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I read a post (from 2012) recently in the Linguistics meta that "...The users that committed cannot talk about them in existing sites at the moment....".

Before that, I had been going to consider a question about ConLangs in the Worldbuilding S.E., but now having read that, I'm reticent to bring up the subject there. The key concern in this case being that it would be an overlap of a proposal into a beta, which might be unacceptable or contrary to an explicit rule.

Given that, my question is: to what extent is it acceptable (if at all) to point people in one S.E./S.O. (particularly if they're full or beta) to another one (particularly if the pointed-to site is a proposal)? How do you feel when you see an answer like that?

I ask because I don't wish to cross any etiquette lines, and thought that asking from within the Area 51 board would perhaps be less contentious than were I to go directly to asking on someone else's meta.


Note: I'm not sure that this fits perfectly with the tags of "Science" or "Culture", but linguistics and languages are in the S.E. list under those headings (respectively), and I thought that they were likely relevant.

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Area 51 is where folks propose ideas for new sites, and part of that process is discussing a proposal's scope and organizing how subject space(s) can be distributed among various proposals and sites in the network. When that post you cited said "users that committed cannot talk about them on the current sites…", that simply means that the proposed topic space is currently off topic for that site.

But both proposals AND sites are certainly permitted to openly discuss what should and should not be included in their scope. And when two or more proposal ideas fall into overlapping spaces, it is certainly permitted and encouraged to discuss how to best manage that space. That might mean broadening or narrowing a proposal's scope, rallying for one idea over another, or even creating a new proposal to better service a community who might be interested in that subject.

Proposals can be discussed wherever it may affect the course of another proposal. You may even reach out to another site to discuss how a proposal might affect their scope.

...but not for advertising or spam

There is one caveat. Discussing a proposal does not mean you can hop around the network simply to advertise your proposal as a means of gathering support. With so many proposals vying for attention, touting your favorite proposal everywhere you can type quickly become unworkable, so any "come see my proposal" posts will be flagged and removed on sight.

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  • Hmm. Perhaps such overlapped cases can then be considered (e.g.: first asking on the full/beta's meta if a question/answer might be acceptable if including reference to a proposal site), but one would want to do so rather judiciously (and even then: only rarely). Jul 7, 2016 at 15:15
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For Area51 proposals some people will post a question https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions that implies two proposals are similar enough to be considered duplicates.

IMHO this is only appropriate for a proposal with an existing site, example

If both are on Area51 as proposals (without regard to exiting sites) posting a question that includes links to both proposals, is a good choice. It is your best option for making the followers of both proposals aware of the other.

As a rule proposals are not considered duplicates of other proposals, you never know which will draw the most interest.

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  • Good answer, but I was thinking specifically of cases involving of making reference to a proposal site from within a full or beta site's question or answer. (In retrospect, I hadn't narrowed my wording clearly, so I edited it just now to reflect this.) Jul 7, 2016 at 15:06
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    I usually mention it in the sites, chat but only if I am contributor to the site Jul 7, 2016 at 18:17

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