Stack Exchange has announced:
With our new mixed method research approach, one thing we lost was regular, in-depth conversation with a group of folks highly invested in Stack Overflow’s growth. We also wanted to keep seeking out feedback from a broad range of perspectives.
That’s why we’re creating a working group of users made up of people from all corners of the developer community — from folks new to programming, those who don’t participate in Stack Overflow but are passionate about programming, experienced Stack Overflow users, frequent contributors, and more. We’ll hand-select folks of diverse backgrounds who are excited to chat with us regularly about everything from new ideas to features, to how we communicate with the broader Stack Overflow community.
On the other hand, they've already stated they don't have the resources to deal with the existing feedback they have.
It’s hard to capture structured feedback on Meta. There are now so many conversations that we aren’t often able to participate. As a result, users end up not feeling heard and a lot of confusion (including some misinformation) is generated.
According to this SEDE query, Meta gets around 600 unclosed posts per month, counting both questions and answers. Since most posts are small, that is really not a huge amount of traffic. Anecdotally it doesn't seem hard for the regulars to stay on top of it.
If Stack Exchange is having a hard time keeping up with Meta, it seems like it will have even more challenge holding regular conservations with an adequately large working group and tracking and handling all the feedback gathered. It wouldn't be surprising to hear that they've already gathered more than 600 surveys today alone.
What will Stack Exchange do in order to have enough resources to handle all of the new feedback they will be gathering with The Loop?