2

What is the status of this Vi and Vim site exiting public beta? I searched the meta questions for beta and the last discussion I found is from 2015: How do we exit public beta (i.e., what are the criteria)?

The site has been around 5 years, and the stats here have 2 "excellent's" and 3 "okay's": https://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/80441/vi-and-vim

3

The current guideline criterion for graduation is a consistent 10 questions per day.

However, this continues to be handled on a case-by-case basis and ‘some sites might still graduate "earlier" or "later" than their question activity alone would suggest.’

In particular, one year ago all the beta sites that were seven or more years old were graduated.

There have also been fairly well-received proposals to remove the Beta label entirely, and to replace Graduation with a four-stage process.

  • 2
    Considering the two people most involved with this (Robert and Jon) have since left and that Stack Exchange has been refocusing itself from a community-based platform to a SaaS venture-funded "startup", I'd be surprised if there was any movement on this any time soon. – Martin Tournoij Aug 12 '20 at 23:17
  • It also doesn't really matter IMO; it's just a label in the header really. "Graduating" the site wouldn't really change anything except removing the label. – Martin Tournoij Aug 12 '20 at 23:23
  • "It also doesn't really matter..." -- well, for me, I'm more reluctant to post a question on vi.stackexchange.com, because the beta status means that the vi.stackexchange.com could potentially go away at some point, whereas stackoverflow.com will not. So my reputation on stackoverflow is more "safe" than that on vi.stackexchange.com – Rob Bednark Aug 22 '20 at 1:41
  • 1
    The SE folks have been pretty clear that beta sites that aren't overrun with spam or other problems won't be disappearing any time soon @RobBednark (can't find a reference for that now, but it's been stated repeatedly for years). This may, of course, change in the future, but I'd think that any small site (beta or not) would be at potential risk for this, as none of them are making money for SE. If you deeply care about your reputation then Stack Overflow will always be more safe. – Martin Tournoij Aug 24 '20 at 5:55
  • That's helpful, thanks @MartinTournoij – Rob Bednark Aug 24 '20 at 21:39
  • 1
    @RobBednark There's statements of the policy that Martin refers to of only closing beta sites if they become beset with spam in the first and second links of my post, but as he says, it has been stated repeatedly for years. (Which is of course not to say that SE can't change their mind and shut us down whenever they feel like it.) – Rich Aug 25 '20 at 15:51
2

As far as I can tell, the link you posted is the status—we probably need to reach 5 excellents to graduate at this point (but I'm not in charge of any of that).

If you or others want to see the site graduate, the best way to help is to help improve our stats!

Current stats (11th August 2020)

5.2 questions per day

Okay 10 questions per day on average is a healthy beta, 5 questions or fewer per day needs some work. A healthy site generates lots of good content to make sure users keep coming back.

87% answered

Okay 90% answered is a healthy beta, 80% answered needs some work. In the beta it's especially important that when new visitors ask questions they usually get a good answer.

Users

  • 911 avid users
  • 27,381 total users

Excellent Every site needs a solid group of core users to assist in moderating the site. We recommend:

  • 150 users with 200+ rep (currently 911 users with 200+ rep)
  • 10 users with 2,000+ rep (currently 74 users with 2,000+ rep)
  • 5 users with 3,000+ rep (currently 48 users with 3,000+ rep)

1.5 answer ratio

Okay 2.5 answers per question is good, only 1 answer per question needs some work. On a healthy site, questions receive multiple answers and the best answer is voted to the top.

5,411 visits/day

Excellent 1,500 visits per day is good, 500 visits per day needs some work. A great site benefits people outside the community. Eventually, 90% of a site's traffic should come from search engines.

  • This is really awesome, thanks @Ben! I wonder how you produced this report (I imagine I have access to this data also being a mod, or do you even need mod privileges for it?) Also, where are the thresholds from? It's really great to see this data put together this way. Yes we've come a long way, but we surely still have ways to go. – filbranden♦ Aug 11 '20 at 20:27
  • Regarding all the rate related stats (all but number of users), does that cover 100% of the questions on the site? Or only questions asked/answered/edited/modified/touched in the last X months? I guess that would make a difference... – filbranden♦ Aug 11 '20 at 20:28
  • "2.5 answers per question is good, only 1 answer per question needs some work. On a healthy site, questions receive multiple answers and the best answer is voted to the top." I'm not sure I agree with this point specifically, particularly for the Vi & Vim stack. Many of our questions are simple and factual enough, that having multiple answers for them would actually decrease the total value, IMO. I tend to find that helping the first poster improve the answer (through comments, etc.) is more valuable than posting a competing answer. But maybe I'm wrong about that? – filbranden♦ Aug 11 '20 at 20:30
  • Ah, I just followed the link to area51, so now I can see where the data is from... – filbranden♦ Aug 11 '20 at 20:32
  • 1
    @filbranden this all comes from area51; I just formatted it a bit for the site. Idk how the stats are collected, or anything about the rationale. Might be questions to raise on Meta Stack Exchange – D. Ben Knoble♦ Aug 11 '20 at 20:33
  • The SE graduation criteria were changed a few months after the linked discussion on our Meta. – Rich Aug 12 '20 at 10:24
  • 2
    Those Area51 stats are meaningless for graduation purposes; no-one from Stack Exchange has been looking at them for many years (even before this site launched!) – Martin Tournoij Aug 12 '20 at 23:17

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .