Is there not a spreadsheet exchange?

Question

I believe there needs to be a proposal for a spreadsheet community. I don't have a community organization website, so I can't post the proposal.

There are stats and database related communities, but a lot of the time spreadsheet questions do not fit into statistics or database discussion. For example, questions about scripting office would be much better placed in the spreadsheet community rather than stackoverflow or otherwise.

Many spreadsheet questions have nothing to do with statistics or even scripting. Sometimes you just need to know how to do something in Excel or LibreOffice Calc. I can't believe this doesn't exist already.

Can someone make this happen if you think it's a good idea? Maybe you can recommend the best place for my spreadsheet related questions?

Answer 1

It's actually quite simple:

• If it's a spreadsheet program running natively on Windows, macOS, Unix or any other operating system for a computer, it's on-topic on Super User. Microsoft Excel is one of their most popular tags
  • The operating system may have its own site in the network, e.g. Ask Different for macOS, and Ask Ubuntu. Those are acceptable places too.
• If it's running in the browser, it falls under Web Applications. Google Sheets is nota bene their most popular tag.
• If you're using a spreadsheet app on your smartphone (not likely, but still), you can try Ask Different for iOS or Android Enthusiasts.

IMHO there's no need for a separate community, I believe the Stack Exchange network sufficiently supports non-programming-related spreadsheet questions.

Answer 2

I agree with the Glorfindel regarding that there are already several sites where where questions about spreadsheets are on-topic. Having a new site to focus only on spreadsheets, IMO, is possible but there should be a community with specific needs that aren't not safisfied by the current communties. Probably this might be community of users that use spreasheets for complex finance models, business intelligence according to specific industry standards and practices.

Regarding the broad use of spreadsheets...

Stack Overflow (SO) was not mentioned in Glofirdel's answer. I understand why. Questions about the basic use of a spreadsheet are off-topic there, but questions about writing formulas, specially complex formulas, questions about writing VBA macros for Excel and Google Apps Scripts for Google Sheets are on-topic.

Regarding the specific case of Libreoffice SO has more than 800 questions with [libreoffice-calc].

Besides SO there are sites where might questions about spreadsheets, as was mentioned by Glorfindel, might be on topic, but that doesn't meant that those questions will get an answer in any of them.

Super Users looks to have a good user base answering questions about spreadsheet formulas in general. This site has more than 600 questions with [libreoffice-calc].

On Web Applications the top tags is [google-sheets]. Mosts of the questions are about spreadsheet formulas.

On Android Enthusiasts are very few questions with [google-sheets].

On Ask Different (Apple) are [numbers], the spreadsheet app from Apple, there are more thatn 600 questions.