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How does the Beta cycle work. What can happen after a beta? Based on what are the outcomes decided? To become a permanent site what needs to be done and what are the low hanging fruits?

3 Answers 3

8

Don't worry about getting out of beta. This is already a permanent site.

Being in public beta does not mean a site is in danger of shutting down at any moment--or even at all. We rarely shut down sites once they have made it out of private beta. This community breezed through private beta with flying colors and is now a fully-fledged Stack Exchange site forever and ever, as long as there is still sufficient activity to keep the site going.

Graduation is not just a question of hitting the right numbers or meeting a quota. The stats on Area 51 are good indicators for what kinds of activities are lagging, but they aren't an assignment that you need to go out and fix them right now or you won't graduate. This community's energy will be much better spent focused on building a high-quality Q&A resource about Buddhism: asking good questions, writing thoughtful answers, voting on both of those, and building a strong community.

Notice that I said "building community" and not "spreading the world" or "getting more pageviews". If it were a simple question of getting more eyeballs, SE corporate could just spend some VC on advertising and call it a site. Stack Exchange Q&A sites are powered by more than just traffic. They fail without a solid community of people who govern the site. They care about the site and want to see it succeed. They vote, they guide new users, and they keep the site clean.

New users and traffic will come with time as long as this community focuses on putting together a high-quality Q&A resource about topics related to Buddhism.

Some specific tips:

  • Invite your friends and Buddhist discussion groups - but don't focus on marketing to as many people as you can. You should invite specific people or groups that you want to talk to about Buddhism, not just as many Buddhist eyeballs as possible.
  • Start initiatives to get the existing core community asking more questions.
    • Lots of sites do something like a Topic of the Week program - something to prompt people to ask questions about something specific. It's easier to think up questions to ask about a topic you're given than to come up with something from thin air.
    • I've also seen sites do discussion groups or book clubs in chat. It's a more relaxed atmosphere where like-minded people can get together and talk about a previously chosen topic or text. It's good for helping people get to know each other and learn about their field - and it frequently also inspires extra questions.

I hope this helps.

In short: Buddhism SE is already a great resource and its beta status does not mean it isn't permanent. We hope you keep up the good work.

5

This article explains the situation quite thoroughly.

3

According to these statistics the site needs more users with more reputation.

The worst statistic is:

  • 150 users with 200+ rep (currently 61 users with 200+ rep)
  • 10 users with 2,000+ rep (currently 6 users with 2,000+ rep)
  • 5 users with 3,000+ rep (currently 3 users with 3,000+ rep)

... of which the worst is the number of users with 200+ rep.

  • There will soon be 2 more users with 3,000+ rep
  • There will quite soon be 3 more users with 2000+ rep.

The statistics want another 100 users, who use the site enough to accumulate at least 200+ rep.

3
  • We need to get more users. Any ideas or suggestions? Sep 18, 2014 at 4:01
  • Alternatively, perhaps there are or have been more than enough registered users of this site already, and the challenge is to get users from 1 or 101 rep to above 200 rep. You want to advertise the site; but instead perhaps we should concentrate on improving the site by posting better questions and better answers, both to attract new users and to engage or inspire existing users.
    – ChrisW Mod
    Sep 18, 2014 at 10:54
  • 1
    There definitely is a problem / imbalance between supply and demand in the questions. This is evident that many questions are answered and they attache many answers. If there were a lot more question every one has leeway to be picky and choosy on what they answer. But they should be high quality questions but not too over the top also so people will try to help out. Sep 18, 2014 at 11:40

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