Yeah, I think there needs to be base level SN growth before territories can go out and really make a push to grow. I am sure a lot of stackers wouldn't be pleased if SN turned into a sports messageboard because I made a big push to bring in new users. I agree it would be less so with econ but I think any territory that becomes so dominant that its posts and comments are overwhelming the main pages is probably a net negative overall.
This is part of my line of thinking as to why I want to see a cohesive marketing strategy for SN before I buy the territory outright.
I bring it up with you because you indicated you might be buying econ.
Still, you have to factor in that even if you draw in lots of sports fans, some of them will become active in the other territories.
Also, you can just raise the posting fee, if you don't like what it's doing to the site.
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I thought about this but if you market to sports fans they are most likely to talk about sports and if I am going to go to the trouble of taking time, effort and money to market I wouldn’t want to handcuff my own territory because it worked.
I think the broader point is the territory and broader SN growth needs to be synergistic if we are going to maintain good diversity of subject matter.
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Another way to think about it is that drawing in a bunch of new people gives the other territories a chance to appeal to them. Some will do better jobs of that than others.
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