22
votes
What is on-topic here and not on Writers?
Documentation involves writing, but it isn't writing.
It's interviewing, collating, taxonomizing, maintaining, fixing, updating, expanding, pruning, and more.
The writing aspects of technical ...
- 7,720
21
votes
Accepted
Awaiting proposal approval — but we need another name!
Title: Technical Communication
URL: techcomm .stackexchange .com
I was fond of "Documentation", but this covers everything a technical writer and technical communicator does. The URL is a well-known ...
- 473
14
votes
Should (could) "Technical communication" be changed back to "Documentation"?
I don't believe so. The original change came about from a potential branding collision with another Stack Exchange product — but upon further reflection and discussion, it was decided that "...
- 473
10
votes
Accepted
Without being a tech writer, how much can I help this site?
When I started participating at Stack Overflow three years ago, I knew very little about programming, and all I could do was posting questions to get help. Similar to your description, I was ...
- 410
9
votes
Does "focus on K-12 teachers and parents" mean that question about university-level teaching will be out of scope?
I'm looking forward to participating in this group! Thanks for putting it together.
That said, it would be easier for me to recruit my colleagues if you broaden the description to include post-...
- 51
9
votes
Is there not a spreadsheet exchange?
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 ...
- 234
8
votes
How should we craft the site description for "Technical Communication?"
Edit: Already implemented this change:
Documentation: Proposed Q&A site for information developers, technical
communicators, writers, programmers, engineers, and others interested
or ...
- 3,098
7
votes
Are documentation-related technical support questions on topic?
Yes.
If StackOverflow can answer questions like "How to do x in Bootstrap/Jquery/Django/etc?" then this documentation.stackexchange should be able to answer "How to do X in Sphinx/AsciiDoc/DITA/etc?"
7
votes
Could we get rid of the ufos and 'area51' type of branding please?
I 100% agree with this suggestion to change the branding. Why is there a UFO? Why is it called Area51? The question has "status-planned" which "Indicates that a change in functionality has been ...
- 3,623
7
votes
Accepted
Using the site for discussing technical content
No. Discussion is not what the Stack Exchange model is about. The model is about questions and their answers.
Any such reference requests would be off-topic in the same way that proofreading is off-...
- 1,291
6
votes
What is on-topic here and not on Writers?
Documentation isn't easy to pigeon-hole ... but I know it when I see it. The profession includes people whose job it is to explain how things work at a deeper than superficial level. We write to ...
6
votes
Are documentation-related technical support questions on topic?
The title of your question is a bit confusing, I think. To answer the question in the body, "yes, these are appropriate questions for the site." In essence, the Stack Exchange system is a large ...
- 3,098
6
votes
Should (could) "Technical communication" be changed back to "Documentation"?
Technical Communication is much more than documentation. Changing the name to documentation will reduce the scope drastically.
- 51
6
votes
Can I make a site for proposing changes to the world?
Unfortunately, a Stack Exchange-style Q&A is not the solution to this type of problem.
This is a variation on a theme of questions asked many many times in the form
of:
"Can we get a ...
- 473
5
votes
Does "focus on K-12 teachers and parents" mean that question about university-level teaching will be out of scope?
I think we should remove the words declaring a focus.
The description includes the "All backgrounds, levels of teaching experience, and familiarity with CS are welcome." It is the community that ...
- 151
5
votes
Site Scope / Name Conflict at Documentation/Technical Communication
I see your point, and understand your concern.
Somehow, this reminds me of the Programmers vs Software Engineering dilemma. While It's true that many of the example questions posted so far are ...
- 410
5
votes
Accepted
Is there a seven day minimum between betas?
Sites launch on Tuesdays. There is not, to my knowledge, an authoritative explanation of why it's Tuesday. But it's apparent that Stack Exchange activity is lower on weekends, which is not good for ...
- 51
5
votes
Accepted
Should (could) "Technical communication" be changed back to "Documentation"?
I am smelling more vagueness because, Writers Stack Exchange community are willing to change their site name from 'Writers' to 'Writing'. They already claims this:
We're about the product and the ...
- 236
5
votes
Accepted
Why is there no shopware site proposal?
Most platforms do not have their own community, only the largest ones (SharePoint, Salesforce, Wordpress, Magento) do. 1,500 questions is not a lot; while there are smaller sites in the network, none ...
- 234
5
votes
Accepted
Should this still exist?
That's not a proposal, it's a live site
One that's been around for over 8 and a half years ... or about 7.5 years longer than you have been ;)
Pretty sure SE management knows it's low-traffic, and ...
- 7,720
4
votes
Promote Agriculture & Farming
Create Community Ads on relevant other sites like this one for the literature.se on English.se. Appropriate SE sites could be gardening, sustainable living, anything to do with cooking, plants or ...
- 668
4
votes
Does "focus on K-12 teachers and parents" mean that question about university-level teaching will be out of scope?
Just one more point of consideration: K-12 is totally meaningless in a large part of the globe.
From Wikipedia:
K–12 comprises the sum of primary and secondary education. It is used in the United ...
- 242
4
votes
How should we craft the site description for "Technical Communication?"
Documentation is the best of all the not-quite-right options.
I like "Tech Writing," personally, because I think of myself as a "Technical Writer," not a "Documentation Writer" (or "Documentarian" - ...
4
votes
Accepted
Why has at least one question been unlinked from this proposal?
It shows up for me. Can anyone confirm?
- 473
4
votes
Proposal for a site about Virtualization
You don't need to open a discussion about it (although it may help shape the proposal, and it's not a bad idea to do so) - just create a new proposal on the Area 51 main site and start shaping it up.
...
- 422
4
votes
Are more people having trouble signing up and voting on the agriculture proposal?
Area51 has some usability issues unfortunately. See this question on meta for background on the most prominent one during signup.
The issues seem to revolve around synchronization between the multiple ...
3
votes
What's the best way to spread the word about this proposal?
Don't know the "best" way, but one way is to reference it in your StackOverflow profile, and maybe other community profiles. We need the attention of people active in online communities.
That is how ...
- 242
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible