[okfn-labs] Fwd: [open-data-day] Open Data Stack Exchange

Wed Apr 24 14:59:06 UTC 2013

The private beta for the Open Data stack exchange is going to open soon, it's
hit 100% <http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/51674/open-data>. I
hope we can all make it an international forum.

Steve Kallestad posted an excellent
expectation-setter<https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/sunlightlabs/nMHzRu7RIm4>to
the sunlightlabs list yesterday about what it will take for this to
succeed, that I'd like to reproduce here:

I participated in the Big Data private beta for stack exchange and it
didn't go so well the first time.  I thought I'd share a little bit here
since the Open Data stack exchange is very close to Beta right now (needs 5
more users with 200+ reputation at any Stack Exchange site) and currently
listed as the Hottest Proposal.

The first thing I'd like to point out is that we should be very minimally
restrictive with questions that get asked.  If people get questions
rejected right off the bat or if they aren't sure what is appropriate their
participation will fade quickly.  Stack Exchange pushes community
moderation pretty hard, and with a big site like Stack Overflow it's
important because of all the traffic.  With a smaller site, and especially
a closed beta, you can't afford to alienate people.

There are a set of goals that a site must reach to get past Beta and turn
into a live site.   You need to average 15 questions per day.  There are a
lot of proposed questions in Area 51.   We need to get those questions into
the live site.  We need to have 90% answered questions.  If a question is
open for too long without an answer, anybody should try google and at least
come up with a helpful search result or a starting point that can work.

150 users should have 200+ reputation, 10 with 2000+ reputation, 5 with
3000+ reputation.  That's all about participation.  Ask questions, answer
questions, edit typos, read the FAQ, etc. and you get points.  With Big
Data there were 300 people, but only about 9 or 10 active users.  We need a
lot of people to actively participate.  If there is a lot of activity, the
repuation points will just happen.

A ratio of 2.5 answers per question is a goal.  Even if someone answered a
question well, putting up an alternative answer is important too.

1500 visits per day across the user base is required.  That's stopping in
10 times / day for each of 150 users.  Just a quick click and check in
looking for new questions.  That's a pretty high number to achieve, but if
the site is going to go live, Stack Exchange needs to be sure that when
people show up to ask questions they won't be met with a site with nobody
else participating.

It sounds like a lot of work, but really it's just asking a few questions
that are relevant, answering, and clicking the upvote button a few times.
The end result is that more people will become aware of the Open Data
efforts like this one, more independent analysis will occur, and more
people will be able to help us do what we do.

Get ready - I have to imagine that Open Data will get the necessary 5 more
users will join within the next several days.

On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 10:35 AM, Eric Mill <eric at sunlightfoundation.com>wrote:

> This new proposal is only biased by accident - the initial energy came
> from US people, so the original questions focus on US issues - and doesn't
> need to stay that way. That bias will disappear with international
> participation.
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 8:27 AM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>wrote:
>
>> On 19 April 2013 13:20, Tom Morris <tfmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 8:00 AM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I was a follower, a questioner and a committer on this one and this
>> >> (older) proposal just on "data":
>> >>
>> >> http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/37195/data
>> >
>> > That proposal seems less biased than the current one.  Any idea why it
>> > failed?  The current one appears to be not only focused solely on the
>> > U.S., but U.S. *government* data only, which seems like a very small
>> > niche to organize a StackOverflow forum around.
>>
>> The original proposal hasn't yet failed but it seems to have got
>> overtaken by the recent spurt on the open data one. personally i would
>> be happy with either (but open data one would be sort of nice - no
>> doubt there will still be generic questions but there'll be a nice
>> "open" bias ;-))
>>
>> In terms of subject matter I agree re current bias re US and US gov
>> data ;-) but i think that may be just an artefact of the initial round
>> of question suggestion (and participants) and believe it is supposed
>> to be all "open data".
>>
>> Rufus
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Developer | sunlightfoundation.com
>

-- 
Developer | sunlightfoundation.com
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