Return to Question

Ciao a tutti!

The SE Community Team evaluates private beta sites on a weekly basis to determine whether they should remain in private beta or launch to the public. Based on the stats and activity we've seen so far, Italian is doing pretty well, but it has a few things to work on. We've opted to hold it in private beta for another week while we watch for improvement in a couple of areas.

Private beta is the time to build a solid base of high-quality questions and answers to serve as examples to the greater community. In that vein, we would like to see some attention paid to the types of questions being asked. Out of 60 questions asked so far, I count 18 as dictionary or "this vs that" questions - which is a little worrying. It's impossible to avoid a few of these questions on a language site, but such a high percentage at this early stage sets a possibly bad example for the future. Is this a site for Italian writers and those moving beyond introductory learning resources, or is it "Italian Language Learners", for beginners?

Possibly, this community could decide that it wants to focus on these questions and still succeed. It's just something that needs to be decided here in meta. This community has done an excellent job so far of tackling the nuts and bolts of setting up a language Stack Exchange site - language requirements and style concerns have all been tackled very early on, which is important. What we need to see now is some discussion of scope and quality.

This a manageable that you guys should have no problem improving by a reasonable amount in a week's time. Have at it!

Update: After a week's worth of solid work from this community, the team has reconvened and agreed to move Italian.SE to public beta. Nice job!

The public beta switch should get flipped some time Tuesday (19 November). We've seen excellent improvement in the areas I mentioned below. Furthermore, we realized that the nature of the Italian languages (or more correctly, the group of Italian languages) means that this site will be a little different than our other language sites. All in all, everything looks good, and we're ready to open this site up to the public.

Ciao a tutti!

The SE Community Team evaluates private beta sites on a weekly basis to determine whether they should remain in private beta or launch to the public. Based on the stats and activity we've seen so far, Italian is doing pretty well, but it has a few things to work on. We've opted to hold it in private beta for another week while we watch for improvement in a couple of areas.

Private beta is the time to build a solid base of high-quality questions and answers to serve as examples to the greater community. In that vein, we would like to see some attention paid to the types of questions being asked. Out of 60 questions asked so far, I count 18 as dictionary or "this vs that" questions - which is a little worrying. It's impossible to avoid a few of these questions on a language site, but such a high percentage at this early stage sets a possibly bad example for the future. Is this a site for Italian writers and those moving beyond introductory learning resources, or is it "Italian Language Learners", for beginners?

Possibly, this community could decide that it wants to focus on these questions and still succeed. It's just something that needs to be decided here in meta. This community has done an excellent job so far of tackling the nuts and bolts of setting up a language Stack Exchange site - language requirements and style concerns have all been tackled very early on, which is important. What we need to see now is some discussion of scope and quality.

This a manageable that you guys should have no problem improving by a reasonable amount in a week's time. Have at it!

Ciao a tutti!

The SE Community Team evaluates private beta sites on a weekly basis to determine whether they should remain in private beta or launch to the public. Based on the stats and activity we've seen so far, Italian is doing pretty well, but it has a few things to work on. We've opted to hold it in private beta for another week while we watch for improvement in a couple of areas.

The site needs to gather more questions before we open to the public. Yes, this seems like a "chicken and egg" problem - how do we get more questions before we open the site up to more users? - but the purpose of a private beta is to set the scene and clean the place up before the onslaught. The content that new users in the public beta will see will set the standards to which their new questions will be held. Private beta is the time to build a solid base of high-quality questions and answers to serve as examples to the greater community.

In that same vein, we would like to see some attention paid to the types of questions being asked. Out of 60 questions asked so far, I count 18 as dictionary or "this vs that" questions - which is a little worrying. It's impossible to avoid a few of these questions on a language site, but such a high percentage at this early stage sets a possibly bad example for the future. Is this a site for Italian writers and those moving beyond introductory learning resources, or is it "Italian Language Learners", for beginners?

Possibly, this community could decide that it wants to focus on these questions and still succeed. It's just something that needs to be decided here in meta. This community has done an excellent job so far of tackling the nuts and bolts of setting up a language Stack Exchange site - language requirements and style concerns have all been tackled very early on, which is important. What we need to see now is some discussion of scope and quality.

In summary, in order to launch to public beta, we need to see:

1. More good questions and good answers, and
2. More discussion of what defines a "good" question

These are manageable issues that you guys should have no problem improving by a reasonable amount in a week's time. Have at it!

Ciao a tutti!

The SE Community Team evaluates private beta sites on a weekly basis to determine whether they should remain in private beta or launch to the public. Based on the stats and activity we've seen so far, Italian is doing pretty well, but it has a few things to work on. We've opted to hold it in private beta for another week while we watch for improvement in a couple of areas.

Private beta is the time to build a solid base of high-quality questions and answers to serve as examples to the greater community. In that vein, we would like to see some attention paid to the types of questions being asked. Out of 60 questions asked so far, I count 18 as dictionary or "this vs that" questions - which is a little worrying. It's impossible to avoid a few of these questions on a language site, but such a high percentage at this early stage sets a possibly bad example for the future. Is this a site for Italian writers and those moving beyond introductory learning resources, or is it "Italian Language Learners", for beginners?

Possibly, this community could decide that it wants to focus on these questions and still succeed. It's just something that needs to be decided here in meta. This community has done an excellent job so far of tackling the nuts and bolts of setting up a language Stack Exchange site - language requirements and style concerns have all been tackled very early on, which is important. What we need to see now is some discussion of scope and quality.

This a manageable that you guys should have no problem improving by a reasonable amount in a week's time. Have at it!