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What is on-topic on Vi and Vim Stack Exchange that isn't on Stack Overflow? I don't get it: what's the point of this site? What could I ask here that I cannot ask on Stack Overflow, where there's already huge Vim knowledge present?

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  • There's plenty of sites with overlapping topics... See English sites, or the mathematics sites just to name 2 prominent examples. This doesn't mean such sites shouldn't exist
    – Bakuriu
    Feb 25, 2015 at 12:15
  • @Bakuriu But those sites are significantly lower quality than SO in terms of the typical questions asked and the answers given etc Aug 20, 2015 at 18:52
  • @user3728501 what the heck are you saying? Did you even look at the quality of questions posted in Mathematics.SE and similar? The average SO question is low quality. The very good ones are more an exception than a rule and there are many simply because there are tons of questions. On other sites good questions are more the norm. Looking at this site in particular you can notice that the answers from Vi.SE are often much more quality and more complete than the counterparts from SO.
    – Bakuriu
    Aug 21, 2015 at 5:47
  • @Bakuriu Not on the questions I see - but then my tag settings may be different to yours. The linux/scientific/graphics/"difficult stuff" questions tend to be a lot higher quality than perhaps "why doesn't my printer work" - but then I don't see those questions because I have the tag [windows] hidden. Aug 21, 2015 at 11:36
  • That's stackoverflow I'm talking about there. Math overflow I agree is another high quality site. Super user not so much. Physics is extremely poor, I don't think anyone on there has a physics/engineering degree - it certainly doesn't show. (Both in questions and answers) Consider the following SE sites: Aug 21, 2015 at 11:38
  • Seasoned Advice, Home Improvement, Science Fiction and Fantasy, English Language Learners, Academia. Why do these things even exist? The amount of nonsense on there is ridiculous. Aug 21, 2015 at 11:40

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Stack Overflow is for professional and enthusiast programmers. If you take a quick look around, it will be clear that almost none of the questions here are programming-specific.

Vim is used by far more people than just programmers. Vim can be used by writers, mathematicians (LaTeX), sysadmins, students (for taking notes), or simply anyone who needs to edit text in general.

Many of the questions we have here would be explicitly off-topic for Stack Overflow, as they have nothing to do with programming.

Finally, the existence of one site does not justify the prevention of the creation of another one. A few prime examples: Ask Ubuntu vs. Unix & Linux and Mathematica vs. Stack Overflow. For both of these, one is a subset of the other, yet they have vastly different communities and would not work well together if merged.

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  • AU is not a strict subset of U&L. For example, one can ask questions about other Canonical-provided services, like Launchpad. I don't think those would be on-topic on U&L.
    – muru
    Feb 25, 2015 at 4:58
  • What about superuser for those questions then? Thats where the non-programming Vi/Vim questions usually go. Aug 20, 2015 at 18:53
  • @user3728501 Again, according to their Tour, "Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users." You can use Vim without being a power user.
    – Doorknob
    Aug 20, 2015 at 19:00
  • @Doorknob I disagree, I think if any program is an intrinsically "power user" program - Vi / Vim is exactly that. It's hardly microsoft word is it? Aug 20, 2015 at 19:01
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Questions about vi but not about text editing:

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    Doesn't seem like there's a lot of point having a whole stackexchange site for just 2 questions... Aug 20, 2015 at 18:53
  • @user3728501 The justification for having a site for vi is here. Aug 20, 2015 at 18:55
  • That post explains concisely why there SHOULDN'T be a Vi / Vim site. Aug 20, 2015 at 18:59

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