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There's another similar website, called Electronics Exchange which also aims to be a central community for electronics engineers. So, where do we go from here?

Should we try and merge EE into Chiphacker, or do they both live on in parallel and cause users a lot of confusion? ... should users be registered and ask questions on both sites? Definitely not a good idea.

Send in your tips since I'm an admin up at EE, and I can recommend things to the owner.

PS: Chiphacker has about double the members, and dozens of more questions and topics. Cheers.

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closed as no longer relevant by littlebirdceo♦♦ Nov 28 at 2:28

8 Answers

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@Edward Wallace, Johnc and Vineeth Re: Merging Communities

I believe we should merge the Electronics Exchange user base into Chiphacker. I will put a post up on Electronics Exchange inviting the users to join Chiphacker. In an effort to build the size of our community, and boost awareness of Chiphacker, we're partnering with boutique electronics retailers.

@Amos Re: Segmenting Microcontroller & Electronics Questions

When starting Chiphacker it was my intention that Chiphacker would be able to field questions round Electronics, Microcontrollers, Embedded Programming, Robotics, Circuit Bending and General Electronics Hacking. The distinction between Electronics questions and Microcontroller questions is a minor one.

Cheers,

Marcus

@littlebirdceo

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@littlebirdceo - I don't think EE's owner would like the idea of shutting shop. I believe I'm going to have to live with 2 communities. I'd like your help in seeing how people can join / work in both places, like they separated off SO, SU, SF .... they close questions that are not related on this site, and this helps us build more concentrated communities. What say? Probably smarter folks that work with MCU's stay here, and the ones who just need general circuit issues go with EE? – Edward Nov 25 at 22:48
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 @Edward The stated goal of Chiphacker is to be a collaboratively edited question and answer site for electronics hackers – regardless of platform or language. Unlike SO, SU, and SF, I don't believe there is enough differentiation between a microcontrollers site and a general electronics site. As such we'll continue to welcome questions on all electronics topics. Cheers, Marcus – littlebirdceo♦ Nov 25 at 23:10
I would agree with Marcus Chiphacker.com is a good place for anything electronics hacking. Users can post general electronis questions or very specific ucontroller questions. Let's make this a great place for everyone to collaborate and learn – jadiaz Nov 26 at 4:31
@littlebirdceo - Somebody appears to have taken offence at your invitation on EE, as the whole post inviting people over has vanished along with your reply to the question about Arduinos (and endolith's comment pointing here which was posted last week or earlier). – Amos♦ Nov 26 at 21:00
@Amos - Pardon me for saying this, but it looks like the owner took it down. I'm the only other admin/mod and I did not, so that only leaves him. – Edward Nov 27 at 3:54
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I think, if possible we should merge EE into Chiphacker - the questions seem to be similar. I do not think that there is enough traffic/interest at present to support both sites. If the merge is possible then perhaps the EE name could be pointed at the Chiphacker servers.

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I say merge EE into Chiphacker because this site has a cooler mascot :).

Both sites target embedded electronics. So, even if the merge doesn't happen, most likely only one site will live on.

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@Vineeth - And chiphacker's branding is downright cooler in every way! – Edward Nov 25 at 22:34
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I would say merge them, as long as we can merge all of the questions and answers from the deprecated site. I want all of the information captured...

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Alternatively try and partner up with Electronics Exchange, split topics into Microcontroller based issues here, electronics based issues there, and allow migration of questions betwen the two, in the same way Stack Overflow, Server Fault, Super User and Meta Stack Overflow do.

I have an account at Electronics Exchange too, and the biggest problem with it is that there seems to be a lot less people using EE leading to a lot less questions being asked, and answered. All in all it feels much deader than here. Surely a partnership would benefit both sites.

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@littlebirdceo - Can you partner with EE? I'm an Admin on EE and I can handle issues from that side. Or do you still want chiphacker to be the single electronics related SE out there? – Edward Nov 25 at 22:04
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 @Edward - Yeah it doesn't make sense to split the community. Had I known about Electronics Exchange, I probably would not have started Chiphacker! But now that Chiphacker is off like a rocket, and partnering with electronics businesses, it makes sense for use to rally round Chiphacker. – littlebirdceo♦ Nov 25 at 22:11
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if these two site don't merge, only one will survive anyway so it's the best for everybody

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I would vote to merge... it's time-consuming to check multiple websites, especially ones that are so similar in scope, and small (for the moment, thinking optimistically...).

If they stay separate and the traffic picks up, I'll probably pick the one with the highest signal-to-noise ratio to frequent and not bother with the other one.

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There's more than just EE though. What about AVRFreaks.net? That's not likely to shut down any time soon. it's been going forever.

I think people will just have their favourite places and check the other places if they can't find what they need. If they continually find what they need at chiphacker then the problem will solve itself.

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 The difference is that EE is another Stack Exchange based site, whereas AVRFreaks isn't, and a lot of the same people are on both here and there. – Amos♦ Nov 27 at 11:52
yeah avrfreaks is a totally different concept and not really a similar site to chiphacker. – Dago Nov 27 at 12:11

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