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What is our main objective when a Site is in Private Beta? I received an email saying "fill it with questions".

Are we expected to add all kind of questions even questions we know the answer of and then also post the answer we already know?

I have seen this happening, for example on SO Spanish, some "basic" questions were added and then the author immediately answered them himself.

Sometimes it happens in SO that an author posts both the question and the answer, but in a new site like for example SO in Spanish there is great room to do this, since all the "basic" questions haven't been posted yet.

Having the site filled up with self-answered questions feels rather strange. On that context, I could go off and translate a bunch of SO questions in the Spanish SO, how are we expected to behave in this private betas that have a similar site already existing with similar content but different language?

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The purpose of a private beta is to build up enough of a site that you can open for business to the public. That means:

  • A body of questions and answers of the type you want to see on the site. Don't fill it up with basic questions; you're building a site for experts. But do ask questions that your private-beta users can answer; nobody wants to see "0 answers" all down the front page.

  • A community of people like those you hope to attract in the public beta. If your site is for experts (and most are intended to be), ask and answer expert questions. Interact with the other users on the site; don't all go and self-answer everything. It's a community, not a blog, though self-answers are part of a healthy mix.

Focus on real questions that y'all actually have. Don't try to cover all the beginner questions if you're not beginners; eventually real beginners with actual problems to solve will come along and they'll ask those questions, but in a way that helps said beginners. Let your site grow organically; don't try to cover all the bases before most people even know you exist.

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  • And do you do anything if people keep posting questions that are "basic" and answering themselves, showing that they know the subject perfectly well (maybe even expert level)? Because it feels rather frustrating, like people´s focus is more experience hoarding than the well-being of the site.
    – Dzyann
    Dec 2, 2015 at 12:18
  • @Dzyann that's a discussion you should have on your meta (link to the question from questions on main where this is happening if necessary, to draw attention). The community needs to talk about what kind of site they're building and how to do that; the earliest stages especially need to be about the community rather than the individual members, and the first step is to get people talking constructively. (Avoid confrontation; I'd start by talking about goals for the site.) You might find some help on communitybuilding.stackexchange.com.
    – Monica Cellio
    Dec 2, 2015 at 14:08
  • Great, thanks Monica! Yes, first I wanted to be sure of the general guidelines and then bring the discussion to the particular meta.
    – Dzyann
    Dec 2, 2015 at 14:34

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