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Currently, our chat room is named "Engineering." While not terribly exciting, it does make the room pretty easy to find. The down side is that it's not terribly exciting and doesn't reflect much personality.

Should we change the name of our chat room?

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    $\begingroup$ Related question: What should we name our chat room? $\endgroup$
    – HDE 226868
    Jan 26, 2015 at 19:31
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    $\begingroup$ GlenH7, I removed the polling-style answers you posted in favor of an open discussion. If you have thoughts on the issue yourself, please feel free to post it as an answer, but it is generally better to let everyone have a voice in meta to express their own opinions rather pre-posting all sides of the conversation in a type of pseudo-poll. It's not difficult to infer what the community wants from the conversation while allowing for the possibility that there's an issue we have not considered. Polling is generally not a good substitute for discussion. Thanks. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Jan 27, 2015 at 14:19
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    $\begingroup$ @RobertCartaino - thanks for the changes; I agree with your logic. In case others can't see the answers that were deleted, there were 3 "No" votes and 2 "Yes" votes. $\endgroup$
    – user16
    Jan 27, 2015 at 14:40
  • $\begingroup$ Is it worth bringing this up again? $\endgroup$
    – HDE 226868
    Jun 22, 2015 at 18:12
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    $\begingroup$ @HDE226868 - I've been pondering this. I'm kind of the opinion that your answer below is still fairly accurate. OTOH, the meta discussion may be a good way to bump activity levels a little bit. Feel free to open a question and one of the mods will put a featured tag on it. $\endgroup$
    – user16
    Jun 26, 2015 at 13:24
  • $\begingroup$ @GlenH7 I asked it. $\endgroup$
    – HDE 226868
    Jun 26, 2015 at 20:25

4 Answers 4

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Yes . . . but not now.

Let's face it, "Engineering" isn't the most catchy name when it comes to chat rooms. Many have witty names - "The hbar" (Physics), "The Observatory" (Astronomy), - you get the idea. I'm not sure how good a name "Signal:Noise" is (though not being a professional engineer, I'm not the best judge) because it doesn't seem like a well-known phrase. We can afford to be a bit cheesy with the naming, too.

However, I don't think that we should change the name yet. I agree with the reasons dcorking listed, but there's another one: We're only in private beta. If this site becomes The Next Big Thing, only a tiny fraction of our users within the next year are currently on the site. I don't think we should make any big decisions like this yet, and it seems kind of pointless to start the debate now and keep revisiting it in a month or two. Or three.

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  • $\begingroup$ Yeah change the name later with more input. (My thoughts went to instruments that all engineers use. Protractor, Tee-square. (though not any more.) Caliper, Graduated Cylinder (has more of a tavern feel.) Plumb Bob, Slide Rule (is also old school, but does imply engineer.)... I could go on. $\endgroup$
    – George Herold
    Jan 29, 2015 at 0:44
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Not at the moment - out of reasons others have stated. If we wan't to change it, though, I have a few suggestions:

Since mechanical engineering is the "most prominent" branch and their "timeless" nature representing engineering:

  • The gear wheel
  • The steam engine

I like this one, since it encompasses most branches:

  • The fuel cell

I'd like to have something similiar to "The Observatory" (i.e. a name that is connected to a place), but I wasnt able to come up with one.

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    $\begingroup$ I like "The fuel cell." Gives it an innovative feel. $\endgroup$
    – HDE 226868
    Jan 27, 2015 at 23:02
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    $\begingroup$ I would suggest The Workshop $\endgroup$
    – nivag
    Jan 28, 2015 at 9:55
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    $\begingroup$ "Engineering Bay" with apologies to Star Trek. $\endgroup$
    – Nick Alexeev
    Feb 1, 2015 at 20:34
  • $\begingroup$ In the vein of the above comment... The Geordi Maneuver! (More seriously, I quite like fuel cell.) $\endgroup$
    – Air
    Feb 4, 2015 at 22:56
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No. Very few of our beta participants have visited the chatroom so far. Lets keep it easy for the rest to find. The Engineering name makes it easy for me to find again and distinguishes it from other rooms I use.

Nothing personal but I particular dislike Signal to Noise as (a) it reminds me of the name of Jason Fried's excellent blog and (b) I doubt many chemical engineers would associate it at all with their discipline.

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I would suggest that we change the name of the room to something else that's a bit more characteristic about Engineering. Specifically, I think we should name the room either "Signal:Noise" or "Signal-to-Noise". If nothing else, it adds a bit more personality to the room.

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