First of all, before anybody panics, we don't really need 1500 questions to pass the beta. All site-health figures are just rough estimates, and the powers that be are constantly tweaking them. In fact, just ten days ago, that box read "1,000 questions is a healthy beta, 500 questions is worrying".
Looking at our siblings, we are faring rather well. Game Development has 924 questions (after 96 days), Photography and Photographic Editing has 860 (after 95 days), Statistical Analysis has 896 (after 91 days), but according to Area51, they have all finished their betas and will be launching very soon.
Next, let's have a more thorough analysis of how our very own 1000 questions came about.
Date Number of questions posted
Aug 5 34 ==================================
Aug 6 25 =========================
Aug 7 11 ===========
Aug 8 6 ======
Aug 9 17 =================
Aug 10 18 ==================
Aug 11 8 ========
(End of private beta.)
Aug 12 25 =========================
Aug 13 51 ===================================================
Aug 14 19 ===================
Aug 15 14 ==============
Aug 16 32 ================================
Aug 17 20 ====================
Aug 18 35 ===================================
Aug 19 21 =====================
Aug 20 23 =======================
Aug 21 17 =================
Aug 22 16 ================
Aug 23 24 ========================
Aug 24 22 ======================
Aug 25 14 ==============
Aug 26 12 ============
Aug 27 7 =======
Aug 28 15 ===============
Aug 29 8 ========
Aug 30 9 =========
Aug 31 17 =================
Sep 1 19 ===================
Sep 2 14 ==============
Sep 3 18 ==================
Sep 4 16 ================
Sep 5 10 ==========
Sep 6 9 =========
Sep 7 13 =============
Sep 8 18 ==================
Sep 9 10 ==========
Sep 10 17 =================
Sep 11 6 ======
Sep 12 8 ========
Sep 13 6 ======
Sep 14 17 =================
Sep 15 9 =========
Sep 16 13 =============
Sep 17 9 =========
Sep 18 4 ====
Sep 19 8 ========
Sep 20 7 =======
Sep 21 10 ==========
Sep 22 14 ==============
Sep 23 7 =======
Sep 24 10 ==========
Sep 25 3 ===
Sep 26 6 ======
Sep 27 6 ======
Sep 28 8 ========
Sep 29 6 ======
Sep 30 10 ==========
Oct 1 9 =========
Oct 2 4 ====
Oct 3 3 ===
Oct 4 11 ===========
Oct 5 3 ===
Oct 6 17 =================
Oct 7 11 ===========
Oct 8 15 ===============
Oct 9 9 =========
Oct 10 5 =====
Oct 11 15 ===============
Oct 12 4 ====
Oct 13 14 ==============
Oct 14 18 ==================
Oct 15 16 ================
Oct 16 2 ==
Oct 17 2 ==
Oct 18 10 ==========
Oct 19 8 ========
If we look at the last 4 weeks, we are actually generating 8.75 questions/day rather than 13–14. That's the bad news.
The good news is that more and more questions seem to come from new users, rather than from regulars trying to "seed" the site. I, for one, have long stopped posting questions which I know the answer to. And kiamlaluno, who has posted a whopping 76 questions in total, hasn't posted a single one since September 3rd. Coincidentally, that's roughly in the middle of the above graph, so I'll just take it as a milestone and look at a few other regulars who have posted a few questions each:
Questions asked by | before Sep 3 | since Sep 3 |
--------------------------------------------------|
kiamlaluno | 76 | 0 |
RegDwight | 23 | 3 |
rem | 21 | 9 |
Hamid | 18 | 3 |
Edward Tanguay | 13 | 1 |
Ex-user | 11 | 2 |
cindi | 9 | 7 |
JohnFx | 8 | 2 |
serg555 | 6 | 2 |
stacker | 6 | 1 |
MatthewMartin | 6 | 0 |
VonC | 6 | 0 |
Lord Torgamus | 5 | 1 |
chanchal1987 | 5 | 1 |
Vivi | 5 | 0 |
nohat | 4 | 1 |
vonjd | 4 | 0 |
Boofus McGoofus | 3 | 1 |
Vaibhav Garg | 3 | 1 |
Vincent McNabb | 3 | 0 |
--------------------------------------------------|
Grand Total | 235 | 35 |
Of course there are always notable exceptions:
keithjgrant | 0 | 5 |
waiwai933 | 1 | 4 |
Dia | 1 | 4 |
Midhat | 2 | 3 |
Seamus | 3 | 6 |
Brian Hooper | 4 | 4 |
Bruno Rothgiesser | 5 | 11 |
Mehper C. Palavuzlar | 6 | 8 |
--------------------------------------------------|
Grand Total | 22 | 45 |
But that doesn't change the bottom line that much:
Grand Grand Total | 257 | 80 |
Given this data, I think 8.75 questions per day on average (that's including weekends!) is a pretty solid number. I am not sure how (and whether) we can quadruple it for the remaining two weeks, but again, we don't really have to. While we certainly need more users, I would not aim for a huge one-time influx, but rather for slow yet steady "organic" growth. I'll take a healthy community over a healthy number any time.
All that being said, what we do need rather desperately are more visitors (i.e. random passers-by, as opposed to avid askers). Our most worrying metric so far is the number of visits/day:
490: Worrying – 1,500 visits per day is good, 500 visits per day is worrying.
A great site benefits people outside the community. Eventually, 90% of a site's
traffic should come from search engines.
But again, that certainly doesn't mean that this site will get canceled. Especially given the fact that the number of visitors seems to be rising. It read 457 just a few days ago, and is now at 490. All hail Google!
