We're soon Leaving Beta

Question

Great news

After many years as a beta site, Portuguese SE will soon graduate into a full-fledged site!

The main aspect of this change is symbolic: it's a recognition of Portuguese Language's maturity and value for the SE network. Congratulations and thank you to everyone who has contributed!

In practical terms, at first, this new status will have little effect besides the removal of the "Beta" label from the site's name:

But a number of changes will gradually take place over the next year(s), probably including:

• New moderator elections (all moderators on beta sites are pro tempore)
• An update on the voting privileges thresholds (done carefully, on a case-by-case basis)
• Being able to run community ads (which would be very welcome) and selectable for migration
• Some light site design customization

The way forward

This is a good moment to think about how to make our site grow further.

By far our weakest performance in the traditional measurements is the number of questions we get — it's been a worry from the beginning (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and it hasn't really improved so far. Although statistics aren't everything (and we are, after all, making it out of beta regardless), one question a day is not great for a language with a quarter of a billion speakers and tens of millions of learners. We can do better.

It'd be great if everyone of us would:

• Vote more, both up and down — this is very important
• improve posts (including titles) by editing them yourself or suggesting changes
• promote Portuguese SE whenever we can:
  • link to it
  • mention it, talk about it, both online and in person
  • direct askers to the site
  • share great questions/answers around
  • etc.

The site has come a long way (Thanks again!), but its potential is even bigger, let's do our best to realize it.

Answer 1

I want to address the following issue:

By far our weakest performance in the traditional measurements is the number of questions we get — it's been a worry from the beginning 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and it hasn't really improved so far.

I think this is not a metric that can be applied to the Portuguese Language SE site. For a considerable number of reasons, if I had to choose a single reason it would be this:

• Number of questions doesn't reflect quality of the questions. It only reflects the number of people that seek answers and ask them on this site.

Here I want to stress that the reason we don't get more questions is inherent to the Portuguese language itself.

1. As an average native level speaker it is never easy to answer any question (or ask it) except those about translation and usage. All other categories require researching the grammar to elaborate a formal answer of at lest some quality and depth, something that many of the regular users (whose point of entry were the technological sites of the network for professional reasons) don't consistently have time for.

2. The site perhaps offers little incentive to professional language researchers and teachers who are likely used to a level of complexity the average speaker doesn't consider or inquire about. There are also other sites about the language with varying degrees of government sponsorship where notoriety among peers for participating is likely more rewarding than SE's reputation system.

It's in the context of this reality (which focuses on the users and not the content) that I consider to all effects the Portuguese Language SE site to be successful. Because it has retained and engaged an audience over time. I think of all the regular users who always return even if they don't post much -although being engaged daily on the other professional sites of the network- yet don't loose the special and unique appreciation for this community they are a part of.