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As some of you may have noticed, we have technically come to the end of the pre-set evaluation period of 90 days.

Although this does not mean we shall be given an answer immediately, it does mean that from now on, we could potentially graduate from beta status.

Therefore, I feel that you deserve some feedback from the mods, and in return we would like some from you. After all, it is the community that will make or break the final decision.

The Stats

Here are some of the interesting statistics that I have to share with you guys.

Hits

  • Currently we are averaging around 3500 hits each day.
  • One day this month peaked at 7600 hits.
  • This gives a total of approximately 100k hits per month.
  • A very large percentage of traffic is arriving from search engines (which is great).

Questions & Answers

  • Over 90% of all questions are answered.
  • Each question receives an average of two answers.
  • There are a lot of votes happening, although I can't provide a very accurate statistic for this, it's probably around 35 each day.

Users

  • New users have soared! We now have nearly 1500 users.
  • 89 users are considered avid (over 200 rep).

Obviously that's all great news, and we couldn't have got this far without some fantastic support from all our users. However, this post is not just about congratulations. We still have areas which need more work. The bad bullet points are:

  • On average we're only getting 3 new questions each day. This needs to be 5 times higher for us to stand a chance of graduating.
  • Only around 6% of our total user base are staying around to gather over 200 reputation.

Now it could be that these issues will resolve in time, but I'm asking for help from any of you guys who have ideas that you think can help.

The Mods and Site Mission

Our job as pro-tempore moderators is to lead the community down the path we believe it should take, listen to feedback, and react accordingly. However our judgements and decisions might not always be correct. Therefore, it's important for you to voice your opinions. If you're mad that a question was closed, tell us!

If each of you reading this could take a couple of minutes to think about the following questions, we would really appreciate it:

  • Has Raspberry Pi Stack Exchange followed the path you expected?
  • Is there anything that you would like to see happen differently?
  • Have we stayed true to the mission of the foundation?
  • Are their any decisions that you disagree with?

Don't feel limited to these, please... please moan at me about anything.

To close, I have had a fantastic time being a pro-tempore moderator. This is an excellent community, but it needs help from all of you to be able to thrive. I've been away for a few weeks recently, and I apologise. But from now on I am going to be throwing myself behind Raspbery Pi Stack Exchange as hard as possible. I know you all want us to succeed as much as I do.

Thank you for your feedback.

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  • on new questions/day, several sites have graduated in the 5-7/day range, 15 would be great, but isn't a reasonable expectation for a lot of sites
    – wax eagle
    Sep 22, 2012 at 2:52

6 Answers 6

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I believe that the biggest strength of Raspberry Pi in general is its community. At the beginning it was mostly an official forum for me. There's a lot of information there and one can find a lot of answers to hes questions. But as it usually is with forums, the important informations are hard to find between all this noise. So I started looking around and found this SE site. It was my first bigger experience with SE in general (other than finding some answers on it when googling for my problems) and I think its awesome.

At first I was concerned about its beta state but soon found out that compared to many other betas, it's going quite well. And unfortunately, I can't find anything that is wrong about it.

I believe, all we need is more people with more problems. I think that one of the best places to find them is on official forums or even their official site. After all, it's a central place for all the RPi owners. I didn't see any information about this site there but I may just missed it. Is there any? I believe that Foundation is always interested by different community efforts and may even be interested in promoting this site, maybe even by some news on their site. Maybe we should let them know that we are interested in such a thing.

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  • 2
    Thanks for the feedback :) Unfortunately, you didn't see any information on the official site about us because there is none. There are a couple of quotes from the foundation speaking disparagingly of Stack Exchange. As it stands, we have not yet approached them regarding a union. However, it is something we would be open to.
    – Jivings
    Sep 15, 2012 at 10:22
  • I have found a forum thread about this just now link. It seems that foundation members where not particularly interested in this site since they believe having all informations in one place is better. This was my opinion too some time ago so maybe they will change their mind too. I think that the site will promote here even without them by people just mentioning it when we have enough good answers here.
    – Krzysztof Adamski
    Sep 15, 2012 at 10:36
  • Yes, that's the post I was referring to.
    – Jivings
    Sep 15, 2012 at 10:56
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    @KrzysztofAdamski: I would agree with them on that notion, but, hopefully, one day they'll realize that this is that place. :)
    – Oliver Salzburg
    Sep 17, 2012 at 21:31
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    @KrzysztofAdamski I agree one place is good, but using a forum for questions is now known to be atrociously suboptimal. On the other hand, discussion and long-form is not yet an integrated part of Stack Exchange. Nor is hosting Stack Exchange any longer part of their model. So here we are, two community paradigms; each of which do something well, one of which is also trying to do something it shouldn't - answer questions.
    – Cade Roux
    Sep 21, 2012 at 2:39
  • 1
    I agree that forum is suboptimal for QA. But the biggest strength of the official forum is presence of foundation members and Broadcom employees. And they have a lot of knowledge and possibilities not available to others.
    – Krzysztof Adamski
    Sep 21, 2012 at 6:28
  • @KrzysztofAdamski Yes, but with the current attitudes, it's best not to try to convince them directly. So many programmers are coming to StackOverflow, it's dominating Internet Q&A for programming questions, so it's just a matter of time. The thing we need to do is get people from Raspian, Adafruit, Arch, and all the other developer communities coming here. They are not under foundation control. This could be done with moderators migrating eligible (good/open/recent) questions here and promotional work.
    – Cade Roux
    Sep 21, 2012 at 14:57
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Raspberry Pi Stack Exchange is quieter than I expected, but at best it's always going to be a second-tier source of information behind the forum and R-Pi Hub. The quality of the answers here is good, but SE has a really steep learning curve and a much more officious vibe (in general; nothing to do with the mods here) than the forum.

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  • That's really useful feedback. Especially since I've felt that way each time I've visited the forum. Thanks scruss :)
    – Jivings
    Sep 16, 2012 at 15:30
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    Could I perhaps ask you why or where you felt an officious vibe? I guess it's something we need to work on.
    – Jivings
    Sep 16, 2012 at 17:33
  • Your own moderation style has been pretty hands-off, James. On another SE board I infest, every question is edited for style by the moderator — and that includes ruthlessly replacing text in the passive voice. The rep system isn't perfect, and is in some ways a barrier to entry. The Raspberry Pi is going to be many people's first Linux computer. They need a place to ask questions, and if you have to hang about while their rep accumulates, they're just going to go to the forum and have done with it.
    – scruss
    Sep 16, 2012 at 22:17
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    I have had low activity over the last month, which may have been why you have not seen me much. But yes, I do prefer encouraging others to fix their own problems rather that jump in myself. But there shouldn't be much barrier to entry in the form of rep, new users can still ask and answer questions.
    – Jivings
    Sep 17, 2012 at 6:28
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    Re: officious vibe, I was really put off by the history of this question: raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/325/… + the fact it was all swept under the carpet by having the comments moved away. It rather soured my RPiSE experience early on. So there's my whinge. :)
    – Beeblebrox
    Sep 23, 2012 at 23:17
  • @foocode: I see. That was a good question, and it was decided so. Thus the comments were no longer relevant since they were about the suitability of the question. If you think it was a bad decision, you can always ask for them back, that is an option. Although perhaps the damage has been done.
    – Jivings
    Oct 1, 2012 at 6:09
  • @jivings It was purely a whinge-point and you did ask for all of them. Just thought I'd highlight it. No action required. The only other thing that bugs me is the blanket ban on not including 'RaspPi' in question titles. As a guideline that's great but sometimes - for example the same question above - it would add meaning and clarity and so should be allowed. Particularly useful for SEO purposes. Rules like that just serve to reduce clarity and are unweildy.
    – Beeblebrox
    Oct 1, 2012 at 9:46
  • @foocode: SEO is a good point. However, there isn't a complete ban on using Raspberry Pi in titles. It's generally allowed where otherwise the title would be grammatically nonsensical or ambiguous. Perhaps we should update the faq to reflect that.
    – Jivings
    Oct 1, 2012 at 15:09
  • @jivings thanks for the response. I thought it was a blanket ban given the level of tidy up that went on. I've updated the question title for clarity and will await the feedback/fallout. :)
    – Beeblebrox
    Oct 2, 2012 at 23:27
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As a frequent SO/SE contributor (on both the Q and A side), I KNOW SE is the way to go for RPi questions. We just need to get the word out there. People who use the "official" forums can fumble around searching there, but when Google brings them here, they will keep returning. It's just a matter of getting up that critical mass of good questions (which match their search criteria) and good answers.

I don't think SO/SE works well for blogs, wikis and discussion (despite the half-effort towards blogs which are not integrated and community wiki which isn't a real wiki), and fundamentally that's what stops SE sites from becoming one-stop shops. People still want to toss around ideas and articles and wiki knowledgebases are still necessary if you want to fullfil those community needs.

These issues are not specific to this particular SE, but to make a community, you need a lot more than Q & A. You also need authors with longer reading material (either collaborative or didactic) and places to discuss things.

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  • Nice insight. Thanks.
    – Jivings
    Sep 21, 2012 at 6:04
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Has Raspberry Pi Stack Exchange followed the path you expected?

Yes, I was hoping that we would build a pleasant, welcoming community, where people of all levels of experience and knowledge could be brought together.

I think we have achieved this.

Have we stayed true to the mission of the foundation?

I believe that we have.

As a community we consistently help improve questions and answers which can be improved and we deal swiftly and fairly with questions and answers which can't. I think we have set a standard for questions and answers which is exemplary in stack exchange and will bring not only stack exchangers to the Raspberry Pi, but will also bring many new users into the Stack Exchange system, instruct them on how a well run Stack Exchange works and inform them of how much better a stack exchange site is for Q&A than a web forum or blog.

Is there anything that you would like to see happen differently?

I would ultimately like to see much closer ties with the Raspberry Pi foundation. We need to make sure people understand that we are not aiming to supplant them or rival them in any way, but to complement the excellent job they are already doing.

The Stack Exchange system is good at one thing - getting questions answered - something that forums do very badly. The Raspberry Pi community needs a thriving Stack Exchange site for Q&A just as much as it needs the Foundation Website and Forum for everything else.

So, I would love to see us recognised by the Rasperry Pi foundation as a valuable part of the Rasperry Pi community. I would like us to get permission from them to use the official Raspberry Pi logo here and I would like to see us link to the Foundation website at the top of our site and have them link to us from their website and forum in turn.

I want to see our communities as one, and to push forward the boundaries of what we can achieve with this fantastic little device.

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  • Great :) Thanks Mark! That lightens my heart. You third point is what I also desire. However, I think that until we prove ourselves the foundation are not going to take notice. Perhaps by graduating from beta, this will be one step closer to being achieved and we are definitely walking the right path.
    – Jivings
    Oct 4, 2012 at 17:52
  • I think that as we are already showing up on the first page of google search results for many Raspberry Pi questions, it won't be long before it's impossible for us to be ignored.
    – Mark Booth
    Oct 5, 2012 at 9:09
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When I first got my pi I joined a Forum on Raspberryp.org. I soon navigated to this site because the Forum was really just to easy on "rules" it turned into worthless comments, me too's, and I think opinion pieces. The lack of structure, voting and moderation left me feeling frustrated. Before I joined this site I read all the questions, comments and answers I found relevant to me before I decided to join. I like the direction and the mission of this site. I like the reward system and I like that for the most part there is a respectful atmosphere between all levels of users. Questions are flagged and answered properly. Badges and Rep points are awarded fairly and quickly.

In my opinion and experience so far I have to say this site encourages me to learn, ask and help everyday. I am near 50 points I joined in April and I hope to have 200 by June. This is the only site of its kind I have found that lives up to the misson. Dont Change! Thanks for being here

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  • Thank you for the flowers. Your input on meta to keep this site on a good course as well as your contributions on the main site are very much welcome.
    – Ghanima Mod
    May 29, 2017 at 20:22
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More Q&A and less QCC (Question, Criticise, Close) is my suggestion. I only ask questions here as a last resort.

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  • Hi Guy. I'm sorry you feel that way. I have actually been told by others that we are leaving too many questions open. Personally I like to let the community decide if a question is appropriate, rather than casting my vote. Can you describe the situation that has led you to feel this way?
    – Jivings
    Oct 11, 2012 at 17:31
  • Here's an example: raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/1601/…
    – Guy
    Oct 11, 2012 at 21:27
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    But that got good answers, plenty of upvotes and wasn't closed...
    – Jivings
    Oct 12, 2012 at 6:41

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