9

I think we should remove "and Nutrition" from the title.

  • 7 out of my 11 flags have been for off-topic nutrition questions
  • "nutrition as it relates to exercise" is just one of the 6 bullet points that explain what is on-topic for the site
  • we could have chosen any of the other 6 bullet points, calling the site "Fitness and gear", or "Fitness and injury", "Fitness and training programs", etc.
  • nutrition is not special over and above the other 6 bullet points and is no more on-topic unless it relates to fitness.

Update (April 4). It has been 7 days, so I think it is a good time to make a judgement about consensus on this issue. I forwarded this discussion to the stack exchange team. They will consider, vet, and then approve or decline this name change.

9
  • 1
    It has been brought up in the past here and here.
    – user241
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 1:51
  • True, but with no outcome. I am proposing a very specific change, with what I think is a clearer rationale than previously presented.
    – user3085
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 4:35
  • Also, those topics were related to changing the scope. This question is about making the scope more clear in the title.
    – user3085
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 5:17
  • 1
    The last question was about changing the site title, but either way you have my vote. I just don't have a lot of faith in a happy ending
    – Ivo Flipse Mod
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 8:16
  • If we go for this... then the merging with Sports.SE will be even closer. Or?
    – Tonny Madsen
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 9:54
  • The way I was reading it was that changing the site's scope (like expanding and merging with Sports) would also have an impact on the name.
    – user241
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 13:43
  • 2
    @TonnyMadsen I don't think this affects the merger decision, since this will not change the scope of the site. The scope is delineated in the FAQ, and this proposed title change is intended to reflect that.
    – user3085
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 15:26
  • What is the status of this? It's now been two months since this thread (which was pretty unanimous in consent) ended, but I haven't seen any updates.
    – Moses
    Commented May 24, 2012 at 18:13
  • I haven't heard any news from the stack exchange team. They said they'd let us know of the outcome when the decision was made, so I assume they're still considering it, but I'll email them to see what's up.
    – user3085
    Commented May 24, 2012 at 20:36

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
8

I agree with the proposed change.

Yes, we had discussions before on changing the scope and no one is sure by now what was the original vision behind this site, but this is not about that. It's about making a single, small change that will allow the site name to more closely reflect reality.

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  • 1
    Okay, it's been seven days. I think this is the consensus answer. I'll look into how we can actually make this change.
    – user3085
    Commented Apr 4, 2012 at 19:30
6

I would actually support this. That's not an official position (TBD), but coming from UX perspective; a clarity for defining the strengths of this community.

I would bring it a bit further, though. I would propose relabeling the site "Physical Fitness." It's already a well-established field and a legitimate field of study. This isn't a silver bullet. There's still a lot of work needed to shore up the quality of the content here. But it emphasizes and reestablished the strength of what seems to be working here from that which, frankly, doesn't.

I was originally a big proponent of including "Nutrition" as an explicit component of physical fitness; I still am. But looking at the front page, the questions have been becoming increasingly well-suited to what I envisioned for a "physical fitness" site; much better than I recall from earlier visits. Maybe with all the trashing around about scope, we're finally starting to nail it.

Nutrition is a natural component of physical fitness, and you should continue to embrace that part of it, and reach out to the experts who can answer those questions. But not all nutrition-related questions fit this forum. That's been established. So maybe the best thing to do it remove it from top billing to avoid the confusion and de-emphasize the weakest questions still plaguing this site.

13
  • (Original asker here..) Your proposal for relabeling the site "Physical Fitness" is totally within the spirit of my original proposal, and I'd support that as well.
    – user3085
    Commented Apr 5, 2012 at 1:41
  • I also like it, especially if the term is already well-defined.
    – VPeric
    Commented Apr 5, 2012 at 9:58
  • Me three. I think "Fitness and Nutrition" is suboptimal, "Fitness" is good, "Physical Fitness" is good, but marginally better than "Fitness".
    – Dave Liepmann
    Commented Apr 5, 2012 at 17:58
  • 1
    Might I point out that Team and Individual Sport are considered subsets of Fitness by that Wikipedia article? :P
    – Ivo Flipse Mod
    Commented Apr 6, 2012 at 13:33
  • @IvoFlipse I'd agree but where would that article support a hypothetically combined "sport and fitness" site when it comes to all the rules, scoring, Olympic/sport trivia, history, non-physical sports (racing, table-tennis) discussions which seem to be embraced as a large component of that site? That's just a rhetorical question.
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Apr 6, 2012 at 13:53
  • Where does it say it doesn't? :-)
    – Ivo Flipse Mod
    Commented Apr 6, 2012 at 14:12
  • @RobertCartaino I hate to be pushy, but is there any progress on this?
    – VPeric
    Commented Apr 12, 2012 at 22:24
  • @VPeric Adjusting the scope of Fitness and/or Sports is still on our radar, but no immediate changes have been planned. There's still too much thrashing and spit-balling about what exactly those changes should be and the sites are still under development.
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Apr 13, 2012 at 13:25
  • So how do we clean up this mess? Because if the team disagrees with how we as a community are trying to deal with this, its not doing a good job of communicating that. Its not like we aren't open for discussion or anything, so what's the problem?
    – Ivo Flipse Mod
    Commented Apr 13, 2012 at 14:00
  • Is a site name change up for discussion at any point? Another user is asking about it.
    – user241
    Commented May 16, 2012 at 15:34
  • @RobertCartaino Any progress?
    – Dave Liepmann
    Commented Jun 4, 2012 at 17:38
  • 4
    @DaveLiepmann Yes. :) We're planning to go ahead with a name change to "Physical Fitness". Expect a meta post and whatnot in the next few days.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jun 4, 2012 at 18:12
  • @AnnaLear Hooray! Thanks for your work on this.
    – Dave Liepmann
    Commented Jun 4, 2012 at 18:23
1

I have questions about diets and nutrition and this is the only SE where they can be asked, as far as I can tell (area51 just does not have anything else that matches). I say no. I need a place where these questions can be answered.

2
  • They can't be asked here, though. Check the FAQ.
    – user3085
    Commented Apr 26, 2012 at 16:42
  • 2
    Well, if that's already been decided, then change the name. Right now it's extremely misleading.
    – Trevoke
    Commented Apr 26, 2012 at 17:52
-2

According to this meta question, "general weight loss questions" are considered on-topic, provided, of course, that they follow the general SE rules. This makes for the scope of the site rather confusing, especially given the title of "Fitness and Nutrition" (which, to me, and, evidently, many others, means that nutrition questions are fair game, even if they don't relate to fitness), when nutrition questions are marked as off-topic. To further confuse things, there are also blog entries like this one that cover "general nutrition" and not just "nutrition as it relates to fitness."

That said, fitness and nutrition typically go hand in hand, even if a given person is not immediately concerned with one while focusing on the other.

I think the FAQ/scope of the site should be tweaked to allow for more general nutrition questions would provide more consistency, recognize that both complement each other well enough, and be more prudent, overall.

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  • 1
    I agree with you that fitness and nutrition are often very related, so much so that the title "Fitness" subsumes nutrition. However, the FAQ as currently written limits nutrition questions to those explicitly related to fitness. The proposed title change would not prohibit nutrition questions, but would bring the title in line with the FAQ, and wouldn't rule out a future change to the FAQ to expand the scope to include more general nutrition questions. "Fitness" would still be an appropriate title in that case.
    – user3085
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 19:05
  • 1
    @Sancho - I'm not saying that "Fitness" isn't an appropriate title. I'm saying that there are mixed messages regarding the intended meaning of "nutrition." The FAQ says "nutrition as it relates to fitness," while the meta says something slightly different. Perhaps it's that the meaning of "fitness" is ambiguous - overall health? or actively working out? If the former, then it can be argued that all (or nearly all) nutrition questions are on-topic. If the latter, then perhaps "and nutrition" should be dropped to provide more clarity.
    – Shauna
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 19:13
  • Cool, yes I agree completely. I was just clarifying how I believe point about the tweaking the FAQ would affect my original proposal.
    – user3085
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 19:38
  • 5
    I don't think that general weight loss questions should be off-topic for fitness since they should involve, ahem, both fitness and nutrition aspects. That said, as I've said until everyone else was blue in the face, I think nutrition-only questions and "& Nutrition" should be nixed.
    – Dave Liepmann
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 20:33

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