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I'm a moderator at Writers.SE. It's an interesting beta-site in many ways; the other mods and I are always putting a lot of thought into what needs attention and what can help us move forward. We've always got lots to hash out - we've got site definition issues, quality issues, promotion issues, what have you.

Many of our discussions go beyond our specific site. Some ideas for promotion would carry easily to other sites; site-definition issues are not dissimilar between different sites; etc., etc. I think that many discussions we've been holding among the mods, or on our meta, would greatly benefit from being shared among a wider community - that of people interested in nurturing and promoting SE beta sites.

The most appropriate place I've found for such discussions is Meta.SO, and indeed I've raised several such issues here. While response has been overall quite positive, I don't feel I got the reaction or scope of discussion that I'd expect. I expected to see more responses and insights from other people working hard on their own beta sites; I don't think I've gotten much of that. I'm concerned that on Meta.SO, this type of question gets lost - mods in disparate communities don't necessarily follow SO's Meta.

Other conceivable alternatives are the Area 51 discussion area (but discussion there seems highly focused on individual proposals, not on general treatment of what comes after launching the beta), and the mod-only Teachers' Lounge (chat room, and so obviously limited in its utility as a substitute for Meta).

Where is the most appropriate place for discussions about maintaining, nurturing, and promoting beta sites? Can we make our existing options more successful?

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  • Meta Stack Exchange will probably be very close to what you're looking for (well, closer than MSO). It's only 6-8 weeks away ;)
    – yannis
    May 18, 2012 at 10:54
  • @YannisRizos Ah, lovely. That does look helpful. I missed that, what with not following Meta regularly at all.
    – Ziv
    May 18, 2012 at 11:16
  • Well, there hasn't really been an official announcement yet, but it has been mentioned here and there that a network Meta is in the works. It will help, a lot, as network wide issues won't be buried under a ton of questions on SO specific issues.
    – yannis
    May 18, 2012 at 11:19
  • Why can't you just post these questions here?
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    May 18, 2012 at 11:24
  • @TheEstablishment: I do. (This is one of 'em! :P ) As I wrote in the question, my (possibly unfounded) sense is that I'm not getting seen by the people I want to be seen by. e.g., this answer from Anna Lear came only after I specifically brought it up to her in chat (as a question I was disappointed not to get feedback on...); likewise, my fellow-mod and brother-in-arms Neil Fein never saw a discussion of mine until I mentioned it in chat the other day.
    – Ziv
    May 18, 2012 at 11:31
  • Huh. I guess I'm more likely to browse the recent questions on Meta than I am to read transcripts from all of the different chat rooms...
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    May 18, 2012 at 11:32
  • @TheEstablishment: Well, of course. I'm saying what it took for them to see/notice these discussions was the equivalent of calling them up and saying, "hey, you should look at this post I wrote." Which doesn't imply that they're inattentive, just that they didn't know to be attentive to this specifically.
    – Ziv
    May 18, 2012 at 11:37
  • Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/117186/…
    – Ziv
    Jun 18, 2012 at 5:59

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One thing that would be helpful is if beta mods were encouraged to follow the appropriate tags on MSO (I've just subscribed to , , and . These aren't high-traffic tags, so subscribing isn't much of a hassle.

If the suggestion to subscribe to these were offered along with the rest of the "congrats, you're a mod!" introduction, I think MSO discussions would be more firmly ingrained as part of "standard procedure" and they'd be followed more assiduously.

In other words, just saying "BTW, here's where this type of discussion should go on" would be a big help in encouraging those discussions to actually go on there.

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