Chess gets less than 300 visits a day. Poker less than 200. As regards the number of questions, the issue is whether they are above or below 1.0 per day (No kidding.) They also have "too few" users.
BCG is "almost" ready to get out of beta. The one main weakness is the number of questions (especially on a per day basis). Adding chess and poker to the mix would certainly help.
Could we move closer to getting out of beta by "repatriating" chess and poker, as we did with go?
The task of how to scope sites — whether to split or combine subjects — has been one of the more difficult philosophies to flesh out. We constantly make adjustments as we learn exactly what makes a site "work" and what causes them to falter.
At the most basic-basic level, Chess and Poker became sites — or at least they became eligible for further consideration — because they rallied the enthusiasm and resources required by Area 51 to give them a shot. But it takes more than sheer numbers and a definition move from proposal to site. We do a thorough review of leading proposals to evaluate whether they have a good chance of working well with our existing network based on a large variety of considerations.
If you read through the blog post:
…there's an underlying concept that a site is not much good to a group of users if they will not show up. It was generally thought (I'm not going to debate this point here) that perhaps Chess was a subject unto itself — that there was potentially a substantial group of users who wouldn't identify themselves as a "board game enthusiast" and this site would be of no use to them. The same basic premise for Poker.
Whether that turns out to be true or not is still a part of this trial by fire. They initially earned the right to try through Area 51. They've since navigated successfully through a private beta to, essentially, where they are right now.
To date, neither of these sites have made substantial inroads into the massive chess and poker communities respectively. But then again, the Board & Card Games site hasn't had much success attracting these audiences either. So for the time being, we're watching to see if their ideas (i.e. their premise for having a separate site) pans out.
There's no indication that the existence of either of these sites has substantively held back your progress — nor is there any indication that combining their audiences here will substantially create any sort of additional network effects to move the needle much either way. But subsuming those sites is a disruptive change to those community that goes against the precepts of
Does this site have a chance of succeeding?
Whether you agree with their existence or not, they've earned the right to continue to make a go of it.
I've fought to keep all related sites within B&CG. Some I've won, other times it hasn't gone my way. :)
Lately I've become more zen about it. StackExchange will do what they think is best, it isn't worth worrying about it for me.
