"How is the site going" entry in area51. Comments.

Question

If you checked the area51 entry for rpg, there's a "how is the site going" entry to click. RPG is fine for some things, but the number of views per day is worrying low.

Comments?

Answer 1

The recent blog post When Will My Site Graduate? explains how SOIS is using this data. To summarize, if questions are being answered and the quality of the questions and answers is high, the metrics will determine how long a site stays in beta. They do not intend to close down sites at 90 days due to low traffic. The primary concern is that there will be enough users in the community with the edit and close privileges when the site is public. The reputation requirements for those privileges on a graduated site are 2000 and 3000 respectively.

Currently, the Area 51 site shows the RPG SE is on pace to have 8 users with 2000+ and 4 users with 3000+ by the 90 days. The recommended numbers are 10 and 5. So in addition to spreading the word to get more users and more questions, we really need to be up voting good answers and questions.

I do not think that we have any reason to be worried that the RPG SE will not make it out of beta. The question really is when will it graduate.

Answer 2

I think it's obvious use of the site isn't spreading well yet. A couple factors from my observations:

1. Needs to be promoted in more places, many folks haven't heard of it. Some folks have posted it on forums/our blogs but we rely on everyone spreading the word more. Have a blog? Post about it and put it in your blogroll. Link to relevant answers in forum discussions. Tell your gaming group. Etc. It's hard to keep people's interest without volume - I don't play 4e, for example, so even as a mod days go by when nothing happens here I care about.

2. Community closing and editing and whatnot has been a bit more obnoxious than it needs to be, causing new users to bail. The mods have discussed dialing this back but in the end it's up to the community at large to implement that. When someone's first question is downvoted and closed with little explanation, a new person who hasn't read through the FAQ and the history of stack exchanges and all of meta thinks, with some justification, "Man these guys are assholes." We want to keep the site on topic but I think some latitude is justified, at and least friendlier explanations when something's closed.

3. Volume may never be super high. Go take the first page of posts on any of the major fora - ENWorld, RPG.net, etc. Then evaluate how much of any of those threads is useful questions and contentful answers, as opposed to the crowd of the same people grinding their usual axes, tossing in unhelpful asides and derailing threads, etc. In the end it's a 1/10 or more ratio of posts to anything worth reading a day from now. And I think that's OK.

Answer 3

I challenge the idea that we are not currently an attractive community and that we close too many posts.

I've heard this several times, and I'd like to hear specifics so that they can be properly debated. Over the last 2 weeks, there are a total of 2 closed questions. Over the life of the site, 21 in all. Matched against our 590 total questions, I don't feel that is a very high number. I counted 11 of the 21 closed posts as getting the full 5 votes. 10 were closed earlier by moderators. The community has only closed 10 questions.

Is this about voting to close and not actual closing? It takes 5 votes to close. Are we to discourage all close votes? For the record, I try to comment to explain any that I make. Several have generated meta posts to discuss (which I'm totally fine with - I think we need to discuss these things).

My one close vote needs to find 4 others before its worth anything. Until then, is it something that is chasing anyone away? Sorry to be argumentative here, but I'm finding it hard to believe that what little close activity I've witnessed has chased anyone away.

*Big caveat - I was not here for the first couple weeks, from what I've heard it was more rancorous around here then. My question is more about the present though, have things improved?

Answer 4

I think if this site is going to survive we need to do better at seeding it with good questions. If you search just about anything that we have a question for rpg.stackexchange is in the top list of answers. So we need more questions to drive more google visits here.

People need to set aside their gamer "know-it-allness" and ask questions, lots and lots of good questions. We're not getting enough a day. The key is making sure they are good questions and not just terminology questions that can be easily answered by spending 5 seconds on wizards site.

This will also help push up reps to maintain site healthiness.

Answer 5

@Stefano, I agree with @mxyzplk; there are enough people and enough questions to sustain a Table-Top SPG Q&A site.

I think the problem is the site, and the community; I really feel like @mxyzplk's point #2 is a huge issue, along with a lot of squabbling over the vision and direction of the site.

ie. There is a sufficient user base out there, but we're not an attractive community!

A lot of us have decided on what the site should be like, and are being very aggressive that users cater to that vision... but that vision caters to the legacy of StackExchange sites (ie StackOverflow) and isn't actually catering to the needs to RPG Q&A users.

Summary:

We haven't decided who belongs to this community, and yet we're enforcing pretty stern rules about how the community should work. As a result, the community isn't really working out... as such, I propose a new Question! More productive than @Stafano's (no offense @Stafano but your question focuses a lot of "the problem" not "the solution") and I call it: * drum roll *

What would an table-top RPGer want/need of a Q&A community?