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Comments on Should we merge with Power Users?

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Should we merge with Power Users?

+4
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To increase the activity of the site (one of the main concerns related to making Codidact grow), I suggested merging Linux Systems with Power Users on Meta.

Do you agree or disagree with merging?

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3 comment threads

No opinion here at this point, but the current name is confusing. The description says the topic is r... (2 comments)
Asking for agreement is too early (1 comment)
Parallel question on Power Users (1 comment)
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I'm posting the same answer on both sites, because the questions are basically the same.

Personally, I am in favor of merging Linux Systems Codidact and Power Users Codidact, ideally by transferring the content from Linux Systems to Power Users.

The scope of Linux Systems is pretty close to a strict subset of that of Power Users; any question that is on topic on the former is very likely to be equally on topic on the latter, but there are questions that would be on topic on the latter that aren't necessarily on topic on the former.

By separating the two, we needlessly introduce confusion and separation; requiring of every poster to decide whether a given question should be posted on one or the other. Separating a subset of questions can make sense when there is significant traffic, but since we don't exactly have that luxury, we should start simple and, as with Software Development Codidact, perhaps later consider splitting the sites if the amount of traffic gets overwhelming for one.

There are some practical issues that would need to be worked out if the content from Linux Systems Codidact is merged into Power Users Codidact, which seems to me to be the more appropriate merge direction; for example, there would probably be some almost-but-not-quite-duplicate tags. However, Power Users currently has 143 questions, and Linux Systems 52, both in their respective Q&A categories; going through those even manually can probably be done in no more than a few hours. Even manual curation of the migrated content does not seem a big enough hassle to be an impediment to merging the sites at this point. Any existing links can be kept valid relatively easily since post IDs are global across Codidact; we won't have any case of two "post ID 42" to coalesce.

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2 comment threads

What kind of synergies do you expect? Should Linux/Windows then be categories? (5 comments)
Askers do not seem to have difficulties deciding which question goes here or there? (1 comment)
What kind of synergies do you expect? Should Linux/Windows then be categories?
Trilarion‭ wrote over 2 years ago

While Linux seems like a subset of PU, still I wonder how people with Linux questions or knowledge are supposed to profit from PU people discussing mostly Windows apps or Web apps currently and vice versa. It still feels a bit orthogonal.

Would you maybe make Linux/Windows each own categories or should questions for Linux and questions for Windows be shown in a single category. In that case I would really fear that the mixed list would be less attractive for each group of users, unless it's users who use Windows and Linux equally.

Canina‭ wrote over 2 years ago

Splitting into Windows and Linux categories (whatever those might be called) would introduce other issues; for example, where would one ask questions about how to (as a hypothetical example) physically hook up a power supply, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the operating system or other software running on the computer? What about web applications? And so on. So if we do make such a distinction instead, that'll take a fair amount of thought to ensure that we don't create a situation where there's no good place to ask a subset of on-topic questions.

Trilarion‭ wrote over 2 years ago

Or Mac related questions for example. That makes the objection of r~~ even more important I think. A detailed merge proposal would have to find answers on how people only interested in Linux questions could keep their community feeling within a bigger community.

Canina‭ wrote over 2 years ago

I agree; there have been several issues raised in response to this suggestion that definitely do bear consideration, not least regarding a sense of community cohesion.

Trilarion‭ wrote over 2 years ago

I just wrote down what I think needs to happen next on meta.CD.