Area 51 says:
90% answered is a healthy beta, 80% answered needs some work. In the beta
We are far from 90% . How do we tackle that?
Area 51 says:
90% answered is a healthy beta, 80% answered needs some work. In the beta
We are far from 90% . How do we tackle that?
The statistics and ranges on Area 51 were set almost a decade ago, under a very different idea of how launching sites would work (among other things, the idea was that every site would reach Stack Overflow levels of popularity and traffic). The actual ranges that matter for these numbers:
No. We should not concern us with these statistics right now (if ever). It is more important to figure out which questions are on topic, and which are not, because this will influence the way the site works the most. For this we need questions, plenty of them. If, by the end of the year our answer ratio isn't where we want it, we need to figure out a way to deal with that. But let's burn the bridge once we've passed it.
Right now, this is a small, but determined community, as of now 32 people have obtained precognitive. We should focus, although I have no idea how to do that, on getting the remaining commitors to the boat.
We can focus on answering the un-answered questions, which might be difficult, because these are expert-level questions which require a lot of time and careful thought, so they won't just be answered overnight.
Alternatively we can focus on raising awareness about this site, now that it exists! Then as we get 100s of expert users joining, all of the statistics can improve organically :)
I would just like to give an update now that about 10 days have passed since the question was asked.
When the question was asked, 61% of the questions had been answered, and we had still only finished 1 full day of Private Beta. Before the second full day of Private Beta went finished, we were up to 66%. By the end of the 4th day we were at 69%, and we've been at at least 70% on each day since then (sorry that the second image is a bit bigger than the rest, it's because I took the screenshot using landscape instead of portrait, on my phone):
This increase from 61% to 73% was despite everyone here saying not to worry about the answer percentage: None of us "tried" to purposely bring these numbers up (especially me: I told myself I'd spend my energy more on asking questions than answering them, and I told all my friends to do the same too, but somehow I ended up answering 9 questions and only asking 6, because to my surprise, many questions came up that I didn't foresee coming, which I genuinely wanted to answer!).
I do feel it would be nice to have 90% of the questions answered, but Mark and Martin know Stack Exchange much more than me, and they are suggesting that we shouldn't be too fussed about it. At present, people are not advertising the site as much as they would if the site were Public, so it is expected that our answer percentage will not be as high now as it will after a week in Public Beta.
Also, keep in mind this is an SE on an expert topic, much different from other science SEs like Chem.SE and Physics.SE which cover general subjects that are taught in elementary school, high school, and undergraduate-level university. We won't get homework questions from students, instead we get research-level questions from researchers, which take a bit more time to solve, which means answers will lag behind questions, so we will never get close to 100%, as long as questions keep being asked and answers keep taking a couple weeks to arrive (which is perfectly okay).
More than 60% of the committers listed themselves as Experts or Academics:
Compared to only 11% on the most recent site to graduate out of Private beta (Drones.SE):
So the questions are mainly coming from academics or experts, and can take more time to get answers, so a 73% answer percentage is actually very good in my opinion, and if my hopes come true it will get even better once we enter Public Beta.