Is "boardgames.stackexchange.com" a suitable url for a board and CARD games site?

Question

I was telling some friends about boardgames.stackexchange.com (plug, plug) and how my #1 question here is about the strong no trump in Bridge. I complained that "not enough British people have come to defend the honour of the weak no trump!"

Without missing a beat, one of my friends replied in a humorously scornful tone "that's because we don't like to go and discuss Bridge on a site called boardgames.stackexchange.com".

Of course I protested that the full name of the site was "Board and Card Games", but he's got a point. Shouldn't the url for this site be a bit less misleading? If the original stackoverflow was at the address cplusplusandjava.com, people might be a lot less comfortable about asking questions about Python and PHP there, even if these were explicitly allowed in the remit. Has this problem been previously noted, and is there anything that could be done? (Though I imagine it might be a bit late now...)

Answer 1

It's a bit late into the game to change the URL. That said, if it were possible to change it, what should it be changed to? It's a bulky name as is, but I can't think of anything that would not sacrifice either brevity or clarity - the name needs to be meaningful while also being something people can understand and recall easier. "boardandcardgames" or "boardcardgames", while not exceptionally long, people have to remember which one comes first, as an example, and to with the presence or lack of an "and" in there.

I can agree that it is a misleading name, but unless we have a better alternative, it is nothing but unwise to alter a URL which people have thus far become accustomed to.

Answer 2

I personally think "Table Top Games" is the most inclusive and strictly correct term that covers the scope of the site. It could easily include board games, card games, dice games*, and miniatures games. I believe that the best chance of getting out of beta may include a merger with rpg.stackexchange.com. I'm not sure how that community feels about it, but really, the latest edition of D&D goes back to its miniatures roots more strongly than ever. Roleplay is certainly in flavour with some Collectible Card games, even if it isn't typical for the players to actually "role-play".

There are certainly a wide variety of different games that are played on top of a table, generally seated, and many players of older and revered "thinking" games may chafe at the thought of casting a wider net, as might the casual card players, or hardcore rpg-ers… but I think the tent can be wide like Stack Overflow was.

If "Board and Card Games" or "Table Top Games" sounds clunky perhaps we can come up something evocative? There are several stack exchange sites that grew up to have their own name: superuser.com, serverfault.com, askdifferent.com, seasonedadvice.com

I was thinking that the majority of the games we talk about are basically turn-based, be they cards or board games. A phrase like "itsyourmove.com" or "itsyourplay.com" would sound evocative and be fairly instantly memorable. Alas, those domains were taken when I searched. Maybe a variation on that could be discovered?

Inspired by the granddaddy of these sites, stackoverflow.com, I thought something like tableoverflow.com might work. I'm imagining a logo with a table with two chairs, overflowing with game boxes, pieces, cards, poker chips, and so forth…

I took the liberty of squatting the domain, lest someone dastardly took it. If there is no interest in this idea, I'll just use it to host warnings of bad HTML table design or something… guffaw

* I've often wondered about this. Obviously questions about Yahtzee, Roll through the Ages, and even Poker Dice belong here. Are they, strictly speaking, board games? What about Mah Jong? Or Dominoes? Clearly they're of the same genre…

Answer 3

As a web application developer, I probably approach these things much differently than the average person does, but to be honest, I couldn't tell you what the URLs of most of my favorite sites are, including "this" one. ("This" meaning the main site - I don't have meta bookmarked.)

Given what Grace has said, why not ask your friends to do this?

1. Bookmark the site.
2. Name the bookmark "Card Games" or "Bridge" or "Foolish Americans who need to be taught lessons". :)

You could also just send them links ... "Here, click this and defend me!" Or make sure they're using Chrome or Safari or some other browser that saves recent/most-visited sites so you can return to them with a simple click.

Don't let them get hung up on the URL, humorously or not. Get them to the site, show them around, and encourage them to start contributing. Who knows? Maybe someday there will be a different URL for the main site ... and it would be a shame if your friends only then came around to visit, while you got to traipse around with your 20K* rep and privileges.

*because it would be a live site by then, you see, so 4K wouldn't be enough ...

Answer 4

I think that tablegames.SE has some merit ... tabletopgames.SE seems a bit clunky ...

I think that just games.SE is just fine.

As long as we don't end up with something like BRCCCGMWMRPGRRPGTTAOMG (Board, Regular Card, Collectable Card, War Miniatures, RPG Miniatures, Regular RPG, Table Top and Other Miscellaneous Games ... it's just a nice co-incindence that it ends in OMG) :-)