Why is Arduino.SE different? [EE.SE redux]

Question

I realize this has been discussed in the Area 51 proposal and in the old site before it died, but I think that it would be a good idea to set this straight on Meta for the future's sake, so we have a strong

What separates Arduino.SE from Electronics.SE?

Some topics I believe might make a difference, and I'd like to hear the community's input specifically regarding these (but about Arduino & EE in general):

1. Arduino has a more varied audience than EE in general. As should be well known, Arduino is used by people ranging in career from artist to engineer. Thus, the answers on this site will be written in a different way than on EE, where more inherent knowledge of EE is expected.
2. The Arduino platform is a product-line (along with some similar, yet not official, products) and not subject of study. This is a key difference--some questions that would be categorized as "off topic" as a "shopping question" on EE may be perfectly on-topic here. (Yet, this is just a guess--I want community input)
3. Arduino users may have programming issues that are very closely tied to hardware issues. This fills a void left by EE and SO, as EE doesn't like anything too software related, yet SO doesn't want anything too hardware related.

Answer 1

As our site thrives, there will be a lot of Arduino questions that are now barely accepted on EE.SE that will be migrated here. All of them will, I'm sure. A few stray Arduino programming questions from SO should be migrated as well. That will be great because that's where their home is.

To prepare for that, we need to make sure that our scope is not as strict as of those other sites. In particular, I think we should make our scope as broad as possible: everything related to Arduinos should be allowed in here. That includes:

1. Boards: official, compatible, almost compatible, attempted to be compatible, one-off boards that I designed and etched at home, incomplete or failed attempts of boards, whatever Arduino-like boards.

2. IDE: official, semi-official, underground, whatever.

3. Shopping recommendations: as the OP said well, Arduino is a line of products. Some open-source hardware, some not so much. All these should be welcome here.

4. What else?

Someone coming from EE.SE may think this is too radical. But we can make this site the way we want.

I don't see why we shouldn't allow questions about some obscure board or IDE in here, or shopping questions. That's what Arduinos are all about: diversity, trial and error.

I usually see arbitrary restrictions in scope as reasons for closing questions that some users don't know or don't like to answer. That goes against the freedom I think we should have here.

That doesn't mean we won't worry about the quality of questions and answers. We should be strict without being mean. We should educate, but not be harsh. But that's topic for another question.

In any case, we should also try and educate instead of censoring. If someone asks a poor quality question, editors should educate these users on how to ask better questions. The editors should try and improve the questions instead of quickly closing them. So, we should avoid closing questions as much as possible. We should try and improve the questions. And having the broadest possible scope will be really important to achieve those goals.

Answer 2

I do realize this is an old question, but I finally have a solid answer to this question!

Lately, I've been studying the scope of Arduino SE very closely. The difference between Arduino SE and EE was bothering me. I managed to sum it up in one sentence:

EE is for making electronics, where Arduino is for using electronics (more specifically, Arduino).

EE has closed many questions with the reason that "it's for building electronics, not using them." For example, I've seen a question about using battery packs to power Arduino that was closed. They're trying to build a more professional user base, where here at Arduino we get diverse backgrounds.

There are exceptions both ways for this rule, but it's a general rule. Scope is a really hard thing to master, and IMHO this covers a large part of our scope in one sentence.

Answer 3

This comment from one of the best contributors to EE.SE sums up the attitude of some:

When are the ardweenies finally going to learn they don't belong here until they are ready to learn about the underlying electronics!?

Fair enough. It is often frustrating to answer questions from absolute beginners. I think most beginners now start with Arduino, and actually half of Arduino.SE questions could be accurately characterised as beginner EE.SE questions. So that is where Arduino.SE is different: it is forgiving of beginner questions.

Which brings me to another point of difference. If Arduino.SE is a starting point of many beginners then I don't think we should be too strict with what is and isn't on topic. For example, questions about programming a computer to interface with an Arduino over serial should be welcome.