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Here is another question I just posed, but really what I wanted to drive at was possible suggested name changes to the site. I know a lot of people love the site the way it is so this is just a discussion so I'd like to ask everyone to be constructive here. There's no bad ideas in a brainstorm :)

Note that this thread is not a duplicate as it was formed when the site was named something else (however you may want to quickly go through it because there is still relevance there).

My primary motivation here is that while 'Electrical Engineering' is all-encompassing in the US, it doesn't mean the same thing in the rest of the world (there is a distinct difference between electronic and electrical outside the States). What I would like to hear suggestions for is a site name that is specific enough to represent the content well but broad enough to capture everything about the site.

So does anyone have any ideas?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Can someone explain why they downvoted? And please don't say because you don't want a name change: that isn't why one downvotes. Is my question poorly worded? Vague? Unconstructive? The point of this site is to discuss Electrical Engineering. Isn't that what my question promotes? \$\endgroup\$
    – tmwoods
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 12:55
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    \$\begingroup\$ I downvoted because I disagree with your proposal. That's what downvotes mean here on meta, not that you're a moron, can't write, and smell bad as they do on the main site. \$\endgroup\$
    – Olin Lathrop
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 14:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ While we are at it, let's also rename "Area 51" into "StackOverflow overflow". \$\endgroup\$
    – Nick Alexeev
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 20:57

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There is no problem.

I'm from outside the States and had no idea the two weren't the same thing. And even when I would have known the difference, I would've come to this SE site to ask questions about electronics.

SEO

From an SEO (Search Engine Optimalisation) point of view, I'd say this name is really good. We have "Electrical Engineering" as a name, but "electronics" in the URL. That makes this site score high in search engines, both on queries with "electrical" and on queries with "electronics".

Name changes aren't nice

Not only because 'we're used to electrical engineering', but also because of the search engines. They'll have to get used to the new name, crawl all pages again, et cetera, et cetera. You really don't want to have two different names wandering around the net. In the end, the search engines will get used to the new name though, so this is merely a temporary problem.

The description says it all

We should ward for descriptions in titles. For example, "This is my homepage about blah", isn't a good title, it's a description. The title should've been either "My homepage" (though it doesn't say a lot) or "Blah".

EE's description on our FAQ (and stackexchange.com/sites as well) says:

Q&A for electronics and electrical engineering professionals, students, and enthusiast (...) which include electronics, physical computing, and those working with microcontrollers, Arduinos and embedded systems.

That's a very good description and I think anyone can agree with that. We should ward to put the description of the site in the title. We do not want a title like "Electrical and electronics engineering, and a bit about electromagnetic forces and communication schemes as well".

We have a logo

And apart from the title and the description, the logo (and the overall site design) is a good way to profile your website. Our logo is more electronics than electrical engineering:

enter image description here

... and thereby shows everyone that electronics is included in the scope of this site. Also the overall site design, with chips, LEDs and a breadboard, is more of electronics than of electrical engineering.

"Electronics" is confusing

As stated in Possible Name Change?, the word "Electronics" is associated with consumer electronics. This question shows there was a problem with the word "Electronics", and even now, I think we have too much questions about consumer electronics. We really don't want more, do we?

So no,

I don't think we should have a name change.

But yes,

I will be reading this question and its answers with great interest to see with what you come up.

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    \$\begingroup\$ This was really well written (especially for a 16-year old!) and is probably the tipping point for me. I am generally against changing the name but I still think it is worth discussing and you have done so very well. Thanks for the well-thought out response. \$\endgroup\$
    – tmwoods
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 12:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ Well I'm flattered, thanks! :-) \$\endgroup\$
    – user17592
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 12:54
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm still going to leave this as unanswered because I would love to hear what the community thinks (honestly I expect nothing but downvotes) but I'd say this will almost definitely be marked as the answer in a few days. \$\endgroup\$
    – tmwoods
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 12:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ Just wait some time with it. I'd love to hear some ideas! \$\endgroup\$
    – user17592
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 12:59
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    \$\begingroup\$ I was going to express the same sentiment, but you did a better job than I would have. +1 \$\endgroup\$
    – Olin Lathrop
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 14:06
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    \$\begingroup\$ Will note, some of the confusion still comes from the definition of Electrical Engineering. The logo, from a US perspective, is both electronics and Electrical Engineering, as Electronics design as a subset, it is only the rest of the world that looks at these names as separate fields. Electrical and Electronics Engineering would be a more broadly acceptable name to the world, but as long as we are internally consistent I think the community sets more of a standard then any name could. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kortuk Mod
    Commented Mar 18, 2013 at 20:13

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