rus.stackexchange.com

Question

What is the difference between rus.stackexchange.com and russian.stackexchange.com?

From the description of the russian.stackexchange website,

Russian Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Russian language. It's 100% free, no registration required.

From the desription of the rus.stackexchange website,

Русский язык — сайт вопросов и ответов для лингвистов, этимологов, и энтузиастов русского языка. Совершенно бесплатный и без регистрации.

So, how can I decide whether I'm a "student, teacher, and linguist" or a "linguist, etymologist, and enthusiast"? The only major difference I am noticing is that russian is generally in English, whereas rus is generaly in russian.

Answer 1

russian.stackexchange.com uses English as a working language.

rus.stackexchange.com uses Russian as a working language.

russian.stackexchange.com is aimed at non-native Russian speakers, so a person, interested in Russian but not able to use it well as a communication medium, could use the site as a place to ask questions and receive answers about Russian language.

We allow questions to be asked and answered in Russian (except when the op is clearly not a Russian speaker), but I personally always use English on the site and encourage everyone to do the same.

Answer 2

Subjective:

Russian Language was born on Area 51, as most of sites on The Stack Exhange. Russian Language shares the culture of StackOverflow and other major sites of The Stack Exchange.

Русский Язык was a site in a separate network, originated from the HashCode.ru — a most successfull clone of the StackOverflow. Recently both sites were merged into The Stack Exchange.

Русский Язык has its own standards. To me it appears as less polite, but again, it's all subjective.

Russian Language has less questions (currently, 1392 vs 7887).

Russian Language seems to have a higher level of user participation in Meta (more questions on Meta, 3 elected moderators). (However, the discussion about interface translation goes on ru.stackexchange.com, which has a very active community).

Russian Language is currently more organized. E.g., most popular tags have got wikis. Русский Язык has probably lost all tag wikis during the translation. It is all waiting for Research Assistant badge farmers. :)

Update: a month has passed, no wikis yet.