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Comments on Home Improvement versus a more general "home stuff" community?
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Home Improvement versus a more general "home stuff" community?
Would the proposed Home Improvement community be open to questions about "house stuff" more broadly? I have in mind not just home improvement, but household operations more generally. I'd been considering proposing "Home and Garden" but was trying to come up with a better name.
I'd like to be able to ask questions about energy conservation, cleaning, accessibility (e.g. how do I make things better for my wheelchair-using guests without doing construction?), organization, growing food, general maintenance, and so on. Most of that isn't home improvement, but it's "home stuff".
Are we open to a broader proposal, or is Home Improvement focusing primarily on actual improvements and do-it-yourself projects?
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Regarding scope overlaps:
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Outdoors currently accepts some of the topics proposed here, including questions about various outdoors equipment, gardening, accessibility (how do I visit place x given y).
I would propose to either keep questions about gardening and misc outdoors equipment on Outdoors, or to allow an overlap. One sensible distinction might be that questions regarding repairs of various equipment does not belong on Outdoors but on Home Improvement.
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Domesticated animals is a tricky topic: questions about horse riding, dog agility etc sounds like they belong on Outdoors, whereas questions regarding how to adapt your home for a pet sounds like they belong on Home Improvement.
Whereas questions like "my cat is ill, what to do" do not belong on either site but somewhere else. Ideally at a site moderated by at least some professional veterinarians, or it would be ethically questionable to even consider hosting it.
So I don't think "Homesteading and livestock kept for personal use" belongs on this site, it's a big topic without much in common with DIY/Home Improvement.
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"Life hacks" and organization stuff has been proposed as a separate community before iirc(?). It does not sound too far-fetched to include such on a Home Improvement/DIY site, especially since a lot of amateur DIY stuff tends to just be a "hack" compared to hiring a professional to do the job. Maybe suitable for a category of its own?
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Electrical Engineering does not really overlap since electrical work isn't really on-topic there and I think the community there would generally just be grateful to have somewhere to refer such questions.
Simplified: questions you would ask an electrical engineer/developer belong on Electrical Engineering, whereas questions you would ask an electrician belong on Home Improvement.
To make a distinction:
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Any theoretical question regarding the underlying physics, formulas, behavior of components etc belongs at Electrical Engineering. It also accepts questions about electronics assembly on circuit boards and soldering. (As well as questions about proper English names/terms for electrical components.)
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Any question about applied electronics in a home environment belongs at Home Improvement. This includes questions about wiring 120/220/230VAC, suitable connectors, fuses, cables etc and also the repair of consumer electronics or home appliances.
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Power Users accept questions about computer repair/building/modification. "Life hacks" related to software also belong on Power Users.
Apart from that, questions about the use and repair of electrical products belong on Home Improvement.
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