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To: Stack Exchange Inc. (the company)

As Math.SE has grown into being the second biggest site in the Stack Exchange network, second only to the flagship Stack Overflow, I think it has proven its viability and it should get its own domain and name

Math.SE today:

  1. Is the second most visited site in the network - https://stackexchange.com/sites#traffic
  2. For a long time has had the second biggest number of questions in the network

The users usually refer to the site as Math.SE, MathSE, MSE, Math Stack Exchange, or Mathematics Stack Exchange, which is, in my opinion:

  • difficult to remember for new users landing on the site
  • a difficult name / domain to tell to people who might find the site useful
  • not quite a real brand

Just think how much better StackOverflow.com works, instead of an hypothetical Programming.StackExchange.com

It's possible to find a good domain name

Don't be fooled by the original attempt to find a domain name - What domain name to use?

The approach was wrong, letting users to find available .com domains.

Instead, a better approach would be that a group of employees from Stack Exchange Inc. could brainstorm domain ideas, considering also .com domains that are not available, but could be bought for a decent price. Then they could get ~10 ideas and launch a poll for the community to vote on. The existing math.stackexchange.com could be an option in the poll and, if the community doesn't like any new domain more than the existing one, then nothing will change. But I expect good .com domains to prevail.

This approach was also used when the StackOverflow.com domain was chosen: https://blog.codinghorror.com/help-name-our-website/ . And in that situation too, the domain name was not available and was bought by Jeff Atwood.

Stack Exchange can't get domain names for all the 180 sites

It wouldn't probably be worth it to do this for all the small sites, but they could and should do it for the biggest ones, that have already proven their viability and have more traffic then SuperUser.com or ServerFault.com

It would help Math.SE grow even more

I think Math.SE is already big and could be one of the biggest math sites in the world. Let's help that happen by pushing for it to get its own personal branding.

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    $\begingroup$ Relevant reading: Why do some Stack Exchange sites have their own domain names? and Will popular Stack Exchange sites get their own domain? on Meta SE, and Domain Names: The Wrong Question on the SO Blog. $\endgroup$
    – The Amplitwist
    Dec 7, 2022 at 12:20
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    $\begingroup$ "difficult to remember" who needs to remember? this site is almost impossible not to find. "a difficult name" it's a stackexchange for mathematics. that pretty much sums it up. "not a real brand" I'm not sure what that even means but it doesn't seem like we've been lacking for it. "already big and could be one of the biggest math sites in the world." I think we've already achieved that. I have a hard time believing a domain rename would cause even marginal growth, or even growth beyond the confusion it would sow. $\endgroup$
    – rschwieb
    Dec 7, 2022 at 18:46
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    $\begingroup$ You finish by declaiming that "It would help Math.SE grow even more". Is that a desirable goal? Most of the traffic that we get is a constant regurgitation of freshman and sophomore level exercises, which have been asked-and-answered over and over again. We don't have enough active curators at the moment to deal with this. "Growth" doesn't seem like the right goal. $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Dec 8, 2022 at 15:33
  • $\begingroup$ Do you or other people find it difficult to locate the website " math.stackexchange.com" ? I find this hard to believe. So what is the motivation of this question? $\endgroup$
    – Adam Rubinson
    Dec 18, 2022 at 21:50

1 Answer 1

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Sometimes, like through a web search, I will end up on one of the own-domain-having sister sites. It'll be clear from the format and layout that it's a Stack Exchange site, but I have to go through a cookie banner, I have to decide which domains to allow JavaScript for, I can't just jump in with my existing log-on, and it's kind of a pain. If we're going to play around with domains, I'd benefit most from unification, not diversification.

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    $\begingroup$ I find some similar inconveniences with the migration of "private" StackOverflow teams to their own domain (called, wait for it, stackoverflowteams.com). The result is that those sites cannot be navigated to from the "regular" StackExchange pages, and I'm not getting message notifications in the ordinary way. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Dec 7, 2022 at 21:59

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