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For those not in the know, an older, now defunct 3d graphics.SE never made it out of private beta.

What can we do to make sure Blender.SE has the best chance of at least making it out of private beta?

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    $\begingroup$ Its been only a couple hours and we have nearly half of what they had after 33 days! It's a good start! $\endgroup$
    – iKlsR
    May 22, 2013 at 23:56
  • $\begingroup$ @iKlsR, How did you check that? $\endgroup$
    – Daniel
    May 23, 2013 at 0:12
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    $\begingroup$ @DantheMan in the link in the question above, it said they had 177 users after 33 days. I go to new users on our site and see that the newest one is 60. $\endgroup$
    – iKlsR
    May 23, 2013 at 0:14
  • $\begingroup$ Is it something we do, or does it happen because of the need and objective popularity(and better focus) of subject? $\endgroup$
    – JNF
    May 23, 2013 at 21:29

3 Answers 3

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There are several variables involved but the major one is publicity. Even in our commitment phase which took nearly a year, I myself had no idea of it until I randomly stumbled across it. What we need is publicity. IIRC every Blender release totals around at least 200k downloads which means that there are lots of people out there, people who want to learn.

My main suggestion is to share the site wherever and whenever you can, tweet a well written question or answer you found useful and or share a new tip or trick you learnt via your social and personal pages. Invite or tell a friend.

This site is a refreshing take on Q&A and Blender in general. It also helps us to stretch ourselves from dusty IRC channels and lengthy confusing forum threads. Lets make this into a great community!

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    $\begingroup$ One of the problems I've faced with publicity is an antagonistic community. Even Blender Nation's editor refused to report about this site when I suggested it. $\endgroup$ May 23, 2013 at 1:46
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    $\begingroup$ @RolandiXor if we can't go big, we can at least start small. :) Several prominent persons in the community and a few developers are already here.. so lets see what happens. $\endgroup$
    – iKlsR
    May 23, 2013 at 1:51
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    $\begingroup$ To help with publicity I'm happy to help promote it across the Blender Cookie facebook and twitter. $\endgroup$ May 23, 2013 at 4:39
  • $\begingroup$ @JonathanWilliamson That's awesome! What do you think about hosting a scheduled chat with us once we get into public beta? $\endgroup$
    – Daniel
    May 24, 2013 at 23:09
  • $\begingroup$ @DantheMan sure I'm game. Shoot me an email via jonathan (at) cgcookie.com $\endgroup$ May 25, 2013 at 5:10
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Voting is important.

It feeds one of the stats on the Area 51 site (Avid users) which is used to determine how well this site is doing and whether to keep it running.

If a question receives a lot of votes and/or comments, it can end up in the "Supercolider" which is the "Hot questions" section of the main dropdown at the top of each page. This brings a lot of users to that question from other parts of StackExchange. I don't know if this happens during the public beta (and it certainly won't during the private beta) but when it does, even obscure questions can end up with hundreds of votes and dozens of answers.

Voting also encourages new users to contribute more by "rewarding" them.

Voting is also important in the long-term. Once the site is well established, the votes on the answers is how people who find a question through search engines can tell which answer is the best.

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  • $\begingroup$ Ah yes, I saw a question there this one time. Said question now has over 3k views. $\endgroup$
    – iKlsR
    Jun 15, 2013 at 14:52
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Another important difference with the 3D graphics SE is that the Blender SE is more specific. It is about one program instead of a whole area. It's hard to see as a user of the 3D graphics SE which subjects are in the scope of the site and which aren't.

Therefor i think that a specific Blender SE has a lot more potential and change of success than the 3D graphics SE.

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    $\begingroup$ It did work for 'stack overflow' though. $\endgroup$
    – Wolter
    Jun 10, 2013 at 14:11

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