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From time to time we get questions that are not related to Home Improvement, asked by people that are misled by the "diy" in the site's URL and think that anything you do yourself is on-topic. A couple of recent examples:

When our users vote to close these questions, it often leads to arguments in the comments about the site's scope.

To help prevent this confusion and to reduce friction for both new and existing users, I propose changing the site's primary URL to https://homeimprovement.stackexchange.com, making the existing https://diy.stackexchange.com redirect to the new URL so that none of the existing links on the site, or to the site, break.

Several Stack Exchange sites have changed their names: Programmers became Software Engineering, Health became Medical Sciences, Moderators became Community Building, and others. My proposal is simpler than any of those since we'd keep the current site branding, just add the new "homeimprovement" subdomain and make "diy" redirect to it.

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Good suggestion. However, my experience on multiple SE sites is that folks don't much care what the domain name reads. If they have a problem they want to plop it somewhere to get relief. The fact that there's a giant header reading "Home Improvement" here is a testament to that, and the main problem is really that there isn't a smallappliances.stackexchange.com or computercords.stackexchange.com. We're the closest thing, regardless of our name or address.

Secondly, do we have any evidence that people arrive here because of the domain name? The site is called "Home Improvement" almost everywhere, from Google listings to the network listings throughout SE. DIY doesn't really show up anywhere conspicuous.

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So does it even matter what the domain is? I think that folks will assume that their issue, as long as it occurs inside their home, constitutes a home improvement issue. My prediction is that wouldn't change much with a domain name change.

Finally, gah! That's a long domain name. DIY has such a sweet, concise ring to it. The poet in me doesn't want to lose that.

My $.03. Read more about the origin of the name.

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  • I do see pushback about the diy subdomain. For example on the cell phone question I mentioned, there's a comment on the Photography copy of the question: "A subdomain even starts with 'diy'"
    – Niall C. Mod
    Commented Aug 27, 2020 at 20:42
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    Sure, but that's maybe an after-the-fact observation as often as not.
    – isherwood
    Commented Aug 27, 2020 at 20:48
  • I was pleasantly surprised to find my questions here answered in many cases by professional tradesmen or even in some cases by people who seem to have a high degree of theoretical education well beyond what would be expected of a tradesman. There is nothing wrong with underpromising (DIY) and overdelivering (professorial answers) but there is a bit of dissonance to it.
    – jay613
    Commented Mar 21, 2021 at 11:53

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