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Apparently, I missed the email that one of the sites I committed to went to public beta.

Why? Because Email sucks as a workflow tool! [Citation (not) needed]

Valiantly, SE sent me a followup email (Titled "Having trouble accessing XYZSite? - Area 51 - Stack Exchange"). Which I also missed, for a while.

Well, DVK, do you have anything constructive to say, or are you just whining here?

Proposal: when a site you committed to goes to private beta, it should send a notification about it in SE notification tool.

  • Specific tool could be Inbox, or Achievements list, or even a small banner on top of the site.

  • Small variations could be to add the sites you follow (not just commit) and public beta and not just private beta (or even full live status).

Side note: this should be in addition to email, not instead of it - because some people who commit on Area51 may not be active current SE users.

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    I think this is much needed, especially since sites do not immediately go to private Beta when they reach 100% commitment, it takes several days (or weeks) to get the private beta up and running so it is tough to following unless you check in to Area 51 every single day. And if you miss the email you may not know.
    – psubsee2003
    Commented May 7, 2015 at 14:54
  • I agree: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/93546/… Hopefully things have changed enough since that was declined.
    – Troyen
    Commented May 7, 2015 at 21:39

1 Answer 1

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I agree that this could be useful, and I think the best place for it is the inbox, since it's a notification about something you signed up for. (You could probably make an argument for it being in the achievements box because not every proposal makes it into private beta, so it is something of an achievement, but I think the inbox is more intuitive.)

It could look something like this:

"private beta invitation" inbox notification

With the following as a template for the notification text:

private beta invitation

{Site Name}

This proposal has entered private beta; click here to join and start asking and answering!

Update: starting with the next launch (as of June 9, 2015), private beta notifications will be sent to people who committed to a proposal or followed it during the definition phase.

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    It should be in the inbox. Achievements are for the user's personal achievements, which a site launch isn't. :-)
    – C. K. Young Staff
    Commented May 7, 2015 at 15:02
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    It's not an achievement; as Chris said, that's for your achievements. There's a precedent for using the Inbox for site stuff: election notices go there.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented May 7, 2015 at 15:27
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    @ChrisJester-Young - Inbox is better for a different, technical usability, reason (it's less crowded). You can always spin it as your personal achievement, since your commitment was critical to site making it to Public BETA (similar to Precognitive badge)
    – DVK
    Commented May 7, 2015 at 16:14
  • @AnnaLear If this notification replaces email, then this is probably status-completed as well.
    – Air
    Commented Jun 9, 2015 at 19:46
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    @Air It does not.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jun 9, 2015 at 19:47

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