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I've been keeping an eye on our scores on the proposal page, and noticed that we're lagging behind a little in all of them.

What we need to do

We need more questions to be asked, and more answers given. So if you have any questions you haven't got round to asking yet, please do! Also, please take the time to look through the list of questions and see if there are any you can answer. It's especially important to answer those which haven't bee answered yet.

What we should not do

This doesn't mean trying to game the system. Asking poor quality questions just for the sake of the scores does more harm than good, as does giving answers just for the sake of it.

Voting

Please also try to use your votes as much as possible. This can really help the site thrive. People asking and answering questions get a buzz if they receive a lot of votes, and this really encourages them to do more. I can see that a lot of questions and answers have really very few votes, despite the large number of page views.

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    $\begingroup$ Focus on building high-quality content, not on "achieving good scores" — Does this site have a chance of succeeding? $\endgroup$ – Robert Cartaino♦ Oct 29 '12 at 16:10
  • $\begingroup$ Agreed, but I don't want Robotics to end up like How Things Work. That's basically what I'm saying. I'm reminding people that we need to actually build quality content in order to make the site work. I still think it's worth encouraging people to make the effort and vote because it encourages users to create that good content. $\endgroup$ – Rocketmagnet Oct 29 '12 at 16:33
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    $\begingroup$ That's good advice. I just don't want folks getting too fixated on the largely meaningless numbers game (see the blog post linked above). Relax, you guys are doing fine... and enjoy with some lighter reading <grin> — Vote Early, Vote Often ... Asking the First Questions $\endgroup$ – Robert Cartaino♦ Oct 29 '12 at 19:46
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It's sorta early to worry about the stats. In fact, these stats are not to be worried about in almost any situation.

I'll tell you how it went for Chemistry. We had good-ish stats during private beta (similar to what you have currently). We had a spike after the site went public, and a steady decline after that (the question rate reached less than 2 questions per day at one point). After that, we're having a steady increase. This happens to all sites, it seems. And it's perfectly OK for it to happen.

Also, this is really, really, really too early to even think about those stats. Even when the site is 50 days old, it will still probably be early.

These stats are really just a rough measure of how the site is going. Let's not get too worked up about them :)

(Just a note--we still should do the things you've listed, just not with a51 scores as a goal)

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks. That's a relief! $\endgroup$ – Rocketmagnet Oct 29 '12 at 15:46
  • $\begingroup$ Looking at the How Things Work proposal, it seems to have stats roughly the same as ours, but was closed after just 7 days! $\endgroup$ – Rocketmagnet Oct 29 '12 at 17:03
  • $\begingroup$ @Rocketmagnet: Not necessarily due to stats. I had a similar concern at the beginning of chem, though it was during public beta and I compared with a different closed site. Apparently the "lack of activity" is boilerplate, the real reason lies somewhere else. See here and here. $\endgroup$ – Manishearth Oct 29 '12 at 18:09
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Given we are in Private Beta still (until tomorrow?) I think the scores are not too bad, and no need to worry yet.

So far, the stats are based on the users who made it here via the A51 system (plus some invites?)

Once we go public (and indexed on Google), I expect to see an inrush of new users, and new questions, etc

Early days yet - although your suggestions are useful for us all to bear in mind.

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