Would be interesting to know what insights @balpha would have on this.

@DavidPostill - Yes, but the point is rather the inconsistency of the Markdown rendering between the "answer" and "comment" areas. I know the comment area uses "mini-Markdown formatting" (see the "help" text beside the comment box when adding a comment) but the markdown available should at least (one would think) be consistent.

And the demonstration using the same input as above ... | The ` character escapes the .` character. | ... which doesn't match the rendering in the "answer" area!

@MonicaCellio Quite right - I didn't really think it through sufficiently, and the analogy does break down too quickly. I think there are aesthetic reasons for rejected "forked", too, so the reasons begin to pile up. The only other programming analogy that comes to my mind is some form of "2.0" language, but that's a bit ambiguous and easily confused with other "2.0" usages. So maybe "promoted" does it? Or "upgraded"? or "enhanced"? Maybe we need a thread like this one, but: "Can we do something about the 'graduated' label?"!

See the Help on "Reputation" for an explanation.

If the programming analogy persists, then perhaps what we think of as "graduation" fits into the flow (as its terminus) this way: proposal ⟹ [private|public] beta ⟹ stable ⟹ forked! That is, "forking" a site indicates that it is hived off, tweaked into a new but related form, building on what went before but now in a new idiom. ... Maybe? :)

@T.E.D. - Funny you should ask that. I'm not Robert Cartaino (you might already have noticed), but the related thread is addressing exactly your question.

No - I think not: as another post points out, there are real and significant differences between early-days-beta sites and beta-forever sites that are long established and functioning. The complete removal of the "beta" nomenclature obliterates this meaningful, and helpful, distinction. There are other options.

This makes a lot of sense. It has been clearly observed that sites can "morph" in the early months -- sometimes longer -- so "beta for a year" seems very sensible. One can expect (or at least realistically hope) that sites that get established have clarified their ethos and modus vivendi in that year. To my mind, the obvious analogue to "beta" is "stable" -- any explicit "beta" labelling/graphics (which is fair and meaningful warning) could simply be removed for "stable" sites.