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Our QPD stat started at over 40 questions per day. It is now at about 14. You might be saying, "well, that''s because private beta is finishing up." However, I know from experience that that is the hardest stat to raise. I've never been in a private beta before, but I'm pretty sure this needs action. Once that stat falls, picking it up is next to impossible. That's the main reason so many beta's fail.

Does anyone have any good ideas for keeping the stat where it is (or higher)? I've seen some sites have had users "pledge" to ask a question a day or every week. What other ways can we keep the questions per day stat high?

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  • Luke, Is the source of that stat publicly available (i.e. visible to all members)? If so, can you point me to it?
    – Fortiter
    Commented Oct 16, 2012 at 0:07
  • Sure. Here you are. Once we get to public beta, it will show up on the side bar where the "invite fellow experts" thing is now.
    – Luke_0
    Commented Oct 16, 2012 at 0:32
  • Thank you for asking the question, Luke. I'm sure this is something others might be wondering.
    – GeneJ
    Commented Oct 16, 2012 at 18:10

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Great answers already, but I will add that the way to keep questions coming is to not scare away newbies. Some of the questions that came in today (1st day public), I must admit - my finger was itching to down-vote... but I refrained and was happy to see the positive and encouraging comments that were left instead. As a relative newbie to SE, it sure is shocking and painful to see your (what you thought was a fine) question down-voted or closed. It takes some gumption and rallying of yourself to try again with another question. Keep up the good encouraging skills everyone!

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    I completely agree. Most people who will be coming here will be brand new to the SE format, and they may not stop to look around and learn how SE works before posting. So we need to educate through constructive comments. @CanadianGirlScout - Maybe your post should be a new discussion item here on meta, so it doesn't get buried under this topic about stats? :)
    – efgen
    Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 4:29
  • @efgen Hi, not sure how to do that... "How to encourage new GFH SE users?" Do you want to start the new thread?
    – Canadian Girl Scout
    Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 4:38
  • Discussion items on meta don't need to be written as questions. Just use the "Ask Question" button at the top right of this page to create the new thread, and tag your post as "discussion"
    – efgen
    Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 4:42
  • Randy Seaver was trying to participate. He's a high profile genealogy blogger and very knowledgeable genealogist. He wanted to comment but couldn't because he didn't have enough rep (50 needed). I said he should just ask or answer a few questions and he'll quickly get the rep he needs to comment. But experiences like that turn people off and he hasn't been back yet.
    – lkessler
    Commented Oct 21, 2012 at 17:02
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No, your questions/day stats do not need extraordinary actions, nor should users pledge to ask more questions. You can't grow a site that way. The site grows when the community grows, and the best way to intrigue your audience is by keeping your quality high.

Don't get caught up in the numbers game. This site is doing extraordinarily well in every measurable way. The worst thing you can do for this site now is to sit around just thinking up more questions to ask just for the sake of pumping up your numbers.

You grow a site by building a larger community… and that's why this site will be going public in the next day or so.

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  • "[S]ite is doing extraordinarily well ..." Thank you Robert, I'm sure that brings a smile to lots of faces.
    – GeneJ
    Commented Oct 16, 2012 at 18:10
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Honestly, my suggestion is to not even look at the Area 51 stats page for at least a month. We just don't have enough data right now for those numbers to mean anything. In short, those are just numbers.

In my experience as a contributing member to other beta sites, putting too much emphasis on trying to tweak these stats just causes panic, confusion, and makes people want to game the system. No good ever comes of that.

It's great to see people care. That's awesome, and that's the basis of a strong core community, but if you really want to know how we're doing, just take a look at the questions on the front page, look at the answers, and ask yourself if the content looks good. If it does, awesome! Vote it up! If you come across something that doesn't, ask yourself if you can make a suggested edit, leave a helpful comment, or write a better answer.

If we do things that have a strong impact on quality, those stats will increase and even out on their own as people eventually find posts from Google searches. Hope this helps!

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  • That's great, but we absolutely do need to attract more people. We need real questions and problems from real people and we need more experts with real answers. It is now five days since your gave this answer, and its the same people now asking and answering questions amongst each other. It's starting to get stale and needs a boost. See the meta question I opened up at: meta.genealogy.stackexchange.com/questions/1195/…
    – lkessler
    Commented Oct 21, 2012 at 17:10
  • Sure @lkessler, my response is more aimed at not doing anything detrimental like just asking more questions for the heck of it. You have a good point about getting more people involved. At this point we have enough "regulars" to help guide others. :)
    – jmort253
    Commented Oct 21, 2012 at 20:03

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