set to enter ...
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What is the Stack Exchange (Staff) process of launching a site?
I've heard bits and pieces from various sources, but I would really like to know, what does the Stack Exchange staff do to launch a new site? What are the milestones? I'm talking about Area 51 ...
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Losing momentum in commit phase?
I understand the idea behind the commit phase, but when a site can easily spend weeks in the commit phase, isn't there a big danger that it's going to lose momentum? That all those who signed up for ...
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What is "Ask Patents" and why is it secret?
Looks like our SE overlords are about to launch a new Stack Exchange site - Ask Patents. I've been hinted at its existence by a user who committed to the (now closed) Software Law proposal on Area 51.
...
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What is CS50 and why can't I access it?
I just stumbled over this page in the Stack Exchange dropdown (top left corner).
cs50 - For students of HarvardX CS50x: Introduction to Computer Science
When I click on it I get the following ...
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Do the benefits of having SO in multiple languages outweigh the risks involved?
I recently visited area51 for the first time and was disturbed to see proposals for Stack Overflow variants in other languages dominating the site.
Turkish
Spanish
Russian
Portuguese
I'll admit that ...
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Is there an Area 51 policy on offering money to people who follow or commit to their proposals?
I just received this email from [email protected] (XYZ and SOMECRYPTO are not the real names):
I’m XYZ, a community member of SOMECRYPTO, a
high-throughput and high-security blockchain platform. Our ...
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Public Service Announcement: ongoing, offsite discussion about Area 51 graduates' branding
Related Stack Overflow Blog post:
Domain Names: The Wrong Question
Apparently, the SE team is doing a complete 180° turn and going from this:
American audiences, generally, don’t trust series. They ...
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Should we "Sympathy Commit" to a site proposal?
Take these users in the Persian IT Proposal:
alt text http://www.juanformoso.com.ar/images/sympathy.png
Although I know you can type whatever you want, or nothing at all, those "reasons to commit" ...
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Allow commitments to expire, or provide amnesty for early-adopter commitments
In the halcyon days of 2010, I committed to Programming Puzzles and Code Golf. I was young and brash, and thought we were the perfect match.
But alas, it was not meant to be. Fair enough: commitments ...
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Proposing Windows as its own Stack Exchange site?
Is there a reason why we have a "Unix and Linux" Stack Exchange and an "Apple" Stack Exchange but no "Windows" Stack Exchange? (Hell even Ubuntu got its own)
I couldn't find it anywhere so I'm asking....
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Please add comments to the commitment phase
Given the high bar on commitment, I submit that it would be very helpful to allow communications amongst the participants. They might coordinate drumming up more participants, or even in drumming up ...
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HTML manipulation lets me break into private betas
I managed to (again) break into a private beta. I used a simple procedure, I copied the login form from another site and used the SE.com openID login. It didn't complain at all, and I wasn't committed ...
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What's going on with Area 51?
I keep running across mentions-in-passing of Area 51 that make it sound like it’s obsolete, being sunsetted, or somehow posing a difficulty to Stack Exchange. One example I stumbled over just now ...
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Full Name Requirement of Commit Phase
The Commitment form on Area 51 requires your full name to be provided. Is this publicly viewable? Why not just use the existing usernames?
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Public beta announcement email is a bit... obnoxious
I'm all for the conversational tone that Area 51 uses. However, in my opinion, the public beta announcement has gone a little over the top:
The new Web Applications Stack Exchange site is now open to ...
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Le proposte del tipo "<sito> in <lingua>" creano inaccettabili barriere linguistiche e vanno uccise con il massimo pregiudizio
You're probably reading that and thinking, "what?!", and reaching for your close votes or your edit sticks. And that's a perfectly good thing. That's precisely the kind of feeling I want.
...
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How do I know if a beta Stack Exchange site is growing well?
There is a page for every beta SE site in area51 which indicates how healthy that specific site is in its beta phase. While this is a great feature, I think it would be more cool if there was a graph ...
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Why doesn't the Stack Exchange™ MultiCollider SuperDropdown™ exist on Area 51?
Aside from the "gen-u-wine™" thing I actually want to have the global-inbox enabled in Area 51 (maybe http://stackexchange.com too).
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Private betas, launches, relaunches, rules for promotion, and community partnerships
The second private beta launch of EmbeddedSystems has been killed after about a week and a half.
Having had one disappointing experience with the maiden beta, and now a second (though with less ...
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Chat is redirecting to Area 51 (2023 edition)
Any https://chat.stackexchange.com URL redirects to https://area51.stackexchange.com.
This started a few minutes ago (as of this posting).
This occurs for all three chat servers (chat.stackoverflow, ...
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Is there a mechanism for closing graduated SE sites?
I'm familiar with the Area 51->Beta->Graduation process for creating new SE sites, but is there an established mechanism for closing SE sites either permanently or temporarily? Has it been done before?...
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Localization: The state of the nation?
Out of mere idle curiosity, what is the state of internationalizing the Stack Exchange engine and community creation process?
Specifically:
A fully localizable UI
A crowdsourcing interface to get ...
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Which Stack Exchange sites weren't proposed in Area 51?
Recently I found some sites that are a part of the Stack Exchange network but were not proposed. In other words, I'm talking about sites that are not established through Area51, like Super User.
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PSA: When linking to an Area 51 proposal, don't link directly to "follow"!
I recently realized1 that some users, when linking to an Area 51 proposal in their profiles, link directly to the "follow" link. This means that simply clicking on the profile link will automatically ...
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Suspicious activity on site proposals on Area 51
Over at Area 51, it seems like there are proposals that are growing way too quickly. Take ROBLOX for example. It was proposed today, and it already has the following qualities
35 followers
All of the ...
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Solving the well-wisher ("sympathy commit") problem on Area 51: Investments
The Problem
For background on this issue I will refer people to the following discussion:
Should we "Sympathy Commit" to a site proposal?
The team is on record several times as having said ...
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How can I propose a non-English site?
I want to propose for a Persian version of Super User (I will explain why later) so I want to create a proposal in Area 51, but this means non-English question and answers, Is this OK?
P.S: This may ...
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What is the point of having different sites for each service in the same or similar domain?
I am talking about the cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.
We have pending proposals
Blockchain Technology - commitment phase with 51% commitment.
for discussing about Blockchain ...
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Area 51 proposals that overlap Stack Overflow
I have seen several proposals on Area 51 now for sites whose functionality is essentially a subset of existing functionality in Stack Overflow.
Examples:
IDEs
CMS Development
jQuery Answers
Drupal ...
33
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Can we set better expectations for private beta?
When an Area 51 proposal makes it to private beta, the site has 2-3 weeks to show viability or be closed instead of advancing to public beta. I agree with that, but I wonder if we're being clear ...
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Replace graduation with an incremental process
I mentioned this in TL before, and it got a positive response. It has been discussed internally, but I'd like to see what the commuinty in general thinks about it.
Pre-ramble
In the past, sites used ...
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Is it possible to get the Area 51 ads on my site?
On sites such as Super User is it possible that someone could make something like the Area 51 ads on the right hand side to use on my own site.
Also to that if you can could you have one for sites in ...
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Downvote trolling on Proposal
I guess this must have been asked before, but I want to report a serial downvote trolling on one of my proposal. It has almost reached to the commitment phase, then somebody started downvoting all ...
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Close, rather than delete inactive Area 51 proposals
Currently, Area 51 proposals that are completely inactive for a period of time are silently deleted, losing all questions and comments from the proposal.
I propose that instead Area 51 proposals be ...
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Be clearer on what a beta site needs to graduate [duplicate]
The beta tab of an Area 51 proposal contains the criteria for considering a beta site healthy:
15 questions per day on average
90% answered
150 users with 200+ rep
10 users with 2,000+ rep
5 users ...
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Who borked the Area 51 stats?
All beta sites (e.g. Anime & Manga) are appearing with 0 Q/D and 0 avid users. Site index is unaffected.
In the Q&A spirit, my question is: Who borked the stats?
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Where on SE to ask about computer science
What is the right site on the Stack Exchange network for computer science questions?
None of the answers I can think of are remotely satisfying:
Stack Overflow: Even if CS questions are acceptable (...
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What can be done to keep users active in the commitment phase?
From the What can be done with Area 51? question, it seems like the biggest complaint is that there is very little connectivity during the commitment phase. A user merely signs up, then can't do ...
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Implicit tagging hierarchy
I am aware of similar requests but I ask this regarding SE-2.0 sites, as the example I will take gaming:
Both answers on the question Should questions always be tagged with either a console/platform ...
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Is an Area 51 replacement in the works?
In Starting the Prompt Design Site: A New Home in our Stack Exchange Neighborhood, there were two announcements: one of a new SE site (namely GenAI.SE) and one of a new site launch process...
We have ...