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The visits per day and questions per day have been steadily dropping since day one.

While the questions per day drop is to be expected, and normal, the visits per day is falling a little too fast.

So, what should we do to get more people visiting the site? What can we ourselves do to handle this?

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  • Isn't it a bit too early to worry? I mean, if it was public beta, fine. But I wouldn't expect another thing in private beta. If someone wants to educate me about the point having a private beta.
    – adrelanos
    Sep 29, 2013 at 17:36
  • 1
    @adrelanos A private beta should have sufficient activity for it to be considered a viable site, and go into public beta. Usually, a review is done by the Community Team after 6-7 days, and then after another 4-5 days, after which the site either goes public or is closed. Currently, the visits/day metric is dropping very quickly and if it goes below 100 which may happen in a day or two at the current rate, then the site is usually considered unviable. Over 200 people signed up, and less than 100 visit it every day, means that there isn't enough interest in the site for it to be kept up.
    – asheeshr
    Sep 29, 2013 at 17:41
  • Also, these metrics and thresholds have been developed by SE over years of experience with 100+ communities, and hence these are generally accurate indicators of site growth. So, no, its not too early to worry. There is a pretty urgent need to get people who are really interested in Tor to participate and turn this beta into a success.
    – asheeshr
    Sep 29, 2013 at 17:43
  • 1
    This question is now outdated because we are no longer in private beta. To focus on promoting this site now being in public beta deserves a new discussion.
    – adrelanos
    Oct 2, 2013 at 16:04
  • Duplicate of How do we promote our site? Oct 5, 2013 at 19:28
  • I found it because of Google. I am on a bunch of other SE sites and didnt know this one existed until I asked the right question and found the answer here. This is a great database. IT WILL WORK BY ATTRACTION RATHER BY PROMOTION.
    – SDsolar
    Nov 25, 2017 at 4:10

2 Answers 2

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There are a few things that each of us can do:

  • Visit the site at least once, daily.

  • Invite your friends, family, colleagues, neighbours and anybody whom you think may be interested in Tor to participate on the site. Even if they don't ask or answer, they can contribute in other ways by voting and improving content.

    You can use the invite experts interface for this.

    Dont think of this as just for experts as the title suggests, but for anybody of any expertise level. Moreover, you never know who may end up liking the site and start participating :)

  • Use social media to find interested users. DONT share site links, just mention the site. If and when anyone responds, you can then send an invite.

  • Lets get more of the Tor contributors on the site. They will be highly likely to generate good content.

  • Lastly, keep asking (well-written) questions! Off or on-topic is not a big issue at the moment. Even if your question does get closed, it will help make the site definition more clearer.

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  • 1
    I'd advise against sending out mass invitations at this point in the site's development. In beta, especially private beta, it's crucial to focus on getting high-quality questions so that experts show up and think the site is worthy of their time/participation. Getting a lot of views and votes from well-meaning friends who don't know much about Tor could cause people who really do know their stuff to think this site isn't worth revisiting because the users don't know what they're talking about.
    – Pops
    Sep 30, 2013 at 16:27
  • @pops - I agree quality is more important, but there are examples of sites closed because they "didn't have enough activity during the beta", such as Astronomy SE and Firearms SE, whereas Freelance Workers SE was explicitly closed because it "lacked enough high-quality content to launch the site from private beta". Would it be better to advise folks to invite people, but only the experts? Hope this helps! :)
    – jmort253
    Oct 1, 2013 at 2:57
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    @jmort253 Yep, invite all the experts you can find! That's really what I meant by the original comment, though I see now that my phrase "mass invitations" was unclear. I understand the problem you're trying to solve, but from a "do we keep this site around" perspective, having a lot of low-quality content is just as bad as not having enough content... maybe even worse.
    – Pops
    Oct 1, 2013 at 3:35
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Yeah, I noticed that things seem to be losing steam.

I sent mail to the tor-dev list, to try to get some more developers and researchers involved. But I haven't gotten many bites yet. (But it is a Saturday night...)

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