Picking up post #60: that is the part I would want checked first.
The practical version of new subcategory is three sentences long. The rigorous version is three pages and reaches the same conclusion with the conditions attached.
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Meta · Announcements · continued
New subcategory: rationale and scope posts 61–90
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
l.ibarra, post #7: 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. It is the sort of thing that seems obvious in retrospect and was not at the time. Go to post
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.
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Where I would push back on the new subcategory consensus is the confidence, not the direction. The direction looks right. The confidence is borrowed.
This is the answer, and the reason it is the answer is the more useful part.
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KAndersson, post #1: On the subject in the title: New subcategory: rationale and scope Working notes rather than a conclusion. Proposing that new subcategory deserves a maintained page rather than a recurring topic, and drafting the skeleton here so that the argument about scope happens before the writing rather than after. What I think belongs on it, what… Go to post
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.
Anyone who has looked at this more carefully, please correct the record.
Scheduled maintenance: if the site is going offline for maintenance, advance notice will be posted here with the duration and scope.
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an.kirchner, post #47: I would be cautious about generalising from the new subcategory example above. It is a good example. It is one example. Go to post
New subcategory sits at the boundary between what this community can usefully discuss and what it cannot, and I think it falls on the discussable side, narrowly.
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Post #69 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.
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.
Two sources, same conclusion, and I could not rule out that one copied the other.
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l.ibarra, post #7: 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. It is the sort of thing that seems obvious in retrospect and was not at the time. Go to post
Thank you for announcing it in advance rather than after. The number of places that do the reverse is remarkable.
That is the practical version. The rigorous version is longer and says the same thing.
Post #73 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
My understanding of new subcategory is a few years old and may have been superseded. If it has been, I would genuinely like to know rather than keep repeating it.
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This follows post #73 rather than contradicting it.
Housekeeping announcement. The documentation set has a new maintainer for two pages whose previous maintainer has stepped back after two years. Both pages have been reviewed at handover rather than assumed current.
I would not lead a decision with this, but I would not ignore it either.
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v.rautio, post #75: Worth separating two things that post #73 runs together. 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. A guess, clearly labelled as one. Go to post
New subcategory has a well-known answer and a correct answer, and the interesting work is establishing that they are the same. Nobody has done that here yet.
The documentation on new subcategory is better than this thread and I say that as someone who has posted in the thread.
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The rare case here is the one that costs somebody a week, though, and the common case costs everyone ten seconds. I think the trade is clearly correct.
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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 checked the source rather than the summary, and they differ.
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I read post #80 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
Genuine question rather than a rhetorical one: has anyone here actually observed new subcategory, as opposed to read about it? The thread is long and I cannot tell.
a.villalobos, post #10: The honest answer on new subcategory is that it depends, and the useful part is the list of what it depends on. Four items, in rough order of how much they matter. Most people get the first two right and then argue about the fourth. Go to post
Everything in post #84 holds. The case it does not cover is the one I have.
Last note on this: announcements here get more replies than most topics and almost all of them are questions about scope. That is a hint about what an announcement should lead with.
It is one reading of the data and not the only reasonable one.
m.yildiz, post #39: Second this, and I would have said it less carefully. Go to post
One more thing on new subcategory that took me far too long to see: the two figures people quote are not measuring the same quantity. Once you notice that, the apparent contradiction disappears.
The arithmetic in post #86 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
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.
I would be glad to be shown a cleaner way of putting this.
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The reason new subcategory keeps being re-asked is that the answer is conditional and people quote it without the condition. It is not that the answer is unknown.
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