4

Proposal: Astronomy

As many of you might be aware that there was an old Astronomy proposal which was closed in the beta phase. And now there is this proposal which is in commitment phase. Why can't one of the following be done:

  • Revive the old proposal and merge the committers of this proposal in the old one. This collective contribution will probably help taking that site into production. OR
  • Inform the participants of the closed Astronomy proposal about this new proposal and take this proposal directly to the Beta phase.

Some respect should be given to the time invested on the old proposal (site). Why to re-invent the wheel?

Or if both the options don't look feasible then why to allow such repeated proposal in the first place? Just ask people to use Physics site into which the old Astronomy was merged!

1
  • 1
    I feel similarly. I also raised the question why is there no link to the new site from the old? Clearly the new site wants active questioning, answering, voting, and commenting participants. Maybe your answer is: this tests how active the participants in the old site would be in the new, by waiting for them to find it. My concern is, if they actively check the old site every day they would say "Nope, still closed." On a good day they'd be invited to propose a new (redundant) site.
    – Bob Stein
    Commented Mar 31, 2013 at 11:45

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

The purpose of Area 51 is to (re)affirm support and interest in a proposal; not just to pick up where we left off last time.

Something went wrong with the site the last time around. Whether it was the founding community or the lack of commitment or lack of interesting questions, you want the example questions to represent what you want to ask on the site. Dredging up the previous content and community to continue where we left off defeats the purpose of giving this site and this subject a fresh start.

Yes, it is entirely possible there was nothing wrong with the previous site. I can appreciate the ambition for getting started as soon as possible. But whatever the reason for it's closure the last time, artificially padding the process this time around wont build the support you need to create a viable site. To build a successful site, you'll definitely need more of a running start to make it viable. Last time, there wasn't enough sustained interest or questions to make it viable. Launching a site again under this scenario will only doom the site; not help it.

If the support is here, it should be easy to find enough questions to define your scope. If not, it wasn't meant to be.

1
  • 1
    Thanks for the answer. One point I made in the question (which many others feel as well) about informing the participants of old Astronomy site about the new proposal (by something like - placing a link to the new proposal). This is important because: Firstly, there might be people associated with the ond astronomy site who still feel strong about the proposal and can contribute well in new proposal. And secondly, it will do at least a little justice to the time and efforts invested in old proposal (which took it to 338 days in Beta)!
    – Rahul Gupta
    Commented Apr 2, 2013 at 8:33

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .