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How does one know in which forum one should post its questions?

When I look into the list of subsites I think most questions about engineering or computer whatever should have its ad hoc site.

I have a question about Autodesk Fusion 360 and I'm 99% certain there's a subforum for this.

I asked SO AI where to post. It suggested Autodesk Fusion 360 site. Sure.
But I expected a stackexchange (sub)site. Fine this is the suggested second choice : CAD subforum in SE. Obvious.
I asked the SO AI what is the address of this subforum : https://cad.stackexchange.com/ This does not exist. I already knew it because I read the long list of subsites with no luck.

If there's no obvious answer (CAD) is there any subsite that is ok for posting question about fusion 360?

When reading the list of sub sites I can't help thinking :

  • What are those niche sites (elementary os, blender)? They make the list unnecessary long and unpleasant to read/search.
  • Why a Blender site when there's no CAD or 3D modelling?
  • Why do I have to choose a site first? Why can't I just ask my question and let the sites decide where (and if) it should go according to content and/or tag.
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    For most of your question, you can refer to Where do I ask where to ask? and Which computer science / programming sites do I post on? - Regarding your bullet points, your feelings are valid, it's just that at the time the sites were created it was the opinion of Stack and the communities that support those sites that having whole sites dedicated to these topics was worthwhile. Regarding your last bullet, that would be a considerable amount of work to interpret where a question should go (by system or users).
    – Spevacus Mod
    Commented Jul 11 at 21:17
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    If you tag it with apple does that make it a computer hardware question or a cooking question? The same tag may mean very different things on different sites.
    – Robert Longson
    Commented Jul 11 at 21:29
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    "So, I asked SO AI where to post. It suggested Autodesk Fusion 360 site. Sure." Yeah, SO AI is bad. We've been telling the company that for weeks and they still thought it would be a good idea to roll it out to everyone.
    – F1Krazy
    Commented Jul 11 at 21:33
  • At first I thought this question sounded mad - why is this user asking an AI about Stack Exchange sites and expecting the results to be accurate - but then I realised the OP Is asking the AI that's built into every Stack Exchange site. So of course it's reasonable to expect it to give reasonable answers, the main problem is that it doesn't.
    – N. Virgo
    Commented yesterday

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There's a bunch of different, related questions here. Let's break it down:

How do one knows in which forum one should post its questions?

If you're not sure, you can post a question here on Meta.SE, and someone will point you in the right direction.

is there any subsite that is ok for posting question[s] about fusion 360?

When you posted your Fusion 360 question on Stack Overflow, you were directed to Engineering.SE, which has multiple questions about Fusion 360.

What are those niche sites (elementary os, blender)? They make the list unnecessary long and unpleasant to read/search.

Most SE sites were created through Area 51, an SE site for proposing new SE sites. People proposed sites for elementaryOS and Blender, and they garnered enough support to be launched. I can see your point about elementaryOS.SE (I've never heard of that OS myself), but Blender.SE is actually one of the largest and most active sites on the network, so it's definitely not niche.

Why a Blender site when there's no CAD or 3D modelling?

There was a proposal for a 3D Graphics site a very long time ago, but it apparently didn't gain enough support to be launched. Sadly, Area 51 has not been supported by Stack Exchange for a long time now, so you would likely not be able to propose a new Stack Exchange site at this point in time.

Why do I have to choose a site FIRST? Why can't I just ask my question and let the site decide where (and if) it should go according to content and/or tag.

Because, as Robert Longson noted in the comments, tags can mean different things on different sites, and there are a lot of edge cases regarding questions that would be on-topic on multiple SE sites, and/or SE sites with their own individual rules, and of course, questions that wouldn't actually be on-topic on any SE site.

It's simply not possible to automate that system without a considerable number of questions getting directed to the wrong sites, which would create more work for moderators who have to close or migrate those questions, and more aggravation for users who still aren't getting their questions posted to the right site.

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  • I was not sure about engineering, 60 questions are not a lot. Plus there is no tag. While there is one in graphicsdesign. But if you confirm engineering is the way to go, there I'll post my question.
    – v1nce
    Commented Jul 11 at 22:55
  • I'll take your advice about "site-recommendation" and I think it should be listed at meta.stackexchange.com/help/whats-meta
    – v1nce
    Commented Jul 11 at 23:15
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How do I know in which forum I should post my question about Y? [...] I asked SO AI where to post. It suggested Autodesk Fusion 360 site. Sure.

That's not the way to ask on stackoverflow.ai. Instead, write your question, then click on "Ask Question" and it'll try to redirect you to the proper SE site:

enter image description here

Doesn't always give a good suggestion though.

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  • "and it'll try to redirect you to the proper SE site" huh, really? Last time I asked about anime, it always redirected to SO's Ask Question.
    – Meta Andrew T.
    Commented 2 days ago
  • @MetaAndrewT. Seems to be the fallback option
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented 2 days ago
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You should know that stackoverflow.ai is an experiment. If I recall correctly, it's in alpha stage, meaning having many problems with it is normal.

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    > You should know. No I should not, because there's no alpha warning about this function. I just expected that answers should be taken with a bit of salt. I'm not mad at it ;) . Even if it was faulty it gave me the answer I expected : there should be a cad.stackexchange.com
    – v1nce
    Commented Jul 11 at 23:06
  • @v1nce 1. Find a community willing to have a CAD Q&A site hosted on stackexchange.com, 2. Create a new site proposal in area51.stackexchange.com 3. Ask the CAD community to support the new site proposal.
    – Rubén
    Commented Jul 14 at 13:19

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