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Earlier this year we announced a "site sponsorship" program aimed at bringing in industry and project-team leaders to help support these sites. A lot of your questions about this program can be answered through the posts and comments there:

Site Sponsporships — Bringing Resources Back to Stack Exchange

Today I am excited to announce that IBM has generously agreed to sponsor the Artificial Intelligence site by becoming a partner with the AI community — to encourage innovation within this space by helping developers solve the complex problems facing this field.

The primary focus of a sponsorship is to help bring more resources to this site. IBM is currently working with Stack Exchange to promote this site at their Winning with AI conference on September 13, 2018 in New York City. IBM will also be advertising on Stack Overflow to drive further traffic and usage back to the AI site. IBM will also bring various dev teams throughout their organization (many with communities of their own) to participate on the AI site, and to help expand awareness of the industry itself.

How does a sponsorship affect this site?

Site sponsorships are administered much like the "tag sponsorships" you may have seen on other sites. Apart from the visual updates and site promotion, you should not see any significant changes in the scope or the operation of this site. Site sponsorship is essentially "strategic philanthropy" where industry partners like IBM can give back to developer communities by having a presence on the site, and to provide a place to help ask and answer questions.

Let's get a few immediate concerns out of the way

First — sponsors do not "own" these Q&A sites. Sponsors work alongside our communities who ultimately build these sites. Communities ask the questions; communities create the tags; communities conduct elections as they do now. Any ads a sponsor might submit still has to go through our crazy-strict ad editorial process… as it has always been. Companies do not have access to personal data, and all Q&A content remains irrevocably licensed under Creative Commons for sharing and attribution.

I am energized about the potential for working with companies like IBM as a way to expand our sites' growth and to help bring in new communities, and maybe even build out some new features for Q&A sites like this. Every site will ultimately benefit.

On a personal note, I continue to be impressed by just how attuned our marketing team and partners have been to the concerns of our Q&A sites. We will work hard to find organizations who are willing to cede so much control back to the community. It can be difficult to anticipate all the hiccups we might encounter along the way, but we remain steadfast in the guiding principle that these ideas should NOT interfere with the main experience of the Q&A, and IBM seems to fit that relationship and expectation to a T.

Enjoy!

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  • $\begingroup$ The motivations for why anybody might support a site vary from person to person. Some project teams may simply want the notoriety or increased exposure, while others might see an intrinsic value in helping assure this community succeeds,i would like to enjoy as the op says but We have been sweating for our knowledge base and still we shall always do.....ibm to our knowledge base ,lets wake up from the dream $\endgroup$
    – quintumnia
    Sep 5, 2018 at 22:57
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    $\begingroup$ How much did IBM pay Stack Exchange for the sponsorship? $\endgroup$
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Sep 14, 2018 at 15:29
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    $\begingroup$ @FranckDernoncourt The sponsorship is administered through the ads/sales team and they will not likely share that type of financial info. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Sep 14, 2018 at 15:31
  • $\begingroup$ Can we migrate best Q&As from previous AI betas to this site? $\endgroup$
    – BartoszKP
    Oct 2, 2018 at 13:40
  • $\begingroup$ @RobertCartaino has the sponsorship ended, or is the missing logo just a bug? Cf. ai.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1632/4709 $\endgroup$
    – Glorfindel
    Jan 6, 2020 at 12:46
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    $\begingroup$ @Glorfindel The IBM sponsorship has concluded, but AWS has signed on to take over later this year! We are currently finalizing the materials needed and it should go live when everything is completed. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Jan 8, 2020 at 19:18
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks for the update, I'll update the list of sponsored sites. $\endgroup$
    – Glorfindel
    Jan 8, 2020 at 21:24

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This is great news. We may still be in Beta, but hopefully not for much longer! I'm taking it as a good omen that a foundational company in the field of AI wants to be associated with our dynamic and growing Artificial Intelligence stack!

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    $\begingroup$ ,lets get some coffee for this wonderful community,enjoy your cup,as i do. $\endgroup$
    – quintumnia
    Sep 5, 2018 at 23:16
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    $\begingroup$ AI.SE is it's own SITE! \o/ $\endgroup$
    – FreezePhoenix
    Sep 6, 2018 at 11:15
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    $\begingroup$ @FreezePhoenix I knew we were going to make it because there is just a certain inevitability to Stack:AI. (If it didn't exist, someone would have to create it. In fact, they did 3 times. 3rd time must be a charm!) $\endgroup$
    – DukeZhou
    Sep 7, 2018 at 1:00
  • $\begingroup$ Wait... I kept my ability to review. wassup with that? $\endgroup$
    – FreezePhoenix
    Sep 7, 2018 at 10:28
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    $\begingroup$ @FreezePhoenix Even though the new design has removed the "beta" label, we're still marked as a beta site - see Area 51 and our privilege thresholds. As we grow, those thresholds will eventually be adjusted. $\endgroup$
    – Ben N
    Sep 8, 2018 at 4:12
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I do appreciate the IBM work! However; How do this newly sponsored AI site differ from the other sites that have been parterned with SE,like AskUbuntu

Is creating a new site only in this case, as a proof of concept? And then if it works, in the future existing sites will be sponsored? Otherwise I don't think I understand how sponsorship equates to "bringing resources back"; creating more sites sounds like spreading resources out or else this is more of a "we want to advance knowledge in our field for altruistic reasons" thing for companies, or is this supposed to give them a profit eventually.

According to my analysis,basing on the snapshot of the site in the question body,A sponsorship generally entails enabling ads relevant to the subject and affixing a small "sponsored by..." logo in the upper-right corner, and i do think that's why ibm is here!

Anyways,appreciated approximately.

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    $\begingroup$ I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding some of what you are asking, but if you read through the original feature announcement linked above (including the answers and associated comments in that post), I believe most of your questions and concerns are addressed there more thoroughly. Let me know if I missed anything. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Sep 5, 2018 at 23:03
  • $\begingroup$ So the new UI will remain like this for quite long period of time or temporary? Some clarification! $\endgroup$
    – quintumnia
    Sep 5, 2018 at 23:11
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    $\begingroup$ The UI is not temporary. The design is part of the new site layout being rolled out across the network. Here is the original announcement and a few of the sites where this has been rolled out: Super User, Quantum Computing, Server Fault, Ask Ubuntu, Mathematics. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Sep 5, 2018 at 23:32
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Slight concern: Does this mean that a new moderator will be appointed in AI.SE? Some of us here are beginners and may ask apparently stupid questions and answers. The new moderator might close or delete such questions and answers.

The current moderators understand these concerns and have a very good moderating policy on such type of questions and answers.

Thought I would add some links:

Are we too fast downvoting questions, especially for newcomers?

13 out of the 15 questions on the front page right now are -1 or lower score: This site needs a broader scope or it's doomed

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    $\begingroup$ There should be no concern; sponsorships have no effect on moderation. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Sep 6, 2018 at 12:18
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    $\begingroup$ Plus, when we do elect moderators, all users will have a vote. *(In the recent math mod election, several of the candidates reinforced kindness to new and inexperienced users as a primary motivation, and those were the candidates who got my votes.) * $\endgroup$
    – DukeZhou
    Sep 7, 2018 at 1:38

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