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Backstory:
18 months ago I committed to be a supporter of a proposal. I was never notified of the success or failure of the beta so I'm assuming that the proposal was eventually closed or merged. Now I'm trying to understand why it failed and what can be done differently to help a similar proposal succeed in the future.

Research:
According to these (currently unanswered) questions, I see that it is not completely understood how to view information about previously supported proposals:
How can I see the list of closed proposals I once followed?
Where can I find a list of proposals to which I have committed?
What has happened to deleted proposals? Where to find them?

So, in my attempts to find an archive of proposals I came accross this question:
Is there a list of failed/closed betas?

However, the accepted answer is just a collection or search suggestions. It relies on a Google search to see closed betas (which doesn't include the proposal I supported). The answer also admits that the list of [CLOSED] proposals just shows recent closures, not a comprehensive list.

Question:
So my question then becomes, why isn't there an official comprehensive list of failed/closed proposals and their history, including merges, merge requests, reasons for closure, etc.?

I honestly believe that such a list would prove beneficial to understanding why proposals fail and what a group should do in the future to help make their proposal successful.

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Long story short, if we included closed, abandoned, and deleted content, the proposal listing would be well over 35 times the size it is now! That would be a long untenable, noisy list to manage and wade through for very little gain. Generally speaking, if a proposal is abandoned, few people noticed it was gone in the first place… and we don't care for folks to dredge up old, abandoned proposals as a reason not to try again. Clean slate.

Having said that, I've been a long proponent of "if it was ever a piece of content in the system, you should see it in your profile (even if it was deleted)." I've made a bit of progress along those lines — on the main Q&A, some deleted content shows up in your proposal. And if you have a link to content that has been deleted, generally you can still view it. But of lot of those feature are not being back-ported to Area 51 while we figure out a better system that will create the next generation of sites. We're just not putting a lot of resources into extending the functionality Area 51 at this time.

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    "we don't care for folks to dredge up old, abandoned proposals as a reason not to try again." - Agreed, but as the old saying goes, those who don't understand history are destined to repeat it.
    – BigMacAttack
    Sep 12, 2013 at 18:46
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    I'm not saying that closed/deleted proposals need to be in the same list. I agree that would be noisy. But I do believe there should be an archived list.
    – BigMacAttack
    Sep 12, 2013 at 18:48
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    To clarify my reasoning: 18 months ago a "Home Automation/Home Theater" type site was proposed, defined, and nearly completed committed to. Then I never heard a word about a beta. I want to understand why it got so close, but still failed. This is where I feel an archive would be helpful.
    – BigMacAttack
    Sep 12, 2013 at 22:42
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    I agree with @BigMacAttack - there is really no reason there couldn't be a pure list of deleted proposals in some sort of archive. This could be really helpful - whether as a warning or simply as recording what has been attempted. Making them disappear completely like this seems unwarranted - and dang hard to find in some cases!
    – kcrisman
    Mar 14, 2017 at 19:17

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