Good news! Based on longevity, number of questions/answers, visits, and other stats, the site is going to graduate shortly. In other words, we are leaving our "Beta" phase, and will officially be a full-fledged site!
The official announcement from CMs will come sometime next month, so this is more of a public service announcement that it's going to happen. On a more practical level this will mean a few things:
There will be new elections to appoint moderators. Moderators on beta sites are always pro tempore, and the positions are up for grabs again when the site graduates. The current team will probably run again, but obviously that doesn't mean that the same people will be chosen again by the community. So this is also a good opportunity to think about whether you want to candidate for the position. That said, I understand that there will be a large number of mod elections to run, due to a number of other sites also graduating, so it might be a while before the actual elections.
Obviously the "Beta" label will go away. This won't affect us much because we already have a custom design and no beta label on the desktop site. We do actually have one on the mobile version though, so I suppose that should go away. Some "light customisation" of site design and theme might also come, but timelines are quite uncertain on this. The debacle on site name and logo is still ongoing; we're still waiting for further feedback from the CM team on it. They seem to have their hands full at the moment, so I don't really have a timeline on it.
I think we'll get to run community ads like other non-beta sites?
We'll be eligible as target for migration paths from other sites.
That's pretty much it. Can't really think of anything else right now. If you have any comments, doubts, or curiosity about the process, that's also what this post is for, so ask away.
Congratulations again to everybody for all the good work!
