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1

Forgive my ignorance, but I am still a newbie on these matters.

A parent site is a website, and it is synonymous with a main site, correct?
Whereas a sister site is a site closely related to a parent site, a type of “spin off” that successful TV series sometimes generate. Correct?

For example, if I've understood correctly, EL&U (English Language & Usage) would be the parent site while ELL would be its sister site.

But why isn't a sister site called a daughter site, or a child site instead?

A ‘parent’ generates children, not siblings.

EDIT

Amazingly, it seems the expressions parent site and sister site are not listed in any online dictionary.

share|improve this question
    
This question has only occurred to me now, hence the missing research. I chose not to find the answer for myself, which I probably could find on Wikipedia, because maybe other users have asked themselves the same question and would like to know. – Mari-Lou A 17 hours ago
    
I think we call it a "sister site" because it's created and run by the same "parent" (group of people). – Damkerng T. 17 hours ago
    
@DamkerngT. that doesn't answer the question, Why is it called "sister" and not "child" or "mother" or "uncle"? – Mari-Lou A 17 hours ago
1  
To be honest, I have no particular opinion along those lines. As for whether it's "on topic" or not, my opinion would be like, if we can find a good definition of 'sister site' and 'parent site' in a dictionary, then I may think it's off-topic, but I haven't checked. My guess is we may find a definition of one but not two of them in dictionaries, so it's a fair question to ask why one is "parent" and one is "sister", IMHO. – Damkerng T. 17 hours ago
4  
The problem you are having is that you incorrectly classify ELU as a "parent"... It is not. Stack Exchange is the parent. ELU and ELL are sister sites. Similarly, ELU is the parent to the child meta site. – Catija 10 hours ago
up vote 12 down vote

It doesn't.

You've made an error in your classification.

ELU is not a parent site to ELL. ELU and ELL are each other's sister sites. They are on even levels of the SE architecture.

The main parent site of both ELU and ELL is Stack Exchange, though we rarely refer to SE as the parent site. The most common usage of parent/child on SE is to refer to sites and their metas.

ELL is the main site and each site has a meta site. SE also has a meta site. To help differentiate from the main SE meta, the site metas are called "child metas".

So, ELL is the parent site of ELL Meta, which is the child site.

share|improve this answer
up vote 6 down vote

What I say below is my opinion based on some experience and some reading and I have no citation to back me up.

First of all, I would like to point out that in biology, the chromosome which is going to divide (in mitosis) is called 'mother chromosome'. The two branches of the mother chromosome which are going to be pulled apart are 'sister chromatids' and after division the sister chromatids become 'daughter chromosomes'.

This mother, daughter, sister terminology derives from the fact that when biology started, reproduction was considered a feminine subject and therefore anything that divides was named(mostly) in female terms.

The 'parent', 'sister' websites must also have come from the same analogy. Also, here the parent website is the main website and sister websites are not exactly children of the main site but rather a branch of the main site, just like chromosomes which divide into branches although the branches remain attached rigidly at the centromere.

Here are two links which are not very reliable websites but support my claim nonetheless - link #1 and link # 2.

share|improve this answer
    
Your answer, and those belonging to the links seem to be very authoritative. Thank you +1 – Mari-Lou A 16 hours ago

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