November (+ September & October) 2018

So sorry for the multi-month delay in getting out the update. Summer vacations, sickness, team meetups and other things got in the way of our progress on many projects, but that's no excuse for not getting out an update. This update will cover the work we completed in September and October as well as our plans for November. So, with that let's jump into the details.

Done

Welcome Wagon

• New contributor indicator shipped across the network
• Updated chat on boarding message to align with the Code of Conduct

Left nav and site themes: Released the new design for all sites using the base theme + many new designs in beta or live for all. See Catija's post for a full list of sites that have been released. Also, we added support to the Enterprise product for unified theming.

OpenID removal: Finished removal on all sites including Area 51 & Stackexchange.com.

Responsive design: Moved help and error states inline so they work better at smaller viewports. Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Custom question lists: Fixed bugs in Phase I.

Campaigns: Launched campaigns for Stack Overflows 10th anniversary and the new Salary Calculator

Bugs: We implemented a new bug tracking system and team bug process 🎉. Okay, that isn't so exciting to most folks, but this resulted in us fixing a bunch of bugs the past few months.

Vacations were enjoyed.

In progress

Welcome Wagon

• First question email: We are planning on sending an email to first time question askers. This email will congratulate them and give them some tips for engaging with the community on a positive outcome.
• Planning for on boarding: We are continuing our been research and planning into on boarding. Our goal for November is to narrow down to a short list of improvements that we think have high impact for new users.
• Ask a Question wizard: We hoped to have this out already, but plans change. We are really close to turning this on as an experiment.

Left nav and site themes: We have roughly ~30 sites left to transition. Our goal is to wrap up this phase of the work in November.

Responsive Design: Inline experience for images & URLs in post editor. Working on designs for improvements for right side bar and font sizing.

Custom question lists Working on ability to save custom question list and notification infrastructure. Ability to save custom question lists is targeted to ship in alpha in November. Notifications will follow.

OpenID removal: Need to decommission http://openid.stackexchange.com and remove completely all dependencies on it.

Network wide site satisfaction survey: We've changed approaches several times, but think we have it nailed now. We are planning to begin running a regular site satisfaction survey for Stack Overflow before year's end.

Starting in November

Each of the items below describes some work that is planned for the coming month. As needed, we will directly engage the community to help shape the work.

Winter Bash: planning for this years festivities are under way.

Responsive design: We are beginning our planning for profiles and review queues. These are big projects, so don't expect them tomorrow.