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I am calculating the differences between graduated betas v.s. discontinued betas for an academic paper. I previously asked a question regarding how to calculate the number of days in a beta site and the response was helpful but does not answer a particular case: what is the close date for a closed beta?

For example: the Libraries & Information Science public beta was unsuccessful and the site was closed down. My issue is that the end dates of each phase are not specified: it is left to the reader to deduce the end dates by looking at the next phase start date. When there is no next phase - as the site has failed - there is nothing to help guide the reader.

The only thing that is supplied is the "number of days in beta" but it is unclear whether "number of days in beta" is referring to:

  1. The number of days in private beta
  2. The number of days in public beta
  3. The total number of days in beta (i.e. inclusive of both private beta and public beta)

I appreciate any insights!

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Everywhere on Stack Exchange sites, hovering over a relative date such as "2 years ago" will show the exact date. For example, the Libraries site entered private beta on 2012-05-22. As HDE 226868 pointed out, the private beta period is included as a part of beta period. Thus, adding the number of days in beta (using, for example, Wolfram Alpha), gives the closing date: 2013-06-06.

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    Wish I had known that.
    – HDE 226868
    Nov 23, 2014 at 0:38
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The "number of days in beta" refers to the date from which the site entered private beta. For example, see the Area 51 page for History of Science and Mathematics. The right-hand sidebar says (at the moment) that the site started private beta 25 days ago, and public beta 12 days ago. On the blue box at the upper left-hand corner of the page, it says that the site has been in beta for 25 days. You can see that the same is evident for Emacs - it's been through 60 days in beta, and the sidebar says that the private beta start was 2 months ago while the public beta start was 1 month ago.

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