Timeline for Why can't committed users start asking, answering, and rating?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 7, 2010 at 18:38 | comment | added | A Lion | @Grace Note - I get that commitment includes a minimum amount of participation; it's precisely because of that that I'm only committed to two proposals. But even that commitment does not require actual interaction (i.e., asking, answering, or rating) at more than a minimal rate. But, for the sake of clarity, maybe a better example would be a group of 1000 users who visit the site daily but only interact once a week compared to a group of 100 users who actually interact an average of twice a day. | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 16:21 | comment | added | A Lion | @Chacha102 - One other thought about design - while I can, and often have, lived with beta products, I do enjoy and appreciate well-designed products. Functionally, I think SO is an amazingly well-designed system. Aesthetically, I think Area51 totally rocks the playful theme!!! | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 16:12 | comment | added | Grace Note StaffMod | @ALion Technically, commitment says you plan to participate at least 3 days a week. Not quite 1/day, but the point is, quantity of activity is very much a criteria that is expected. There are users who have interest in popular proposals but decided against committing because they don't want to promise that frequency and fail to follow up on it. | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 15:58 | comment | added | A Lion | @Grace Note - In looking at my own frustration, with a proposed topic that looks to me like its going to make it well past beta, I couldn't help but see the possibility for a potentially active and strong but niche group to suffer from similar frustration, without the realistic possibility of their proposal even making it to the beta. Frankly, I think quantity of activity is just as important a criteria as quantity of users. For example, if you have 1000 users who interact an average of once a month is that group more important than a group of 100 users who interact an average of once a day? | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 15:47 | comment | added | A Lion | @Chacha102 - No, it's not about me, or anybody else for that matter, being good at beta testing; it's about underestimating committed users' understanding that a site is in beta. You say that, "It is more important that we get enough users ready and willing to use the site than it is to speed up the process." and as I see it, there is no better way to do that than to let users, who are ready and willing, actually start the process, with the caveat that it is in a beta state. | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 14:47 | comment | added | Grace Note StaffMod | @ALion That is correct, Web Apps is the only one in Beta because of development reasons. Technically, Gaming and Pro Webmasters both have 100%, but all proposals are being throttled at 90%. As for the sites which may not attract enough attention in the commitment phase, I don't want to sound harsh but isn't that really the point of commitment? But we can only estimate at this point - no one, not even the team, has hard numbers for what critical mass is yet. So it's really up in the air, how easily niche proposals will get through. | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 14:45 | comment | added | Tyler Carter | @A Lion the reason there are email notifications and stuff built in is because sites aren't suppose to take 2 days to start up. They are suppose to take awhile. It is more important that we get enough users ready and willing to use the site than it is to speed up the process. This is especially true in the future when we won't have so many proposals all trying to get through at once. In a year, I imagine the average turn around will be a week or two for each site. | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 14:43 | comment | added | Tyler Carter | @A Lion it isn't about giving you credit. I don't frankly care how good you are at Beta testing. Anyone in the world can commit to a proposal, and they don't have similar experience to you. Therefore, the way to best ensure that the site is active is to have the site be well designed and have a critical mass. And I don't think the SE team will budge on that... | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 14:40 | comment | added | A Lion | ... I agree that proposals like Statistical Analysis should move through the process quickly. But what about sites with a small but committed cadre of users, will they actually be moved through the process quickly or will they languish in Area51 with lots of "committed" users who can't actively ask, answer, or rate? | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 14:39 | comment | added | A Lion | @Grace Note - I can see something like Statistical Analysis reaching a critical mass quickly, but do you also expect more niche proposals (e.g., Android Does Blightly) to reach a critical mass in a matter of days? Maybe I'm assuming to much, but I get the impression that the reason there is only 1 proposal currently in the beta phase, and the reason that the number of committed users isn't directly correlated with phases, has to do with the SO team. If that assumption is correct, than when the SO team has their ducks in a row, ... | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 14:25 | comment | added | A Lion | (c) if you let the committed users start using them, and 2-3 sites are getting a lot of traffic while 10-15 that barely get any traffic at all, how different do you think those sites will fair once they're out in the wild? If anything, I suspect immediately opening the sites up to the committed users will be a better test of site viability than waiting to reach a hypothetical tipping point of users who say they are committed but can't actually do anything other than send friends/colleagues a link to the Area51 proposal. But that's just my 2 cents. | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 14:23 | comment | added | A Lion | @Chacha102 - I don't think you're giving committed users enough credit. I'm only speaking for myself, but: (a) I've done enough beta testing, that I can deal with a site that's not well designed, (b) I understand that the proposal sites don't necessarily have a critical mass of users and may therefore take longer than a full blown site to see much activity (that said, as I'm writing this SO has 126,145 questions with no upvoted answers, one of which is one I submitted over a month ago; so even a full blown site may not be able to answer every question), | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 12:02 | comment | added | Grace Note StaffMod | @ALion One thing to note is that in the ideal future, once the whole proposal process as a whole is fine-tuned, the team actually expects sites to clear the commitment phase in a matter of days, if not within hours. | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 6:04 | comment | added | Tyler Carter | @A Lion right now if all the sites in the commitment phase got sites, we'd have 2-3 sites with a lot of traffic, and 10-15 that barely got any traffic at all. That really isn't what we want. We want a community that will end up building a site that is a resource much like StackOverflow, Superuser, and Serverfault are. Having a site with 500 users committed to asking and answering questions gives a better chance of actually succeeding at that. (Even though some of them might flake out, you still have enough to counterbalance that) | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 6:00 | comment | added | Tyler Carter | @A Lion I probably put too much emphasis on the site design. It is very crucial for the proposals to get enough people committed to the site before opening it for it to be successful. You need to have people asking and answering questions in a decent timeframe in order to have an active community that will thrive. If the site opened at the beginning of the commitment phase, there wouldn't be enough people to do that. | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 5:58 | comment | added | Tyler Carter | @A Lion The beta phase doesn't get achieved very fast because the SO team has to design the site. Therefore Beta comes after Commitment to give the team enough time to design, prepare, and do anything else necessary before starting the beta. For instance, you'll notice some of the top proposals are locked in at 90%. They will reach 100% when the SO team is ready to put up the site. Furthermore, there is no reason to design a site if no one will use it. By requiring a lot of people to commit before launch, you increase the chance it will succeed. No use in a ghost town beta site. | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 5:38 | comment | added | A Lion | So maybe a better question is - what's the reasoning behind having a private beta sub-phase? Why not have the private beta be part of the commitment phase, i.e. as soon as a user commits they become part of the private beta; then when the commitment phase is completed, move straight into a public beta with an already active base community? | |
| Jul 7, 2010 at 5:19 | history | answered | Tyler Carter | CC BY-SA 2.5 |