The problem is that by splitting the community into these micro sites they are making the whole stack-exchange universe less valuable and interesting. First, t

The problem is that by splitting the community into these micro sites they are making the whole stack-exchange universe less valuable and interesting. First, the idea that questions can be easily classified into discrete categories is bullshit. Why have they set it up so that multiple tags can be assigned to individual questions? Because most, if not all questions span genres. Not only is it possible for a submitter not to know what category a question goes in, but it is also possible for the same question to legitimately belong in multiple categories. Most importantly, however, the populations asking and answering these questions (or that you want asking and answering these questions) are not different. Do you really think that people answering questions under "programmers" and under "cstheory" wouldn't also be suitably answering questions under "cs"? Would a question posted under "cstheory" not be useful to people posting under "cs"? At what point in one's academic path does one transition from asking questions in "cs" to doing so in "cstheory"? After your second year of college, after graduating, or after being accepted to a phd program? Think about it mathematically. Take 1,000 people posting in stackoverflow, divide that population in half and distribute one half of them equally between programmers, cs, and cstheory. The total possible connections and interactions between people in communities of size 500, 167, 167 and 166 is far fewer than the total possible connections and interactions within a single community of size 1000. I had actually not heard of there being different stackexchange sites for "programmers", "cs" and "cstheory" before reading your comment. What a ridiculous thing to do, to split up these sites. And then to shut down popular questions inside stackoverflow in order to push people into these marginal sites? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.