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This question refers to the discussion about the scope of GIS.SE. I agree with @Andre Silva concerning the fact that:

  1. we should keep GIS.SE as it is and
  2. it would be nice to mention the main topics in the Tour (and in the Help Center On-topic page).

Here is an earlier suggestion from @PolyGeo (but see his answer for a later version):

Geographic Information Systems is a question and answer site for people interested in GIS, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry, Geodesy, Spatial Database Administration, and Programming specific to the aforementioned

But maybe we are still missing an important topic or two.

If so, what should we add?

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2 Answers 2

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Something I think we need to be cautious about is opening the door to "absolutely any question related to Surveying, etc".

Perhaps we can model our answer on the Cross Validated Tour which I have modified here to try and suit our purposes and emphasize that our "core business" is GIS but that we are happy to see questions from other spatial disciplines. The italics show what I changed from the Tour of that sister site.

Geographic Information Systems is a question and answer site for people interested in GIS, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry, Geodesy and Surveying, as well as Programming/Databases specific to the aforementioned. It is built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites. With your help, we are working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about GIS. Our Help Center provides further guidance to help in posting good questions and answers.

i.e. we are not looking to build a library of detailed answers to every question about Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry, Geodesy and Surveying as well, but we are happy to try and give those related communities a leg up to establishing themselves by developing a critical mass of Q&As and users within GIS SE.

I may be wrong but, I think that as a community we will be the most comfortable when we see questions from the other spatial disciplines that are closer to the GIS end of the spectrum of all possible questions, and much less so if there are questions asked on more traditional surveying techniques (as an example), especially if they start to go unanswered.

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Here is my proposal : adding "surveying" to the list. There are only a few tags with surveying, but IF we consider that surveyors also use GNSS, then it is more popular than remote sensing on GIS.SE.

Geographic Information Systems is a question and answer site for people interested in GIS, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry, Geodesy, Surveying, Spatial Database Administration, and Programming specific to the aforementioned

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  • Sounds good!...
    – Andre Silva
    Commented Aug 31, 2015 at 10:09
  • Maybe using the term 'Land Surveying' instead of only 'Surveying' would be better for disambiguation.
    – Andre Silva
    Commented Sep 1, 2015 at 1:32
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    @AndreSilva I would leave it as Surveying because there is lots of overlap between the various types: acsnsw.com.au/content/232/types-of-surveying.aspx (where I'm amused to see GIS classified as a type of surveying)
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Sep 1, 2015 at 2:00
  • I don't think we need special recognition of "Spatial Database Administration". To me it is an important component of all spatial fields (GIS, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry, Geodesy, Surveying).
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Sep 3, 2015 at 1:42
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    As @AndreSilva says in a comment to my answer we seem to have a lot of consensus behind updating our Tour with wording akin to yours, mine or a combination. I see my wording as a later revision to yours (which revised mine), and would like to take that to the moderator chat room to make sure it has acceptance there too. Is there any critical difference between your and my wording that would make mine something you would not be comfortable with?
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Commented Sep 15, 2015 at 21:48
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    @PolyGeo I accepted your answer as it upgraded mine and I didn't see new topic. Thnaks for the follow-up.
    – radouxju
    Commented Sep 16, 2015 at 6:46

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