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Okay, Coffee beta-ers! We're 75 days into beta. How are we doing?

According to the Coffee Beta Stats on Area51, certain things are not looking good:

  • Need more questions! "Healthy" is about 10 questions per day; we average less than 2.
  • Need more users! "Healthy" is over 1000 visits per day. We have about 85 visits per day, which I think means unique users/IP-addresses.

How can we get more participation?

Edit: As @RobertCartiano points out in comments, there's nothing special about the upcoming 90-day threshold, it's just how the stats happen to be listed/pegged-against in Area51. Thanks very much for the link -- an excellent read. Nonetheless, it still seems like a good time-frame to check up to see if we could encourage more participation. Or will it simply take more time for a niche site like this?

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    Just to clarify, there's nothing special about 90 days, and there's really no such thing as coming "down to the wire" during the private beta. It doesn't work that way. See Does this site have a chance of succeeding?
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Apr 15, 2015 at 16:51
  • @RobertCartaino - Thanks for the note, revised above. Thanks for the link -- to your own blog post, from several years ago, no less -- I cringe to think how many times you've written comments just like this in the past. Sorry, and thank you :)
    – hoc_age Mod
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 1:01
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    Has coffee considered join forces with the Tea proposal. "Tea & Coffee" can become a stronger community.
    – Mahendra Gunawardena
    Commented May 16, 2015 at 10:49
  • @MahendraGunawardena - Duplicated from other Meta: Tea was explicitly excluded from this site. While I personally agree, it's not in the charter!
    – hoc_age Mod
    Commented Aug 10, 2015 at 1:24
  • @hoc_age, you guys might want consider amend charter, because Embedded Systems SE beta is in the verge of failing due to poor participation.
    – Mahendra Gunawardena
    Commented Aug 10, 2015 at 6:54
  • I agree that we should merge with Tea. Reason being? There is a pretty obvious overlap between coffee and tea. Percolation is a common theme here. I've seen coffee mixed with tea also (Malaysians do this with Yuanyang ). Essentially, if we want to really grab more viewers we need to make it easier for people. Are there tea-people who will bristle? Sure... Are there coffee-people who will bristle? Sure. But this is like that Ireland and UK deal. "Better together" methinks ! I think we should merge
    – Caffeinated
    Commented Oct 4, 2015 at 16:21
  • @hoc_age - The obvious way to go would be to simply restructure a new Beta proposal. I'll give it a shot ... well, nevermind that , I can't seem to figure out Area51
    – Caffeinated
    Commented Oct 4, 2015 at 16:26
  • BTW, a google search reveals at least 20 coffee-shops with the exact words "Coffee and Tea" in them.
    – Caffeinated
    Commented Oct 4, 2015 at 16:30
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    Update after 319 days. The stats seem to indicate (1) Not enough questions per day. Need 20-fold improvement, (2) Not enough core users. Need 2-fold improvement. The other metrics seems consequences of the two above core issues, as per @Nick Udell's answer.
    – Eric Platon
    Commented Dec 13, 2015 at 0:47
  • Questions per day passed under 1 recently. Worrying.
    – Eric Platon
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 23:15
  • Hi... WTF is this site?? One site for coffee? What is your point with this? I understand that there is a site for programming, for math, etc, all that instructive topics.... but coffee?? Can anyone explain me, please? (Sorry for my bad English)
    – Adriana Hernández
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 15:08
  • @AdrianaHernández - This is a specialty Stack Exchange site focused on the many ways of preparing and enjoying coffee, as described in the tour. As of this writing, there are 150+ active sites that cover topics from mainstream to niche. You might enjoy Chess but not Poker, or maybe English Language Learners if you are learning English (no need to apologize). Simply participate in the ones you enjoy. If you are not a coffee enthusiast, then this site might not have value for you. I kindly request that you not belittle the topic of any site, though!
    – hoc_age Mod
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 15:44
  • @hoc_age OK, I understand, sorry if belittle this site in my coment, that was not my intention. I just was trying to understand because to me doesn't have much sense, since I see it like makeing a site for spaguetti, or cigarets, or chocolate... I don't know... P.S: I do like coffee ;)
    – Adriana Hernández
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 15:58
  • @AdrianaHernández - I understand, and I am simply trying to illustrate that, as far as coffee enthusiasts are concerned, there is plenty of content to discuss about coffee. Production (10 steps...), roasting (tools, techniques, roast level), preparing (10s of options), equipment (100s of tools...), ...! just to begin. Poke around the questions or tags; you might learn something new or get interested in drinking better coffee. And say, why not a site about chocolate? :) Or something else you like; propose a new site on Area 51.
    – hoc_age Mod
    Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 16:14

4 Answers 4

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I've seen other sites have some success via regular events, e.g. World Building or Code Reviews.

Alternatively we can cross our fingers and hope for a major new coffee product, for which we can quickly position ourselves as the de-facto help resource, but that seems like wishful thinking.

However if one does come about (or some other, similarly major coffee-related event occurs), then we should be sure to position ourselves as the best resource out there by quickly producing a comprehensive set of questions and answers on all facets of the new subject.

One thing to note is that more questions will tend to lead to more users, and vice versa, as more questions lead more people to the site via google and more users post more questions.

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  • Some good stuff here, I really like the suggestion to look out for a new coffee product!
    – fredley Mod
    Commented Apr 23, 2015 at 16:25
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    I agree with @fredley we should definitely look at new coffee products that are coming out and try to become as knowledgeable as possible on them.
    – Patrick Sebastien
    Commented May 20, 2015 at 12:02
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I think we need to encourage more product specific questions. I think we're losing questions where users want to ask a question relating to their specific set up, whether it be machine, or grinder or other coffee making equipment. The questions we have already have on brewing methods etc are great, but take a look at any other successful coffee site and you'll see 9/10 times they're split into sub sections on machine manufacturer as well as different brewing methods.

For example, we can't just lump all 'espresso' questions together and discourage questions which want to know the specifics on one machine/brand. An entry level £50 espresso machine is a whole different ball game to one costing £1000+, and believe me people who are into their coffee will drop that kind of money easily, and will want answers on their specific set up.

This is just my opinion, but I have been put off asking questions I've had because they're very much related to my machine and grinder set up. I think more questions on specific machines would get more search engine hits and therefore grow the site quicker.

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    I wish there was a way that we could review the stuff that we already have on the site. That's what a lot of people want, feature comparisons and run downs by others that actually own the thing. Shopping is a big part of the topic, and (arguably) the hardest thing for us to cater to. I have to think about it some more.
    – user101
    Commented Apr 27, 2015 at 15:07
  • This idea might fit well with a set of product-specific community challenges.
    – Nick Udell
    Commented May 6, 2015 at 14:04
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I think getting more basic questions may help. I was looking through the site today and besides what I perceive to be very few questions about home roasting, there are very few basic questions.

I know there was another meta question regarding this, but it sort of swayed back to another idea. I think coffee.sx is going to get much more traffic from answers to questions like "What is esspresso?" that some of the more specialized (but still completely legitimate) questions currently out there.

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Joke

I think we should all drink more coffee.

Joke apart

How about organizing local meetups and collaborate with the attendees to ask new questions and discuss some answers?

I have little traction with professionals around me in Japan, as most people do not see themselves participating in English, but I came up with this idea, so that language is not a barrier. My problem, though, is whose account do we use to post questions and answers? If I manage to take part in such an collaboration, I'll update here with any findings.

Also, Stack Overflow has an incredible momentum, as it is used by professionals at work. If Coffee could be used as a main resource for professionals, and even documentation (see the Documentation beta in SO), the momentum should follow.

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    Clarification: We should drink more coffee!
    – Kai Maxfield
    Commented Feb 15, 2016 at 18:56

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