policy add tag
Caleb
I'm interested in asking and answering question about several topics. I'd like to [propose them as sites](https://topanswers.xyz/meta?q=211) but am unsure what level of granularity to propose:

1. Computing (Superuser + ...)
1. Programming (Software Engineering + ...)
1. Coding (Stack Overflow + ...)
1. Language X (tighter scope than anything on SE)

My inital question(s) might be Lua (for example). Should I consider getting some Lua folks involved and propose per-language sites (this would quickly run into scope overlap and other issues) or just go ahead and propose a general programming site and use tags to scope to a language?

Another case study might be my interest in a site to ask questions about [The SILE Typesetter](https://sile-typesetter.org/). I've actually considered proposing that the SE LaTeX site expand their scope to cover it because conceptually it is similar, but the expertise is also different so its kind of a grey area.

Should I propose:

1. A site about publishing in general?
1. A site about typesetting?
1. A site about LaTeX and derivaties (including conceptual ones that share no code)
1. A site about SILE in specific?
Top Answer
Jack Douglas
The precise detail of community scope will be up to each community, as it takes expertise to decide on all the edge cases, but broadly:

**We don't want a general 'coding' SO-like mess on TopAnswers.**

> Language X (tighter scope than anything on SE)

This sounds much more like what we will be aiming for, especially bearing in mind that [the top 4 tags on SO](https://stackoverflow.com/tags?tab=popular) each have well over a million questions. `javascript` alone is >10% the size of the whole of SO, so still *much bigger* than [any non-SO site on the SE network](https://stackexchange.com/sites#questions).

> My initial question(s) might be Lua (for example). Should I consider getting some Lua folks involved and propose per-language sites (this would quickly run into scope overlap and other issues)

Scope overlap isn't a problem here or on SE — as long as each topic is coherent enough that experts can coalesce around it.

---

*An aside:*

We'd also like to help people contribute across communities here is ways that aren't so easy on SE — for example opt-out profile settings to show questions from related communities where appropriate. Not like HNQ where it is indiscriminate (though there may be some cope for that too in a more limited fashion), but where there is significant overlap of expertise between two communities. A theoretical example might be `javascript` and `typescript` (or it might not but hopefully you get what I mean — perhaps `SILE` and `TeX` are better examples).
Answer #2
David
The case for "Computing.TA" | As OP opined....

> I'd like to [propose them as sites][1] but am unsure what level of granularity to propose:
> 
> 1.    Computing (Superuser + ...)

And this "answer" is simply to state my own hope that a "Computing.TA" site might spring to life sooner rather than later. **Why?** I have two main factors in mind:

1. **Likelihood of meaningful activity** | TA is coming along nicely, but it's main *raison d'être*—getting good ("top", even!) answers to some question—is not yet quite being realized. In the SE ecosystem, "Superuser" (referenced by OP) occupies a place pretty near the top of that network:  
   
![__0-se-rank.jpg](/image?hash=c20a38825598383631bfa545618c486cf6e396fb833e797481ca3f4da84c6b9e)
   
  At time of typing, SU is ranked:
  - **2nd** by "traffic" and "number of users"; and
  - **3rd** by "Questions" (asked) and "Answers" (total).
  
2. **Breadth of scope** | All this activity relates to the range of "user" type questions relating to hardware, software, and network usage, while remaining software package, OS, etc. agnostic (for terms of "scope"). Although SU excludes "recommendations" (because SoftwareRecs and HardwareRecs exist as SE sites), my own hope and inclination would be to *include* recommendations on a new "Computing.TA" type site.

And a third: I have questions I would like to ask in such a community that don't fit into the more granular programming or OS-specific sites (only \*nix.TA available at the moment, of course) currently available in the TA framework.

I post this here, rather than in the "[propose a new community][1]" Q&A, because I don't think of this as a *formal* proposal, but rather an opportunity to gauge others' sense of whether a new site at this level of breadth would make sense at this moment in TA's development. I'm thinking, too, of the question about [how TA might best be promoted][2]: my hunch is that a "Computing.TA" site would contribute to that effort. FWIW!

[1]: https://topanswers.xyz/meta?q=211
[2]: https://topanswers.xyz/meta?q=595

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