StackExchange is the reddit of Q and A. You can find just about anything, and even start a new one if you find it's missing. The important part is answer percentages, quality of answers and the behaviour of people. StackExchange websites generally excel at that.
Stack Exchange has had over 100,000+ communities started in some form, but there are only 162 that made it and still exist, so while it's true they're very good at doing Q&A for some topics, they've failed at the majority of them.
That's not SE's failure. SE has a fairly rigorous filtering process for judging whether a Q&A community is likely to survive.
Filtering out hundreds, if not thousands, of community ideas that will never get off the ground isn't failure on their part, it's the failure of these communities to reach a critical mass to be successful.
Once a Q&A idea makes it past "Area51"[0] and enters beta, which is still no guarantee of graduating to a fully launched and themed site, the SE team do actively nurture these communities to try and make them successful.
Where did you get the 100,000+ number from? I don't think there were more than a few dozen sites that were created in the Stack Exchange Area 51 process that were closed down. If you count Stack Exchange 1.0 sites when they licensed the software to other communities, there are probably a few hundred more. But I don't see how you could arrive at 100,000.
The ID you're looking at isn't just for proposals, it's used for every post on the A51 site. So this number doesn't mean there were 100,000 proposals.
And most proposals are seriously terrible and never attract more than a handful of users. Even the real number of proposals on A51 wouldn't mean all that much.
You're right, for example ID 7 is a question, linked to proposal ID 4 - and you can't even iterate over the IDs to get a count, since it appears they delete the questions with the proposals, but list the deleted URL as a proposal.
You can search for "closed:1" in the search box and that apparently lists all the closed proposals. That search returns 59 proposals that were suggested then closed.
However there seems to be two types of "Closed". I'd also search for just "closed" and in the results there are proposals with a grey box and the word "Closed" which aren't in the "closed:1" results. There's eleven of those. So over time it appears there's been 70 or so proposals suggested that never made it to beta launch.
There may be more that age, eventually fall off the front end and are "deleted" and possibly not visible to low rep users, much in the same way the rest of the sites work, i.e. you need at least 10k to be able to see deleted posts [0]. I've only got 1350 rep in Area51 so there may be very old deleted proposals I can't see.
10k is the rep SO requires to access mid tool, the rep required per SE varies based on the reps of the users with the most reps; SO has the highest rep users of all the SE sites. For example, 2k is the rep require on this SE:
Area51 doesn't appear to allow users to access the mod tools; might be wrong, but the URL pattern to view the rep required to access. If tools works on most SE sites, but it doesn't work on Area51.
> Area51 doesn't appear to allow users to access the mod tools
From what I've read in meta.SE and discussion.area51, the current running codebase is kind of a fork of the original SO code (call it v1) so is quite old and isn't getting features backported to it (such as the mod tools):
I haven't been able to find any recent mentions of what the future holds for Area51. I guess a follow up question to "What's going on with Area 51" might now hurt and could elicit new information.
Robert knows Area 51 isn't working, but given there's no other way to launch an SE users use it and SE as a result doesn't replace it because they're not interested in the long tail of active Q&A communities; last I checked, it takes them months, if not years to move a site from beta to live even after the community mets SE's requirements.
Basically, SE changed their past policies to avoid building Area 52 and SE has no idea what a working Area 52 would be.
If you want an SE, you've got to understand how Area 51 works, get all of your ducks in a row, then roll through it and the beta; otherwise your just asking for problems and leaving it up to SE to help, which is problematic.
To me, the more interesting question would be what are the numbers since launch for Area 51's launch funnel; that is from submitting a proposal, de-duplicating it, (etc), site leaves beta.
Thanks for the offer Shog, stopped using SE/A51 years ago and as is, already have a pretty strong opinion of A51.
My suggestion/request would be to just have SE post a request request for proposal to replace A51 on the main SE blog, since SE has had years to do so, has not, and positive the community would find a better solution.
There's a longer answer here than I have time to compose, but the summary is simply that we long ago abandoned the idea that A Big Rewrite was a good idea. Instead, we've been making numerous small tweaks to how Area51 operates, adjusting based on outcome, for roughly the past 4 years.
As such, the core philosophy (and bulk of the code) behind it is still more or less the same, but how proposals actually behave has changed dramatically.
We've also made significant changes to the lifecycle of sites after they're created, which you can find discussed on Meta Stack Exchange:
Yes, aware of the changes, though to me, A51 is flawed from onboarding proposals to launching a final site.
All and all, this was one of many reasons I left, the largest being that communities in my opinion should be based around tags, not verticals; tags are in fact in my opinion how SO is run.
there was a short amount of time where anyone could create their own Stack Exchange site, but they ended up cancelling that scheme and carefully selected ones to be created now via Area51
So users can submit questions that our team researches and adds to the knowledge bank. In addition, we have writers that contribute content to the newsfeed based on common questions we receive. So consider it an case-by-case, moderated Stack Overflow. Given the privacy considerations, we wanted to keep any questions anonymous.
Are good immigration lawyers doing the research? Do you want to handing out information? If your information turns out to be wrong, the consequences could be very serious.
Yes, I'm aware of the relationship, I just didn't think it was necessary to go into detail about it. The point is, the tag line is confusing since there is something else it could be referring to.
Stack Overflow might not be the best comparison; it doesn't look like this app lets a user post questions or indeed interact with a community of any kind. It's more of a consolidation of resources designed to help immigrants.
That being said, this does look potentially useful.
A couple questions: who's curating the newsfeed? Where does the data in the FAQ section come from?
The newsfeed is curated from our blog via RSS (www.arrived.us/blog). The data in FAQ comes from expert interviews, NGO pamphlets, government sites, immigrant suggestions, and tips from the consular officials.
Agreed. Does not say anything about being able to post or being able to interact. I wonder what the add situation is like on that app. Can't decide if someone wants to help get info out or if they are capitalizing on the current situation
Why is this (apparently) just an app? I'd much rather have a mobile web site that I can read on any of my devices and not have to install an app on my phone to use it.
If StackOverflow were only available as an app, it'd be much much less useful.
For the majority of Hispanic immigrants, smartphones are their only computing device. I'm a believer than an app always outdoes a "mobile-friendly" site. Also an app lets you require a user to sign a ToS once after installation without requiring accounts. For a website it's not as seamless.
> Also an app lets you require a user to sign a ToS once after installation without requiring accounts. For a website it's not as seamless.
Huh? I don't think I've ever visited a purely informational website (like this one apparently is) that required me to sign a ToS just to view it. You just click the link, read whatever information you came for, and leave when you're done. That's far more "seamless" than having to install an app before you can do anything.
I think the point is that they want to get users to sign the TOS. Probably for liability reasons due to the legal & sensitive nature of the information.
> I suspect the real reason people keep pushing apps is they are much more monetizable rather than taking the user into account.
Exactly. With an app you get full control over the users experience. No adblockers, no tracker disabling extensions (e.g., Privacy Badger), none of the benefits of a simple website. What about immigrants who can't afford a smartphone and use a computer at a public library?
If you want to be seen as the StackOverflow of immigration, providing an Android/IOS-only experience instead of simply requiring a modern web browser is either short sighted or suspicious — why do you need people to install your software?
> I'm a believer than an app always outdoes a "mobile-friendly" site.
On the other hand, the website is available on all platforms. An app is typically only available on whatever platform(s) the creator thinks is/are most valuable.
To protect ourselves. While we do not offer legal advice per se, we do explain how removal proceedings, visa processes, and other sensitive topics work . Given how quickly immigration policy changes, the ToS allows us to say that info is provided as-is.
Only giving this very minor and not-useful feedback because you say "The Stack Overflow" for and I make Stack Overflow's mobile apps:
This app is a good idea. It'd look a lot more professional and believable if it had some minor changes like "Don't have the selected tab's text color be black on navy blue", or "give your list items consistent margin and padding".
We launched back in July because we felt tech could scale the great resources and tips shared in guides, forums, and in-person visits to NGOs. Given we are a team primarily of immigrants, we also wanted to combat the xenophobia in this country.
iOS is coming soon! Android headsets are cheaper and have a higher market share, and are therefore are more likely to be used by undocumented immigrants.
I think hughes's point was why isn't this just a website? (Which would work on all platforms, including iOS and desktop PCs, and would be searchable through Google.)
We want users to peruse the knowledge bank offline due to the cost of data and the potential that a detained or soon-to-be-detained immigrant may not have an internet connection.
The only android app I worked on that was more popular on android than iOS was predominantly used by people that identify as Hispanic as well as Black Women living in America.
It was a pregnancy information app. Extrapolate whatever you want.
Seconded. Having access to a huge community of people who were a little further along in the visa issue process made navigating it much, much easier. Little stuff like "oh, they're now requiring 2 passport photos instead of 1 and the consular website hasn't been updated everywhere yet" saved a ton of pain.
It was also really nice to see almost in real time how long processing was taking, because you could see when people ahead of you got their interviews scheduled and guess how long you had left.
http://candleforlove.com/forums/ is also very good. Those two sites together have enough information for a person to educate themselves enough in the visa process to do all the work themselves. For marriage and fiancee visas, if the couple is not high risk (previous denials or red flags like short courtship of a high age difference couple) completing the paperwork yourself can be very straight forward.
I did the paperwork for my wife to get her a k1 visa. Cost only a few thousand dollars in filing fees an a good amount of time preparing all the documents. It is a little frustrating that you put so much effort into the documents then they are simply looked at a bit and stamped. My wife reported that during her interview the officer looked at the papers we put together for a minute. Said, looks good and stamped them. 5 minutes total, while people before her had much more lengthy discussions.
As an immigrant I like the idea of having this information on my phone, especially during border crossings.
- under Learn > Emergency I would love to see a section on "What should I do/say if I'm detained at a border crossing"
- the See section responds slowly then crashes on my device (Nexus 5X), possibly because I denied the Location permission and it showed the entire map
- I'm not sure if denying the Location permission removed information from the Learn section
- You've marketed it at the Stack Overflow for US immigration, but there doesn't seem to be a way to ask questions or provide answers to others. Is this coming soon or not planned?
We have a section on physical/digital security when crossing through high-risk borders in Umbrella App (our stuff is open source and Creative Commons so people should feel free to reuse it):
1) We'll add that in the next release. Thanks.
2) That's entirely likely. I realize the location part is sensitive, but we want to show you immediately the closest NGOs and sanctuary cities.
3) No, it doesn't.
4) We accept submissions via email, Twitter, and FB that we then research and vet with experts. We're planning an anonymous forum as well in the future.
There's nothing wrong with a site that says "we can answer typical questions about A, B, and C, but we can't answer questions that require legal advice, so please don't ask those or we'll close them". That's how they handle it at the Workplace SE site.
http://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/usa+im...
This seems more like a knowledge base for US Immigration (particular since it doesn't look like you can post your own questions).