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Not sure if this is going to be a good question or not, but I don't understand how come Economics also shows up in Area 51 as being closed, when there is an open Economics group where people can post questions. Why two groups with the same name, one active, and the other closed? Which one was created more recently, the active one, or the closed one, and why wasn't SE able to filter out the duplicate name when the second group was created?

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/1618/economics

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Here is the link to the more recent one: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/61732/economics

There was an economics SE site before. It failed. You can read about when and how it failed in this Stack Exchange blog post: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/04/when-a-site-grows-quiet/

The hope is that this one doesn't meet the same fate. See this other meta post: 60 days in Beta - Battle cry?

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  • $\begingroup$ With all those economists in the world, I was expecting a larger user base, just like the mathematics, languages, politics, chemistry, and other groups. I hope it works out. $\endgroup$
    – John Sonderson
    Feb 2, 2015 at 14:29
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    $\begingroup$ @JohnSonderson On Stack Exchange, importance seems to be not how large the user base is but how large the intersection with Stack Overflow is, as that is the flagship that brings people in. That's why Economics and Politics are struggling while Mathematics and Physics are doing great. That's my own hypothesis at least. $\endgroup$
    – gerrit
    Feb 2, 2015 at 19:20
  • $\begingroup$ I thought StackOverflow users would share the existence of SE sites with their less-technical friends, thus driving more people to use these sites. Not sure if that works in practice though. Do you think it could be, or am I totally off? $\endgroup$
    – John Sonderson
    Feb 2, 2015 at 19:30
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    $\begingroup$ @JohnSonderson You're absolutely right, but it takes time. Economics Stack Exchange has only been available to the public for 76 days. This community has some great early momentum, and a site the size of Physics SE, for example, isn't built overnight. $\endgroup$
    – Ana
    Feb 2, 2015 at 20:55

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