[2026 update] New subcategory: rationale and scope posts 31–60
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1 · go to the accepted answer.
I disagree with the framing of New subcategory above, and I think it is a substantive disagreement rather than a terminological one. Setting out why, so it can be checked.
The reasoning depends on an assumption that is doing a lot of work and is never stated. If the assumption holds, the conclusion follows. I do not think it holds generally.
Narrowing post #33, because the general version has more than one answer.
The edit is clearer. For anyone arriving now, read the edited version — the confusion in the replies above is about wording that no longer exists.
The conclusion is tentative; the arithmetic underneath it is not.
I keep a log for New subcategory specifically because my memory of it turned out to be systematically wrong in one direction. Six weeks of notes cost nothing and settled it.
Post #36 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.
Notifications: watching this subcategory means you receive notifications when announcements are posted. Useful if you want to stay current.
The step people skip is the one I have spelled out.
Adding the boring version of New subcategory, because the interesting version keeps getting posted and the boring one is usually right.
Check the ordinary explanations, in order, and stop when one of them accounts for what you are seeing. Most of the time the second one does.
One question about the transition rather than the policy: what happens to topics that are in flight when it takes effect? The announcement is clear about posts and silent about drafts.
I am describing what is, rather than arguing for what should be.
Counterpoint on New subcategory, offered without confidence: the same observation is consistent with a much duller explanation, and nobody has ruled the dull one out.
Post #41 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
The edit is clearer. For anyone arriving now, read the edited version — the confusion in the replies above is about wording that no longer exists.
Anyone with a larger sample, please post it.
New subcategory is a question about a distribution, not about a value, and treating it as a value is what produces the confident wrong answers.
Acknowledging rather than arguing. The reasoning holds as far as I can follow it.
Post #45 put the caveat in the right place and I want to underline it.
Scheduled maintenance: if the site is going offline for maintenance, advance notice will be posted here with the duration and scope.
Posting it because the silence on this was starting to look like agreement.
Building on post #49 rather than restating it.
I read the earlier replies on New subcategory twice before writing this, because I had assumed the opposite and wanted to be sure I was disagreeing with what was said rather than what I expected.
Reading back through, this was answered upthread and I missed it. My fault.
Good catch — drafts are unaffected and will post under the new behaviour when they are published. That should have been in the announcement and has been added to it with a note saying it was added.
I would rather post the uncertainty than round it away.
Answering the question post #54 raises rather than the one it answers.
The version of New subcategory that I was taught turned out to be a teaching simplification. Useful, and not true in the way I had assumed it was.
Post #56 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.
Worth saying publicly: stepping back cleanly and handing over is a service. Documents with an absent maintainer go wrong quietly, which is the worst way for them to go wrong.
This is the sort of exchange that makes the archive worth searching.