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Based on several discussions about the name and scope of Electronics and Robotics:

we have dropped Robotics from this site's name.

Electronics

The Area 51 proposal has also been updated to reflect this change.

(Note that the logo will reflect this change when you launch soon.)

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    \$\begingroup\$ "Electronics" to most people means "iPhones and TVs". meta.electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/15/… We would like a different name \$\endgroup\$ – endolith Mar 20 '11 at 16:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Rebecca - We've been working on names for a while. I appreciate your work as a community manager in arbitrating a decision of the scope of the community, but we didn't expect this decision to extend to the name! \$\endgroup\$ – Kevin Vermeer Mar 20 '11 at 18:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ I agree, we would like a different name. Even if it turns out just to be the old one (E&R). Calling us electronics is like calling tex.stackexchange markup.stackexchange, it's too broad a term. \$\endgroup\$ – Toby Jaffey Mar 20 '11 at 21:05
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    \$\begingroup\$ -1: I agree with the other comments here... Electronics means different things to different people. To the general population it means TVs, Radios, Play Stations, HiFi, etc, but to the target audience of this Q&A website it means transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, PCBs, microcontrollers, etc. We don't want the website to attract people looking for the best place to buy a washing machine! \$\endgroup\$ – BG100 Mar 21 '11 at 0:25
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    \$\begingroup\$ What about ChipHacker? (bring back Electropus!) \$\endgroup\$ – Vincent Van Den Berghe Mar 21 '11 at 12:34
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    \$\begingroup\$ Ambivolent about the scope change. Someone has to make that decision, and I wasn't invested either way. However, I'm giving this question a big -1 because it unilaterally renames the site with an uninteresting name which is a consumer electronics magnet. \$\endgroup\$ – Kevin Vermeer Mar 21 '11 at 14:13
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    \$\begingroup\$ We're going to launch as "Electronics Design" as NickT suggested below. \$\endgroup\$ – Jin Mar 21 '11 at 16:57
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While I support dropping robotics from the site (at least the more technical side of it), naming it simply "Electronics" is fraught with peril. At least in the interim while a new "creative" name is chosen or whatever, there needs to be a more descriptive basic name.

  • Electronics Design
  • Non-consumer Electronics
  • Electronic Engineering
  • etc.
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    \$\begingroup\$ My vote is for Electronics Design! I think it perfectly fits what we do. \$\endgroup\$ – Kellenjb Mar 21 '11 at 3:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ While "Electronics Design" is much better than "Electronics" it doesn't address our software contingent meta.electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/76/… \$\endgroup\$ – Toby Jaffey Mar 21 '11 at 17:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ Not all the questions deal just with electronic design. Some are more about electronic safety, theory, etc. It's a pretty broad field really. I think we should go with a more attractive/fun name, such as the ones listed in reemrevnivek's post, rather than come up with a name that describes everything we do and don't deal with. \$\endgroup\$ – Ponkadoodle Mar 21 '11 at 23:46
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The site shouldn't be renamed to be "Electronics", it should be scoped to "Electronics" from "Electronics and Robotics". The name should be Chiphacker or Short Circuit (based on this question: Will this site retain the chiphacker name?)

We haven't yet graduated if we can't get a real name. What's currently happened is analogous to the following:

Links to the greater Stack Exchange network are all over the site - It doesn't need to be contained in the name. Yes, it's a Stack Exchange site. That's obvious from the look of the site. However, topic.stackexchange.com is a very boring name. More importantly, it doesn't help describe the scope of the site - Rather, it impedes our ability to keep consumer electronics off of the site (See this question: Possible Name Change?)

Also, I'm hugely in support of Nick T's answer. However, he seems to have covered the consumer electronics problem well in his answer, so I won't add a diatribe about that here.

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I think there needs to be a point made that there are 2 different issues going on here.

First is if Electronics and Robotics belong on the same site together. There has been discussion here around this issue. And a similar discussion here. Based off of those two topics and what I have seen from people who have asked question, it is the right decision to split the sites.

The other is the name of "electronics". There is talk here and here about this. I think this needs to be address fast in order to allow for the logos to be made appropriately.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Altering the name on a logo seems borderline trivial, the only urgency to do it now is to prevent misconceptions about what's on-topic for this site. I'm unclear as to what you're trying to make with your first point; it seems like you're echoing what's already been decided. \$\endgroup\$ – Nick T Mar 21 '11 at 4:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Nick T: I guess they need to purchase a domain name for the website as well as changing the logo, so maybe it isn't so trivial. \$\endgroup\$ – BG100 Mar 21 '11 at 7:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Nick T @BG100 I am thinking mostly about the logo. I am not sure we get our own domain, even if we did I doubt it would be electronics.com. Branding is a big deal though and we can't just willy nilly change our name down the road. The name issue needs to be taken care off sooner then later. \$\endgroup\$ – Kellenjb Mar 21 '11 at 14:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ @BG100, That's been explicitly mentioned as irrelevant; see blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/domain-names-the-wrong-question Unless there is a perfect name, a la "Seasoned Advice", it may never happen, or at least not for a long time. \$\endgroup\$ – Nick T Mar 21 '11 at 15:20

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