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I can't find an answer to this question on the "mother" meta website; hope this is not related to my choice of words in the search box.

The statistics of the 3D Printing on Area51 show that only few items (questions and visits per day) are not up to par and need work. Do those need to reach a level of let's say "okay" before the site can loose the Beta stage?

I'm interested to know what would be the requirements to get out of the Beta stage.

Update September 5, 2019:

It appears that the "visits per day" is "excellent" with close to three thousand visits. The "questions per day" still lack behind with a 3.0 value ("needs work") while more than 5 is considered "healthy". All further stats seem to be "okay" or "excellent".

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This post, 3D Printing SE Beta Status, by tbm0115 highlights the three main sticking points (IMHO clearer than the Area 51 page):

  • Questions per day
  • Users vs Reputation
  • Visits per day

Once those reach the required levels then that should be it. So, there is quite a way to go...

The stats can be seen here, 3D Printing Area51 site:

Stats progress

Note: Only changes are shown (no date information)

  • Questions per day 2.1 -> 1.9 1.6 2.1 2.7 2.1 1.7 2 2.4 3.0 2.5 3.9 2.8 3.3 3 2.7 2 1.9 2.1 2.2 2.4
  • Answer rate 96 % -> 93 % 95 % 96 % 97 % 98 % 96 % 95 % 94 % 88 % 87 %
  • Users
    • 200+ reputation 56/150 -> 103/150 113/150 139/150 144/150 151/150 161/150 164/150 179/150 194/150 282/150* 351/150 358/150 359/150
    • 2,000+ reputation 4/10 -> 8/10 9/10 10/10 11/10 12/10 14/10 17/10 19/10 22/10* 27/10
    • 3,000+ reputation 3/5 -> 4/5 6/5 7/5 8/5 9/5 11/5 12/5* 14/5
  • Answers per question ratio is 2.0 -> 1.9
  • Visits per day 753 -> 4 2324 2648 2675 2774 2844 3041 3707 2934 3290 8756 7146 6773 6718 6682 6627 6582 6247 6207 6081 5929 5541 5469

* This change in the number of users with X reputation is, in part, due to the move from +5 to +10 reputation for upvoted questions on 13 Nov 2019 (see also Upvotes on questions will now be worth the same as upvotes on answers).

Alternative Stats presentation

Latest statistic shown in bold -> chronological history shown thereafter

  • Questions per day 2.4 -> 2.1 1.9 1.6 2.1 2.7 2.1 1.7 2 2.4 3.0 2.5 3.9 2.8 3.3 3 2.7 2 1.9 2.1 2.2
  • Answer rate 87 % -> 96 % 93 % 95 % 96 % 97 % 98 % 96 % 95 % 94 % 88 %
  • Users
    • 200+ reputation 359/150 -> 56/150 103/150 113/150 139/150 144/150 151/150 161/150 164/150 179/150 194/150 282/150* 351/150 358/150
    • 2,000+ reputation 27/10 -> 4/10 8/10 9/10 10/10 11/10 12/10 14/10 17/10 19/10 22/10*
    • 3,000+ reputation 14/5 -> 3/5 4/5 6/5 7/5 8/5 9/5 11/5 12/5*
  • Answers per question ratio is 1.9 -> 2.0
  • Visits per day 5469 -> 753 4 2324 2648 2675 2774 2844 3041 3707 2934 3290 8756 7146 6773 6718 6682 6627 6582 6247 6207 6081 5929 5541

Additional points of note

The stats above aren't really the be all to end all... there are a few other considerations that I came across here, in this answer, to “Graduation” of this Community:

  1. A number of 10k+ users ( n > 3 ) are required to access mod tools
  2. A number of 3k+ users ( n > 10 ) are required to be able to fully vote

The final hurdle

The main sticking point, according to this meta post on Ethereum, Congratulations! Ethereum is graduating!, is 10 questions per day, which we are a long way from, and seems to be the last remaining issue. A link (Graduation, site closure, and a clearer outlook on the health of SE sites) from the Ethereum meta post to Meta.SE states:

When a site starts to consistently receive 10 questions/day, we’ll consider it for graduation.

No graduation, but losing the Beta label...

Apart from graduation, SE management has recognised that small sites (with an active community) struggle to reach the 10 questions/day consistently. For sites that have been waiting to get out of Beta by graduation for 7-8 years, SE has decided to drop the Beta label. Please see Congratulations to our 29 oldest beta sites - They're now no longer beta!.

CSV Format

  • Format: heading,data,date,data,date,...,data,date
  • Date format: YYYYMMDD
*Questions per day*,2.1,20170317,1.9,20180525,1.6,20180705,2.1,20180707,2.7,20180815,2.1,20180903,1.7,20181015,2,20181106,2.4,20190327,3.0,20190905,2.5,20191119,3.9,20210121,2.8,20210411,3.3,20210423,3.3,20210424,3,20210425,3,20210426,2.7,20210427,2,20210506,2,20210508,1.9,20210511,2.1,20210514,2.2,20210525,2.4,20210526
*Answer rate*,96,20170317,93,20180525,95,20180705,96,20180707,96,20180815,97,20180903,98,20181015,98,20181106,96,20190327,95,20190905,94,20191119,88,20210121,88,20210411,88,20210423,88,20210424,88,20210425,88,20210426,88,20210427,88,20210506,88,20210508,87,20210511,87,20210514,87,20210525,87,20210526
*200+ reputation*,56,20170317,103,20180525,113,20180705,139,20180707,144,20180815,151,20180903,161,20181015,164,20181106,179,20190327,194,20190905,282,20191119,351,20210121,358,20210411,358,20210423,358,20210424,358,20210425,358,20210426,358,20210427,358,20210506,358,20210508,358,20210511,358,20210514,359,20210525,359,20210526
*2,000+ reputation*,4,20170317,8,20180525,9,20180705,10,20180707,11,20180815,12,20180903,14,20181015,14,20181106,17,20190327,19,20190905,22,20191119,27,20210121,27,20210411,27,20210423,27,20210424,27,20210425,27,20210426,27,20210427,27,20210506,27,20210508,27,20210511,27,20210514,27,20210525,27,20210526
*3,000+ reputation*,3,20170317,4,20180525,6,20180705,7,20180707,7,20180815,7,20180903,7,20181015,8,20181106,9,20190327,11,20190905,12,20191119,14,20210121,14,20210411,14,20210423,14,20210424,14,20210425,14,20210426,14,20210427,14,20210506,14,20210508,14,20210511,14,20210514,14,20210525,14,20210526
*Answers per question*,2.0,20170317,1.9,20180525,1.9,20180705,1.9,20180707,1.9,20180815,1.9,20180903,1.9,20181015,1.9,20181106,1.9,20190327,1.9,20190905,1.9,20191119,1.9,20210121,1.9,20210411,1.9,20210423,1.9,20210424,1.9,20210425,1.9,20210426,1.9,20210427,1.9,20210506,1.9,20210508,1.9,20210511,1.9,20210514,1.9,20210525,1.9,20210526
*Visits per day*,753,20170317,4,20180525,2324,20180705,2648,20180707,2675,20180815,2774,20180903,2844,20181015,3041,20181106,3707,20190327,2934,20190905,3290,20191119,8756,20210121,7146,20210411,6773,20210423,6718,20210424,6682,20210425,6627,20210426,6582,20210427,6247,20210506,6207,20210508,6081,20210511,5929,20210514,5541,20210525,5469,20210526

Auto-generate markdown lists and CSV: GitLab: SE3DP_PlotterScraper/Area51Scraper.py

Graphical representation

Graph of stats

Graph script: GitLab: SE3DP_PlotterScraper/StackExchange3DP_6.py

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  • $\begingroup$ Nice graphs. I believe the one on the left would be more intuitive if the scale went from 0 to 4, instead of 1.5 to 4. ;) $\endgroup$ – Davo May 25 at 11:39
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks :-) I know what you mean (it's misleading as it stands - over exaggerating the change), However, I tried it with different scales...but it becomes (more or less) a straight line (which is even less meaningful). I'll add some code (at some point) to make the individual scales adjustable in the config file (I thought that I already had, but I clearly haven't, or the changes have been lost - I'll have to go through the code more carefully later). $\endgroup$ – Greenonline Mod May 25 at 12:45
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I was running out of space in the comments, so I'm just moving this to a full blown answer.

According to the magic Moderator portal, we should be around 2,350 in visits per day. Also, my post was a little over a year and half ago.

To elaborate on my original post that @Greenonline attributed and reiterate the points:

Accept Answers

I have mentioned the accepted answers issue before as well in a separate post, but there are currently 571 unaccepted-answer questions WITH at least 1 answer available out of 1,467 as of 06/06/2018 11:12pm UTC-7 (Pacific). That's almost 40% of our content ripe for reputation. That equates to 8,565 reputation points just by purely accepting one of the available answers.

I've periodically used the link above to retroactively remind users that they can approve of an answer. There's nothing wrong with reminding users in the comments, so long as it is asked appropriately. If you don't know how to word it, feel free to steal my wording from the post above.

Vote

I'm not the best at remembering to vote, but I typically vote both on the answer(s) that helped me AND the question(s). I think questions easily get overlooked in the voting process, but it does help our newer visitors.

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    $\begingroup$ One of the ways people can assist with the unaccepted answer is to post a small blurb as a comment to the answer itself back to the OP, that being something like, "If this answers your question, please select the check mark to the left showing as such." This isn't asking for points, necessarily, but rather is an attempt to clean up the unanswered questions. I believe for what is shown as "unanswered", SE takes into account answers which have been upvoted as having an answer, whether the OP has clicked the check-mark or not. $\endgroup$ – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Jul 19 '18 at 15:44
  • $\begingroup$ You are correct about the questions often being overlooked, and I think that it is for that reason, that the electorate badge requires 25% of votes being on questions, and the same (or stricter) applies to Vox Populi too, I believe but (after re-reading the badge description) I might be wrong, although I do vaguely remember reading a meta post that advised only voting for questions (when I first joined SE years back) in order to get the badges in the most efficiently possible way. $\endgroup$ – Greenonline Mod Aug 7 '18 at 9:50
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Your "vote" is one of the key things. As Jon Ericson pointed out to Mechanics.SE before we graduated and were asking the same question asked here, he stated:

... voting is the engine that drives the reputation economy.

I think Mech had a little different scenario than does 3D Printing, but it still holds true. If you want people to show up and do things, you (and everyone else) needs to vote. Up, down, sideways ... doesn't matter. They all help drive people to do things in every Stack.

Looking at the above link, you can see one of the things which is important to graduation is having the right user base. You have to have people who have the ability to do things which only those who have met the point level can do. As it stands the highest ranked person by point total is Tom van der Zanden. He hasn't (as of this writing) broached 10k points. There are two users who have more than 5k points, and another five who are over 2500. How do you improve this scenario? You guessed it, by voting.

I realize with sub two questions per day (QPD), there's not a lot to vote on. That can be overcome as well. Those of you who have had issues or have met challenges have knowledge. Write down those challenges you've faced in a question. Then, either write an answer for them, or let someone else figure them out. Either way, you are creating opportunity for the site to expand. That opportunity will be giving someone a chance to vote and/or answer the question. Plus, you are doing what SE wants done in the first place: bringing and recording knowledge. It's a win-win.

There's a ton of other things which can be done to get 3D Printing graduated. I'm sure we'll get there sooner or later. I hope I can help in some small way. I'm not the bastion of all knowledge to get a site graduated, that's for sure, but having gone through it with Mechanics gives me some insight.

Here's to the future and what it will bring.

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One thing that I noticed about the stats for this site when I first came across it was how high the number of registered users and visits is, compared with the number of active users and questions.

For some time, I felt the site had either picked up some bad stats, or was in the final stages of fading away. I think things are a little more normal now though.

It seems that we still have a bit of a problem with becoming sticky for lots of users. We're at 151 200 rep users (out of 10k), and IoT is at 149 out of 7k, so it seems maybe we're not too far apart. The big difference seems to be the number of views. 1.2k per day on IoT, and 2.8k here (maybe expected since views depend on visibility of the site spreading over time).

Are people really coming here and finding answers to their questions? Are they coming here and asking a single question? Are we on the wrong end of cheap printers with poor support, holding back the really interesting questions?

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  • $\begingroup$ Talking about my own case, I know that I'm not really looking for answers here as I have an Ultimaker and they have a very active community on their forums. They got a handful of very active people on there, mostly users but also a few employees, who reply to most question in the same day or so, and the forums is a trove of answer. Plus the fact that they have forums in languages other than english means that not many people who own an ultimaker or use cura will look elsewhere for answers to their questions. $\endgroup$ – Sava Nov 7 '18 at 1:19
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    $\begingroup$ Are we on the wrong end of cheap printers with poor support ... Lately we are bombarded with questions on the Enders... poor printer quality on poor support leads them to this site I guess. $\endgroup$ – 0scar Mod Feb 2 at 12:21

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