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Are we close to getting out of it?

I remember when it started private beta, the Ubuntu SE beta started around the same time, and now it's been out of it for a few weeks.

What are we waiting for? I'm just curious, not trying to push anyone to work faster or harder.

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Very soon! I just made a post on the design ideas for the site.

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  • I like the new design, it's really nice :)
    – Johan
    Commented Nov 12, 2010 at 7:43
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[here be 99% accurate crystal ball predictions]

I'd venture a guess that we're close to leaving beta. Tex.SE currently gets two Excellent scores on area51 (on number of users and percentage answered questions) -- and by a large margin. Two stats are close behind (number of questions and visits/day). Of those, the visits/day stat has been climbing steadily for the last few weeks. We used to have excellent rating in "average answers per question", but fell behind by a small bit. FWIW, this last stat is probably not very applicable to TeX.SE, where there's usually one preferred way to skin a particular cat (unlike, say, programmers.SE or gaming.SE).

So, I'm fairly convinced we're going to launch in a few weeks. (At least, I hope so!)

Update: The Powers That Be said that

There’s no harm in staying in public beta far beyond the initial 90 days, so long as the quality of the Q&A is high and it’s not a ghost town.

We have extraordinary signal-to-noise ratio (in a highly-scientifique experiment, I counted only 55 or so questions of zero or less score (some of those are just too obscure to get upvoted), and answers are rarely voted down -- because they are relevant. TeX.SE is not attractive to spammers, promoters and vandals -- seriously, what can you sell to {Con|La|Lua}TeX{t} users?

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    "[...] seriously, what can you sell to {Con|La|Lua}TeX{t} users?" I don't know, maybe printers?
    – levesque
    Commented Nov 9, 2010 at 15:39
  • @JCL Wait, your university doesn't provide printing for free or at dirt-cheap prices, available 24/7?
    – Martin Tapankov
    Commented Nov 9, 2010 at 15:41
  • Just try searching for “latex” with your favorite search engine and see what ads come up ;). The actual search results are usually pretty accurate nowadays though.
    – Caramdir
    Commented Nov 9, 2010 at 16:20
  • Haha, yeah, I was sort of joking. I get printing for free, and 8 cents a page certainly ain't too expansive for undergrads. @Caramir: latex on google doesn't return any ads :P (or sponsored links)
    – levesque
    Commented Nov 9, 2010 at 20:22
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More futurology...

This site is ready to go live, and I'm guessing that it is between GIS and this site as to which will be next:

  1. GIS is solid, but it lies behind us in terms of the profile of higher rep. users. It may be the case that the SX team want to hold GIS back a little more before unleashing it.
  2. Home improvement sits between GIS and us in terms of reputation profile, but they have a very low number of hits per day. Maybe that doesn't bother them, maybe they want to launch sites that will make a bit more of a splash before.
  3. The rate that sites go through is limited by tasks the SX team must do for each launch, most importantly graphic design.
  4. Ubuntu was an exceptionally strong proposal, and deserved to get through quickly.

My poorly justified prediction: we'll be launched by the end of the week, as will GIS.

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