For many years - despite often doing business as "Stack Overflow", the company behind the network has formally been called "Stack Exchange Inc". I've complained for many years that smaller sites often lack the attention they needed, and this oneis one of the few constants that reassured us that we mattered, as part of a bigger Stack Exchange family. How much we've felt valued has varied through the years and in past redesigns (of smaller scope!) we've often had to fight to keep our sites distinct in small ways (like the old per-per sitesite arrows we lost), to moderate arguments over design, to saving beloved mascots of the community. While we're under the same platform, the identity of individual sites - our individual identities - matter. I've gone into some detail on my concerns here. There's other folks who have expressed similar concerns.
More recently, we were told that:
Many of the arguments for rebranding under Stack Overflow makesmake no sense. Rebranding non tech-tech sites under a brand synonymous with developers would cause more confusion, not less.
Without knowing what it means for say petsfor―say―pets.stackoverflow or literature.stackoverflow or for the old Stack Exchange front page isn't really helpful in communicating to our communities. For that matter, what about MSE?
SO's big, but it also has both its own strengths, and its baggage. With a few exceptions, I think most of the network sites have a better reputation for friendliness than SO- whichSO―which might mean we have extra baggage (though $deity, the "SO is toxic" meme seems to have taken a life of its own). I'm not actually seeing any upsides here, and no one's really given me any that I find convincing.
(I've tried my best not to rehash my other posts on the design process. I do encourage the reader to take a look at those for a broader view of my concerns).)
