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There seem to be a lot of ebike-related questions that involve information about not only bicycles, but also electrical engineering, and even mechanical engineering. I'm not much on social marketing though, & have never considered proposing that a new stack be launched... aaaand: The area51 site for proposing new stack sites, says "If you do not yet have a community organized, ready and eager to build your site, please do not submit this proposal."

So, I don't know, how many stack users might follow a proposal to create an ebikes.stackexchange site!?

Searching within bicycles.stackexchange.com, I find 301 direct results for "ebike".
The electronics stackexchange, has 97.
Stackoverflow, has 36, though many of these are purely code-related.

Questions like "How do I come up with a list of requirements for a microcontroller for my [ebike] project?" hinge upon factors far beyond electrical engineering alone; the OP is asking how to evaluate factors specific to ebikes in particular.
"Forwarding / passthrough UART from one to another port" is a coding question, & probably(?) belongs on stackoverflow, but anyone with experience configuring a variety of "UART programmable" controllers, might know details about coding & components specifically relevant to their (ebike) project in particular.
"Why do the majority of people on an ebike ride at a fairly low cadence?" is a question that really can't be answered empirically, without comparing the results of riding ebikes against manual bicycles.

Hypothetically, a question such as "What criteria are highly significant, when selecting an ebike motor?" has no suitable home I could find on stack sites, right now.

Certainly, any bicycle-focused site may be frequented by some ebike users & technicians, but having a site to pose ebike questions directly to ebike people, seems preferable. (Plus, manual bicycle "purists" might appreciate it, if ebike questions had somewhere else to go?)

I don't think it makes sense to potentially have questions about ebike components get directed to sites that are primarily about manual bicycles, then redirected to the site for electrical (or mechanical) engineering; while datum germane specifically to ebikes in particular, could have a site of its own.

I am happy to follow a proposal to create a new ebikes stackexchange, & would look forward to contributing, but I don't know which other users might also be willing to do so. (I certainly don't want to direct-message strangers, to ask!)

It appears ebikes.stackexchange, will need 4 other users besides me to follow its proposal, for it to be created...
Do any four people reading this want to follow the proposal?
(If not, whom should I ask?)

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  • If I'm supposed to go beat the bushes in every ebike forum & Discord I've used, I could probably get a few non-users to sign up to SE, but I strongly suspect most active participation would come from existing users on SE sites tangentially related to ebikes (such as Bicycles)... It seems inappropriate to post meta questions such as "who wants an ebike SE site" on existing SE sites, though? Since I don't do marketing, I truly do not know how to proceed...
    – ProphetZarquon
    Commented Nov 15, 2022 at 23:44
  • 4
    You're going to need at least 300-400 people to get your site through the overall process: Minimum number of people for a successful proposal.
    – damryfbfnetsi
    Commented Nov 16, 2022 at 1:35
  • I did read that post (& a few related). It's #relevant, so thanks. ... Is there any standard procedure for community planning on an SE platform, or is it basically "Gee I hope we can drag several hundred interested users in from other types of forum, regardless of whether a majority of affected users in associated SE sites believe a dedicated SE site for that topic is worthwhile"? There are many many software-related stack users, but other topics have smaller membership & I could easily foresee scenarios where a site is worthwhile, but doesn't reach numbers similar to major SE sites...
    – ProphetZarquon
    Commented Nov 16, 2022 at 2:59
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    Unfortunately, due to lower resources at the company, they are only accepting proposals where the questions to be asked would not already be on-topic on another site. In this case, while Bicycles doesn't have much of a community around e-bikes, questions about them are still on-topic there. You also won't need much people to get a community to answer on an already-existing site compared to launching a wholly new site.
    – damryfbfnetsi
    Commented Nov 16, 2022 at 3:09
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    @ProphetZarquon, the usual procedure is for someone on the other forum to start the process. For example, Operations Research was started by a discussion forum looking to add a structured Q&A site. Coming in to a forum as an outsider is almost certainly going to fail.
    – Mark
    Commented Nov 16, 2022 at 3:30
  • @damryfbfnetsi Hypothetically, a question such as "What criteria are highly significant, when selecting an ebike motor?" seems ill-suited to a QA site where a great majority of users have no ebikes... Niche categories don't need much moderation, compared to hugely trafficked sites. I feel the non-software SE sites are often annoyingly broad & lacking appropriate sites for niche QA (looks like consensus is that this has been an issue since at least 2012, too). Presuming one believed the arbitrary number of required mods could be recruited (ha!?) should this topic stay up as a commit gauge?
    – ProphetZarquon
    Commented Nov 16, 2022 at 4:42
  • My biggest concern is that ebike questions are ending up scattered across several SE sites, causing the answers to come from subsets of users who don't necessarily know the full picture involved in a correct (& safe!) answer. Hence the request for anyone interested, to raise a hand, I guess.
    – ProphetZarquon
    Commented Nov 16, 2022 at 4:45
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    I'd strongly suggest reading this answer on our global meta site, as the argument about having sites be very broad doesn't hold much water in the SE system.
    – damryfbfnetsi
    Commented Nov 16, 2022 at 4:58

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It appears ebikes.stackexchange, will need 4 other users besides me to follow its proposal, for it to be created...

No. Not even close. 5 followers are required to meet the minimal activity requirements that prevent the proposal from being automatically deleted after 3 days. You'll need at least 60 followers to get past the definition phase and hundreds to get past the commitment phase, both of which occur before any site is ever created.

You're looking at this process all wrong. Stack Exchange is not the place to look for a community, nor do we do accept existing SE sites to fulfill the "existing community" requirement for proposing a new site. You need to have an existing community where you are involved that could bring in a minimum of 300-400 users that are interested in starting a Q&A site or your proposal will surely fail.

Asking for people who might be interested here on Area 51 Meta is not the way to go about proposing a new site.

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