Our awesome data team crunched the numbers, and got back with the following:

Our awesome data team (in this case the data work and analysis was run, checked, and double-checked by Kevin Montrose and Jason Punyon) crunched the numbers, and got back with the following:

• In April 2019 there was a investigation performed that looked at the number of users who regularly post and vote on Meta Stack Overflow, and how Stack Overflow answering predicted that participation.
• The results were that posting and voting on Meta is done by 200-300 users (on average), and that answering on Stack Overflow had a weak positive correlation with participating on Meta.
• The results also showed that answering on Stack Overflow had a weak positive correlation with participating on Meta: the more answers a user posts on SO, the more likely they are to be active on Meta. However, even at extremes of answering behavior like 10 answers per month, a minority (~10%) of power Stack Overflow answerers vote or post on Meta

This is the source of the oft quoted stat that Meta has 0.015% of Stack Overflow's active users. And from this perspective, the statistic is true. However, in retrospect this does not present the full picture (as we see below). This data painted a picture that contributed to some of the well-intentioned internal thinking related to meta that continued through the end of 2019.

• I observed that there was on average 94K active users and ~6500 engaged users per month on MSO or MSE (and this doesn't include anonymous users).
• The engagement percent averaged around 7%, which is significantly lower than most other sites, but one can assume that many people go to MSO/MSE purely to lurk and read and the lack of engagement there should not be construed as lack of being affected by what is going on there
• I theorized that though the relative number of SO users who visit MSE/MSO may be relatively miniscule, the group of users who is active (just visiting) on MSE/MSO is extremely active in the areas of site moderation
• If true, this would mean that MSE/MSO have an incredibly high degree of influence among the users who contribute to the core areas of site upkeep of Stack Overflow
• I submitted a request to the data team to ask them to look into the question of: What percentage of content moderation/curation activities on Stack Overflow are performed by accounts that are active on MSO/MSE, specifically looking at flags submitted, review tasks performed and post edits made, and checking these numbers for users who had visited MSO/MSE in the last 30 or 60 days

TL;DR - a high percentage (50+%) of currate-y/moderate-y actions on Stack Overflow come from users who at least occasionally visit MSO or MSE. This is true for the entire range of time we looked at. These graphs give a sense at a glance:

• 86% / 91% of flags created on SO are created by users who had visited MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 75% / 81% of review tasks on SO are processed by users who had visited MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 61% / 66% of post edits on SO are saved by users who had visited MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 44% / 50% of own content edits and 84% / 89% of other's content edits were made by users who had visited MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• While it is still accurate to say that the conversations on Meta are dominated by a relatively small number of users (200-300), the readership of those conversations includes users who perform the majority of the curation-y/moderate-y actions on Stack Overflow.

The TL;DR on this was that a high percentage (30+%) of currate-y/moderatror-y actions on Stack Overflow come from users who at least occasionally act on MSO or MSE. This is ~50% of the actions performed by users who read MSO or MSE, despite this being a smaller group. This is higher than would seem to be implied by the earlier research.

• 59% / 64% of flags created on SO are created by users who had engaged on MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 35% / 39% of review tasks on SO are processed by users who had engaged on MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 28% / 32% of post edits on SO are saved by users who had engaged on MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 12% / 14% of own content edits and 50% / 57% of other's content edits were made by users who had engaged on MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days

Looking at data about meta that’s eluded us until recently (we promise we’re not ever going to call it metadata), it’s clear that our focus there needs a lot of work and better resourcing.

• In April 2019 there was an investigation performed that looked at the number of users who regularly post and vote on Meta Stack Overflow, and how answering on Stack Overflow predicted that participation.
• The results were that posting and voting on Meta is done by 200-300 users (on average), and that answering on Stack Overflow had a weak positive correlation with participating on Meta.
• The results also showed that answering on Stack Overflow had a weak positive correlation with participating on Meta: the more answers a user posts on SO, the more likely they are to be active on Meta. However, even at extremes of answering behavior like 10 answers per month, a minority (~10%) of power Stack Overflow answerers vote or post on Meta.

This is the source of the oft-quoted stat that Meta has 0.015% of Stack Overflow's active users. And from this perspective, the statistic is true. However, in retrospect, this does not present the full picture (as we see below). This data painted a picture that contributed to some of the well-intentioned internal thinking related to Meta that continued through the end of 2019.

• I observed that there were on average 94K active users and ~6500 engaged users per month on MSO or MSE (and this doesn't include anonymous users).
• The engagement percent averaged around 7%, which is significantly lower than most other sites, but one can assume that many people go to MSO/MSE purely to lurk and read, and the lack of engagement there should not be construed as lack of being affected by what is going on there.
• I theorized that, though the relative number of SO users who visit MSE/MSO may be relatively minuscule, the group of users who is active (just visiting) on MSE/MSO is extremely active in the areas of site moderation.
• If true, this would mean that MSE/MSO have an incredibly high degree of influence among the users who contribute to the core areas of site upkeep of Stack Overflow.
• I submitted a request to the data team to ask them to look into the question of: What percentage of content moderation/curation activities on Stack Overflow are performed by accounts that are active on MSO/MSE, specifically looking at flags submitted, review tasks performed and post edits made, and checking these numbers for users who had visited MSO/MSE in the last 30 or 60 days.

TL;DR - a high percentage (50+%) of curation/moderation actions on Stack Overflow come from users who at least occasionally visit MSO or MSE. This is true for the entire range of time we looked at. These graphs give a sense at a glance:

• 86% / 91% of flags created on SO are created by users who had visited MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 75% / 81% of review tasks on SO are processed by users who had visited MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 61% / 66% of post edits on SO are saved by users who had visited MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 44% / 50% of own-content edits and 84% / 89% of others'-content edits were made by users who had visited MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• While it is still accurate to say that the conversations on Meta are dominated by a relatively small number of users (200-300), the readership of those conversations includes users who perform the majority of the curation/moderation actions on Stack Overflow.

The TL;DR on this was that a high percentage (30+%) of curation/moderation actions on Stack Overflow come from users who at least occasionally act on MSO or MSE. This is ~50% of the actions performed by users who read MSO or MSE, despite this being a smaller group. This is higher than would seem to be implied by the earlier research.

• 59% / 64% of flags created on SO are created by users who had engaged on MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 35% / 39% of review tasks on SO are processed by users who had engaged on MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 28% / 32% of post edits on SO are saved by users who had engaged on MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days
• 12% / 14% of own-content edits and 50% / 57% of others'-content edits were made by users who had engaged on MSO/MSE in the past 30/60 days

Looking at data about Meta that’s eluded us until recently (we promise we’re not ever going to call it metadata), it’s clear that our focus there needs a lot of work and better resourcing.