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Presently, Latin Stack Exchange is the place to go for questions regarding the Graeco-Roman world. According to this Meta answer, Latin SE also accepts questions on Ancient Greek. My suggestion thus is two-fold:

  1. Latin SE should be rebranded to Classics SE, Classics defined as the subjects studied by any Classics scholar, id est the Graeco-Roman world and their relations to the outside world.
  2. The new SE should also redefine itself to be not just a source for the two languages (Ancient Greek and Latin), but also for the cultures of this temporally and spatially vast area.

To better facilitate the structure of such a rebranded site, some new tags would be necessary; mediaeval-latin immediately springs to mind, but perhaps also tags relating to other cultures with which the Graeco-Roman world interacted. Should one include Coptic? What about the languages of the conquered peoples? Etruscan is a natural subject, as well as Oscan, but also the languages of other conquered areas, such as those subjugated be the campaigns of Caesar. What about specialised fields within Classics, such as epigraphy?

Obviously, such a rebranding would immediately cause one major issue: Where would one draw the line for which questions are within the sphere of interest of such a site. A well-thought-out definition of what Classics is and which subject-matter falls within its sphere would be necessary. But first and foremost, one would need to discuss whether this is in fact needed.

Please do note that I have included the tag discussion.

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    Our general policy is that changes to an existing site's scope must come from that community. If they feel that their scope is described accurately as-is, then we will leave it. If they feel like a change is beneficial than we will consider it so, for that reason, I'm going to pop this over to the Latin Meta so that it can be discussed there.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jan 7, 2021 at 22:03
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    Maybe helpful: area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/20999/…
    – rene
    Jan 7, 2021 at 22:09
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    Duplicate: latin.meta.stackexchange.com/q/417/3647
    – Rob
    Jan 7, 2021 at 22:45
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    I, for one, like the name Classics as well, because it covers the site's subject matter better (mostly Latin and Ancient Greek: currently, visitors will naturally assume Greek is off topic, which it is not). However, when we last discussed this on the site, quite a few people felt uncomfortable with Classics. So at the time we just stuck with Latin; and I would not want the name changed unless there were consensus (more or less).
    – Cerberus Mod
    Jan 8, 2021 at 0:30
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    Classics makes sense, but out of context might be confusing; it lacks the immediate understanding of latin.stackexchange.com to me. I think it's challenging to choose a concise term that covers both without becoming too clunky. If there was a consensus I think it makes sense as a name, though.
    – Adam
    Jan 8, 2021 at 1:50
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    Does broadening the subject matter to cover more of related cultures overlap with any other SE communities? I can see why it makes sense, but I wouldn't want to create confusion for people on which community is best to ask a question.
    – Adam
    Jan 8, 2021 at 1:56
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    @The trouble is that everybody has got used to LatinStack... Perhaps "Latin & Greek Stack...? It's clumsy, two words instead of one. Classics... may be the way to go; we'll just have to get used to it!
    – tony
    Jan 8, 2021 at 16:48
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    @Adam We already overlap with history, hermeneutics, literature, linguistics, history of science and math, and maybe others. There are a number of borderline topics that fit many sites. It often depends on the focus of the question.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta Mod
    Jan 8, 2021 at 19:20
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    Does this answer your question? Why don't we rename this SE to Classics or Classical Languages?
    – cmw Mod
    Feb 7, 2021 at 0:20
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    @rene That was five years ago! I had totally forgotten I had proposed that.
    – cmw Mod
    Feb 7, 2021 at 0:21

2 Answers 2

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We had a discussion on renaming the site in 2019. The first suggestion was to include Greek in the title, and the updated suggestion was to call it "Classics" instead of "Latin" as you propose. I am against both renaming ideas and prefer to keep calling the site just "Latin", but of course the decision is not mine.

Voting on this question and its comments and answers plays a significant role in deciding what to do with our name. I don't mind having this discussion every once in a while.

My key arguments are:

  • The word "Classics" has more room for misinterpretation than "Latin". We do not discuss classics in French literature or horror movies. Even if we agree that the concept refers to classical antiquity, some may think it only covers literature while to others it may include a number of disciplines. "Latin language" leaves very little room for different interpretations.

  • The concept of "Classical languages" is not all that well defined either. To some it includes Arabic, Sanskrit, and others, but those topics are currently absent on this site.

  • Including Greek in the name would be misleading. Our site allows all Latin but not all Greek, and the consensus against modern Greek appears to be strong.

  • No title easily captures it all. It's fine to ask about Umbrian but I don't want to work that into the site's name.

  • Our main topic — as I see it — is still Latin and more or less everything about Latin is on topic. Therefore it makes for a simple title.

The question is not whether our key users will be confused with the name, but whether a typical internet-dweller will. I think a good name for a site like ours is a name that is unambiguous to laypeople who have a question about Latin.

I also think that a simple title such as "Latin language" instead of a more scholarly title like "Classics" is likely to appear more welcoming to beginners. I want our doors to be wide open and appear inviting to anyone with interest or passion towards Latin. This doesn't mean letting go of a quality threshold.

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    These are very solid reasons to keep the name as it is. We allow questions about certain topics because of their relation to Latin, but the core unifying topic of the community is still Latin.
    – Adam
    Jan 8, 2021 at 18:53
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    @Adam I too understand the whole site through Latin, but perhaps some don't. I think "Classics" is the next best option but Latin is the best one.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta Mod
    Jan 8, 2021 at 19:22
  • ‘I want our doors to be wide open and appear inviting to anyone with interest or passion towards Latin.’ That I have always felt to be the mantra of this site. Perhaps what the community needs, is a solid discussion (as I hope this question wil (re)open up for, allowing us to better define what the scope of this SE should and should not be. It still does come across as a bit fast and loose to me, though that does not necessarily make it a bad thing. I am an on and off user, so the Greek discussion went by me when it happened. How can we better communicate what’s on and off topic?
    – Canned Man
    Jan 9, 2021 at 13:30
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    @CannedMan Good question! Currently our scope is described briefly in our tour and in more detail in the topic help page. Do you think it would be helpful to have a meta question "What's on topic here?" and keep it updated if anything changes? I think it's cleanest to have a separate post where the answer is just stated with links to discussions. We can have a separate question "What should our cope be?" before or after it.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta Mod
    Jan 9, 2021 at 16:28
  • @JoonasIlmavirta ‘What’s on topic here?’: That would be a very useful meta post, and I do suggest we use its potential to the max. I will even venture forth to create one right now.
    – Canned Man
    Jan 9, 2021 at 22:32
  • Done! It may be viewed here: latin.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/475/what-s-on-topic-here.
    – Canned Man
    Jan 9, 2021 at 23:33
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    @Joonas llmavirta: What aspects of Greek are not allowed? You presented a comprehensive argument for leaving things as they are. The more I thought about "ClassicsStack" the better it sounded. But if there is little demand; then, the status-quo wins.
    – tony
    Jan 12, 2021 at 16:57
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    @tony See our Greek policy. Renaming should not be done lightly, so significant demand is needed to change the status quo.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta Mod
    Jan 12, 2021 at 17:09
  • I'm unsure as to the policy here. Should I choose this answer as my preferred one, even though I have labeled the question discussion? It feels like I would be shutting down the discussion in so doing.
    – Canned Man
    Feb 7, 2021 at 11:52
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    @CannedMan There's no policy, really, and I wouldn't want to many hard constraints on meta discussions. If you feel like the meta post has been active long enough and the community has come to a conclusion (judging by votes (you can see vote summaries by clicking on the vote number) and comments), you can accept an answer and mark the case closed. I generally think that if someone wants to revisit the topic much later, it is best to start a fresh question and link to earlier ones, so shutting down this one is not a big deal. It's your call.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta Mod
    Feb 7, 2021 at 15:30
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I'm basically a near-newb on this site, but I have seen that there have been several discussions about the "Greek question".

This may well have been discussed before, but has anyone considered the possibility of setting up a new StackExchange community, called Ancient Greek?

I have no idea what is involved in having a new community accepted on Stack Exchange, but it seems incongruous to have to ask questions about Ancient Greek in the site dedicated to a totally different language, the language of the Italy-based upstarts. Doesn't the language (and associated culture) of Ancient Greek merit its own StackExchange community?

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    There have been multiple past proposals for Greek language stack exchange sites, all of which unfortunately failed to meet the Stack Exchange activity requirements. Due to changes in the requirements, it would be even more difficult currently to get a Greek site up off the ground. For some context, see this: Is anyone interested in creating a Q&A for Greek language & Usage?, Is it a good idea to mix ancient and modern Greek?
    – Asteroides
    Dec 1, 2021 at 6:10
  • Thanks. What about setting up a self-contained Ancient Greek site, having nothing to do with StackExchange, but using all the "traditions", protocols, "look", methodology, etc. of StackExchange? Websites are not my speciality, so I'm unable to offer to do this myself... but can it be that difficult?
    – mike rodent
    Dec 1, 2021 at 7:13
  • That's also not my field, but I think it's surprisingly difficult. There are various Stack Exchange clones of greater or lesser success, such as PhysicsOverflow
    – Asteroides
    Dec 1, 2021 at 7:20
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    @mikerodent My answer to "but can it be that difficult?" is: "Absolutely!" A site like this needs a lot of technology to function well and safely and mostly clean of spam, and creating a community that is committed to keeping the site healthy (both socially and in content) is no simple task. For example, I would not have joined this site if I hadn't had observed that the SE system works.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta Mod
    Dec 2, 2021 at 21:43
  • Regarding your original question: Area 51 is the place for launching new SE sites. You need to do a lot of preparation before proposing a site there lest it be shot down quickly. The main issue is that there is an insufficient community interested in actively participating in such a Greek site. I'd be happy that one existed, but I'm doubtful that it will happen any time soon.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta Mod
    Dec 2, 2021 at 21:45

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