The Real Essential Questions of Every Beta

The blog post Seven Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta gets linked to prominently from every beta's meta. However, this blog post is somewhat inaccurate and actually misdirects new users. In almost every beta, for example, the site design question gets asked and undergoes a fair bit of discussion, even though a probable graduation is too far into the future for this discussion to be useful. Moreover, some of the questions are best asked after the site goes public, such as the moderator nominations, and site promotions. There are certain other issues, that can actually be of immediate use to the community, such as tag synonyms, redundant tags, chat room name, etc. but don't get sufficient attention.

Therefore, I went ahead and tried to develop a list of questions that are relevant today for betas. The most important questions, vary from site to site, and from private to public status. The answers to these will have a lasting effect on how your site operates for a very long time. The questions are divided by site status.

Private Beta

1. Are questions about [subject] on or off topic?

You should actively watch the earliest questions with an eye for quality and purpose. Ask yourself: “Is this the type of question we want on this site? Is it pushing the boundaries of on- and off-topic questions? Are we opening a can of worms?” Talk about these issues in meta, early and often. They are the key to establishing the boundaries around your site.

Remember, this is a class of questions, and not just a single question. The more specific topics that get discussed, the more meaningful the discussions will be.

For example, on Chocolate.SE, discussing:

Should dark chocolates be on-topic?

Will most likely result in flame wars, and reach no useful conclusion. However, discussing:

Should the additives used in the process of making dark chocolates be on-topic?

Will lead to more constructive discussion.

2. How should we tag questions about {subject}?

Tagging questions is an ad hoc way of organizing content. It is mostly improvised by users asking the questions but only to a point. Tag auto-completion and community editing will influence the proper use of tags for a very long time.

The type of things you should look out for: how to handle acronyms common to your subject, brand versus product-specific tags, common terminology, and the use of semantic tags to categorize specific types of questions unique to your community. Every site will have their own unique set of tag-related issues.

The best way to identify tagging problems is to watch new posts closely, and try to build tag wiki excerpts that explain what the tags are for. When tags become ambiguous, too specific (or not specific enough), or just somehow off, raise those issues in meta, and quickly. Proper tagging is very much a lead-by-example activity. The sooner you get the “community standards” for tagging ironed out, the less chance you’ll have to face the drudgery of cleaning them up later.

3. Should tag A be a synonym of tag B?

Usually, in the early stages a fair bit of redundancy gets developed as many users may suggest different variations of the same tag, or some may call the same thing by a different name. These can result in disorganization and confusion in using the tags. It is important to look for and discuss such redundancies that could become problems later on.

4. What’s the “elevator pitch” for our site?

Imagine you’ve just gotten on an elevator with a friendly stranger. You have precisely one floor to describe your community to them. What would you say? The elevator pitch is a brief sentence that describes what your site is about.

This helps in visualising what your community is about and what it is going to be. If you have trouble describing your community in one-line, then its a sign that the community needs to take a relook at its scope and purpose.

5. Whats an interesting name for the chat room?

Every site comes with its official site chat room. This is created automatically and can be reached from the Site Switcher on the top left. The chat room is the third place of your community, after main and meta. It is like the lounge where everybody can get together discuss, complain and have fun. Personalizing this space to reflect your community and what you are, is one of the small steps to take towards building an active an engaged community.

Try to get a few ideas up, discuss and vote on them. The name could be something esoteric in your field, or something that every person may understand. Whichever it may be, go ahead and start the discussion!

Public Beta

1. Who should the moderators be?

Moderators in Stack Exchange perform dual roles. Beside the normal activities of a Moderator, part of their function is to act as liaison — a role which links the Stack Exchange team with the individual communities. Discussing the criteria of a great moderator is important and picking out potential candidates is a great way to introduce outstanding contributors to your community. And we are completely open to appointing temporary Moderators when someone’s contribution makes them a standout choice for your community’s human exception handler. If your meta site does not have a post to nominate Moderators, start one now! Pro Tem appointments will begin about two weeks after the site goes public. The more guidance we receive, the more informed our choice.

2. How do we promote our site?

By now, your site should have 100+ questions, mostly excellent with expert level answers. Next comes the issue of getting the word out i.e. how to promote your site and how to reach out to the experts and peers in your industry. Meta is the perfect venue reach out and ask around about who knows whom. Ask your friends to ask their friends. The people needed to make your site a huge success are already within your reach.

Keep in mind, that this is again not one discussion, but a set of discussions that will collectively come under the tag of site-promotion. For any degree of success, it takes a bit more coordination and discipline than asking a one-shot question and expecting a final solution to simply emerge. It takes individual members to rise up and ask methodical, step-wise questions with an end-goal in mind — and follow through.

Some of the avenues to consider are:

• Encourage your community to share links to outstanding questions and answers. And if you feel you’re not producing outstanding questions and answers worthy of sharing with the world, endeavor to fix that first.
• Reach the right kind of publications and bloggers. Make sure that the key experts in every field know about the site; not just the “Martha Stewart” big names; we want to talk to the people who go to these conferences.
• Make sure evangelists from each community have the opportunity to speak before groups of experts in their fields.
• Encourage and participate in grassroots conversations in existing discussion groups, where appropriate.

You should be thinking in terms of “what is it really going to take to make this a world-class site?” Don't wait for anybody. You have to get the ball rolling. Being a voice in a crowd works for certain types of collaboration and brainstorming, but sometimes you have to take on the role of the organizational czar.

3. What should our documentation contain?

Most of the content present in the Help Center is same across the entire Network. There are some parts however, that need to be discussed and developed within the community. The most important page is the /help/on-topic page that lists broadly the scope of the site. This page acts as a guide for new members of your community and should be carefully considered and put together to accurately represent the site scope.

4. Do we really need tag [subject]?

As tags start to get better organized, there will be many problematic and extremely specific tags that may have been created initially, but do not actually serve any purpose. Such tags may be meta tags, may be redundant, or may even simply be spelling errors. Whatever the case, it is important to bring these up and discuss their need on the site. Many of these will eventually be removed, and the earlier this happens the cleaner the tags on your site stay.

Useful Links

• The 7 Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta
• A Recipe to Promote your Site
• Moderator Pro Tempore
• Your New Site: Asking the First Questions
• Redesigned Tags Page
• A Theory of Moderation
• Domain Names: The Wrong Question
• Announcer, Booster, and Publicist Badges

Originally posted on Meta Stack Overflow. Many parts taken as-is from the official blog posts.

The Communities of Stack Exchange

Stack Exchange sites are considered by many new users as being anonymous and faceless, when they initially start participating. This happens pretty frequently on Stack Overflow where a significant number of users tend to receive a fair bit of (well-intentioned) feedback and criticism. I had, as well, received some criticism on one of my first questions on Stack Overflow. However, in the months that followed and as I started getting more involved on the site and on the Network, I started to see some pretty distinct and interesting communities and sub-communities (Why? Because I love social psychology and networks). I even participated in the formation of two new sites (Alright, the second one failed but 1 out of 2 ain't bad).  

As I got more involved, it started becoming very clear that there were different types of communities that existed and this varied from site to site. Some sites have users who know each other personally, and this tends to show on the conversations that take place. Some sites are totally professional, and this is again obvious by the type and quality of comments on main and discussion on meta. However, going through a 100+ sites one by one is not what I had in mind for this post. 

Even though the Stack Exchange Network consists of many sites each of which is so different from the rest that its hard to look at every one through the same lens, lets try to look at sites by classifying them based on age and traffic which matches up pretty well with the type of communities that are present on said sites:

SOFU (Stack Overflow, Super User, Server Fault)

Each of these were part of the original group of sites that were launched and are pretty huge compared to the rest of the Network. On these sites, there are many sub communities that exist, some of them being around tags, and others being around overall site moderation.

Communities around tags generally consist of users who are active in asking and answering questions related to the technology covered by the tag. These communities tend to consist of experts and some new users. Most new users on these sites are of the drive-by variety; they ask a few questions distributed over a long time. Hence, only the most regular users tend to become a part of such a community and once users get recognized, things get pretty social and friendly. Some tags have chat rooms associated with them where the community members hang out and socialize, the most popular ones being the Lounge C++ , Python and PHP. These communities are very hard to find and recognize, even more so, if you are an "outsider".

The second type of community that forms is around site activities and moderation. These users are almost always present on meta, in chat rooms and can be found in the review queues with high frequency. Here communities tend to form around expertise about the site and the way things work, and always consist of the Community Moderators. These users are the ones who will be at the forefront reporting bugs and asking for features, providing support and clarifying odd system behaviors. They will also be the ones most frequently closing, deleting and downvoting posts. Essentially, this community is the one which faces most of the wrath and anger (of which there is a lot) of users who do not understand the platform and they are the ones who invest the maximum time ensuring things work correctly (Some might argue too much : How do I participate in Meta Stack Overflow and not die trying? a Q&A by the moderation community on becoming a part of the community). 

The tag community (-ies) ensures content keeps being created while the moderation community ensures expected standards are being upheld. Both work together on the high volume Stack Exchange sites to make them a success. (There are overlaps between the two)

Graduated Sites 

These are all the SE 2.0 sites which have passed the beta phase and have proven that there is an audience interested in participating and maintaining it. As these sites are very specific in terms of domain, there are very rarely any distinct tag sub-communities unlike what is seen on SOFU. Hence, there is just one big user community and a moderation community. Moreover, the division between the moderation community and the user community is blurred. There is a large overlap between the two however, there are subsets of users who still belong almost exclusively to one side. These sites have much smaller communities consisting of less than 200 users where most users know everybody else within their part of the site (or in their community).

Beta Sites 

These are the sites which are in beta and may or may not stay online at the end of their beta periods. On these sites, there is just one community and almost never any sub-community (unless the site is nearing graduate site size, in which case the above description holds).

Depending on how far the site has progressed, such sites may have a community of 10 to 50 users. These sites are generally built around very specific domains and hence, there is not much room for tag communities. Also, the volume of activity is low, which means that there is no need for a specific moderation community. Therefore, these sites have one community consisting of domain experts, newbies, user moderators and Community Moderators. In my opinion (which may be biased), this type of community has the highest degree of cohesiveness compared to the rest. Everybody knows everybody else; the community itself is extremely visible, and the presence (or absence) of every member is felt and seen.



Also, on a platform that discourages socialising, there are some other patterns that can be seen. Users are rarely known by their popularity or by a few popular posts, but rather, are identified through consistent participation and visibility on the site which is an entirely different ball game compared to any social network. See the reasons mentioned in my blog post discussing Stack Exchange ideology.

Does any of this imply that SE is less social and/or unfriendly? It depends on where you are and how involved you are. As much as I would like to say an outright yes, that's not the case. However, we cannot generalize over the entire network, but we can attempt to look at some common trends that exist between similar types of communities.

User communities (discussed above) tend to be where people know each other only through technical participation and prowess and hence, these communities are more about content and technical experience rather than socialising. So, yes, domain specific communities may be less friendly and welcoming.

Coming to the moderation communities, because of the very nature of participation, the amount of socialisation is high. While SE may not have any social networking features, users who are a part of the moderation community almost certainly interact and socialise with each other through chat and/or through external platforms. So, these communities are as friendly and social as any other network. The only difference is that people tend to act a little more professionally than they would on Facebook, and hence it may appear that its all about work. Who am I trying to kid?

Beta communities are very special on this front and cannot be lumped with either of the two above. Beta communities are extremely friendly, welcoming, helpful, and (in some cases) social. The proportion of positive discussions and debates on such sites is much higher than other sites and hence these are comparatively more social.

Beta Communities are in their formative stages and there are no existing community (social) norms. Hence, every new user can shape the way they turn out. If you feel there is a need for change, go ahead and bring it about!

That brings us to the end. Finally, this is me!