8

This is great - 40 minutes ago we became a public beta site! However, this site will need a lot of work to keep it alive. This is going to be quite different from a lot of the other SE sites, as we have an interesting criteria.

So what needs to happen here?

22

As one of the people who recommended this site be opened to public beta, I'm going to quote the relevant portion of my recommendation here on the off-chance it's useful to anyone:

The best model for this site is Skeptics - no limit to the subject matter, but strict limits on the sorts of problems that can be solved and how they can be solved. Focus on real problems, focus on testable solutions and rate based on comparison to normal, non-hacky ones. After the first week of gold-rush nonsense, a community is forming around these principles, and with support they may produce something that truly does make the 'Net better.

That said... This sort of strict, rule-based content moderation is not for everyone. Expect the site to struggle to retain contributors for a long, long time. We must resist the urge to push for laissez faire policies that don't irritate people but don't push them to do better than the status quo...

If that comes together, this could work. If it doesn't, we'll find ourselves shutting it down in a few months, or worse, dealing with ugly in-fighting. The dangers are real. But so is the potential.

The biggest danger I see for this site is that it becomes yet another lame content-farm, regurgitating the same sketchy folk wisdom found on 10,000 other sites (Replace All Your Cleaning Supplies With Vinegar!!! #LifeHack) - if we can avoid that trap, this site may actually accomplish something.

  • 5
    +100 - regurgitation is valueless. – Mooseman♦ Dec 22 '14 at 23:13
7

  1. We need to Decide on the Moderators, so get suggesting / voting!

  2. A final scope needs deciding - one that can go in the help center / tour.

  3. Start promoting the site (carefully)! Let's share the word on the social networks and such like. But, make sure the people you are telling know exactly how to ask - we don't want a flood of closable questions that then each have a meta post.

  4. Stay active - you need to keep on helping this site grow, and help with the general community moderation. That means voting, editing, closing, flagging and deleting where needed. We are the people who know how the site works, so we need to guide the new users.

  5. Stay active on meta - we need people to know what is going on, so keep yourself updated with what's happening.

  6. Be nice - there's no way to discourage good questions like being rude to new users. (Especially while the help center still lacks a precise scope.)

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    About 3 -- make sure whatever friends you tell about the site understand the scope first; the thing about needing to include something already tried is not intuitive, and people will not get it right on the first try if they're not told about it in advance. This is a problem when all these new people come in with the indignant "Why was my question closed?" complaints. Therefore, if you're going to promote, do it carefully. – Shokhet Dec 23 '14 at 23:32

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