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The current site statistics can be found here:

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/45128/puzzling

[UPDATE:

PREVIOUSLY WE HAD 4/5 EXCELLENT STATS ON AREA 51 - NOW WE HAVE 5/5 EXCELLENT STATS, WE HAVE ACHIEVED A PEREFCT SCORE CARD. WHATEVER IT IS WE ARE DOING HERE WE MUST KEEP ON DOING - GOOD WORK TEAM]

Currently we are getting a score of "excellent" in 5/5!.

So congratulations all on the excellent job so far and keep up the good work.

Note that these stats are not something we should be aiming for directly, but I believe these statistics are a reflection of the high quality answers and questions we have been creating so far.

Also let's continue with up voting high quality questions and thinking up interesting puzzles - both of which will keep people coming back.

Also check out our stats here:

https://www.quantcast.com/puzzling.stackexchange.com?country=GLOBAL

Notice our traffic has increased dramatically in the past month so, and even more significantly within the past few days. So whatever we have been doing recently (which I think has included a lot of partying ;)) has definitely been working.

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    $\begingroup$ Could the downvoter please explain why the good work should stop? I understand that the stats are not something to aim for directly, but high stats like we have here are commendable because they show the site has got off to a good start. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 15, 2014 at 11:05
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    $\begingroup$ I noticed that the most recent gain was the average questions per day. They have been coming fairly thick and fast - good, interesting, creative (and mostly importantly, original) ones. The last category will soon be excellent too probably. $\endgroup$
    – d'alar'cop
    Commented Nov 15, 2014 at 12:54
  • $\begingroup$ it would be good to know how much difference that makes and what the process of getting out of beta is $\endgroup$
    – d'alar'cop
    Commented Nov 15, 2014 at 14:13
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    $\begingroup$ @d'alar'cop Progress is progress, and this is a very good sign for the viability of the site. But getting out of beta will absolutely involve quality over quantity. $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Commented Nov 15, 2014 at 20:04
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    $\begingroup$ Yep, the only reason we had this jump was because of the parties and spaghetti lol. $\endgroup$
    – warspyking
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 11:56
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    $\begingroup$ Good job! Yes, I have also been keeping an eye on this. Our visibility has been great. I have also noticed great improvements in quality lately (not that we have a clear definition of quality yet :p). $\endgroup$
    – d'alar'cop
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 0:57
  • $\begingroup$ Again: the stats on Area 51 are not everything that's relevant. Having 5/5 on Area 51 does not mean that the site is doing well, and vice versa. $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 23:56
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    $\begingroup$ @Gilles, there are descriptions for each of the stats categories on area51, each of which describe what is good for a "healthy" site. So therefore we can conclude that our site isn't unhealthy or we can conclude that you know more about a healthy site than the creators of area51. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 0:41
  • $\begingroup$ @Mew Yes, I do more about a healthy site than the creators of Area 51 did at the time. The stats shown on Area 51 haven't changed since the site creation process started. Of course the creators of Area 51 now know more than I do now, but so far they haven't translated that knowledge into more relevant Area 51 stats. $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 0:44
  • $\begingroup$ @Gilles, fair enough, but I still have to trust area51 more, even if you claim you know otherwise. If the creators of area51 have changed their view, they should update area51 and I have to assume they haven't changed their view until they update it accordingly. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 0:48
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    $\begingroup$ "So therefore we can conclude that our site isn't unhealthy" Uhhh... nope. Numbers cannot quantify the purely subjective parts of site health. Personally, I currently consider Puzzling one of the more... problematic sites, perhaps even on the verge of having to be closed and restarted from scratch. Regardless of what arbitrary stats say, we still have a long, long way to go. $\endgroup$
    – Doorknob Mod
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 2:28
  • $\begingroup$ @Doorknob, you only quoted part of the conclusion there. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 2:29
  • $\begingroup$ "you know more about a healthy site than the creators of area51" No, that's not a valid conclusion. The conclusion is "you know more about the site than a mechanical algorithm written years ago." Which is absolutely true, for most active users here and even most users elsewhere familiar with the Stack Exchange network. $\endgroup$
    – Doorknob Mod
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 2:33
  • $\begingroup$ @Doorknob, you can't expect me to believe they are so incredibly lazy that they can't simply update 5 dot points on area51 that would take under 10 minutes. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 2:35

3 Answers 3

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$\begingroup$

I get that you're encouraging us and congratulating us, but you neglect to mention all the negative sides that we have to work on.

Our site is becoming a site based on quantity more than quality! Answers are becoming worse and worse; partially due with non descriptive questions. Also a note to people; lateral-thinking DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING GOES.

Questions are losing meaning, slowly but surely we're getting more and more riddles and puzzles from other places, which in return make this a site with the sole purpose of holding a collection of riddles. I don't mind a riddle from somewhere else every now and then, but seriously this is too much.

The titles quality is even going down! Titles are less descriptive, and now we got a series trend going on creating a bunch of "X [Part n!]" titles. I don't know about you, but after the first part in the series, the title officially tells me nothing but the fact it's in a series.

There's more problems than that too.

My point is, it's alright to notify us of how good we are doing, but don't neglect to tell us how we can improve, we're not perfect.

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    $\begingroup$ I've decided to accept your answer because it puts our results into perspective. As you mention, our goal is quality, how will we know when we posting quality posts? What I consider a quality post may be completely different to someone else, so how will we know if the site as whole is achieving quality? $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 13:29
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    $\begingroup$ Quality is determined based on the fact that the question is well defined, it isn't based on opinion, and it is descriptive in my book. Feel free to call me a hypocrite to, I fall victim to the problems above also. $\endgroup$
    – warspyking
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 15:26
  • $\begingroup$ "Titles are becoming less descriptive." So fix them, and leave a polite note for the author (and every other user) to read. There are two ways to tackle SE problems: set up rules to make sure nothing can come in (hard to do and impossible to enforce) or set a good example (easy to do and self-enforcing). The reason the former is hard to do is because it's hard to get a hundred users to agree on anything. The latter is easy to do, because a hundred users all doing cleanup work is what SE was built for. $\endgroup$
    – Rainbolt
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 17:37
  • $\begingroup$ @Rainbolt That's not what I'm getting at. If they don't like it they can change it back, the idea though is that we shouldn't have to fix them. $\endgroup$
    – warspyking
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 17:41
  • $\begingroup$ @warspyking If the OP reverts to a poor title that the community doesn't like, then the community should downvote. The fact that these "series" titles are doing well tells me that the community hasn't been downvoting them. You are of course free to keep your attitude of "Let's set up a bunch of rules on meta, and then people will automatically follow them.", but your wrong and it won't change anything. $\endgroup$
    – Rainbolt
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 17:52
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This site has become quite popular to be sure. Popular like a a Miley Cirus video. Or like a train wreck.

Do we really need Yahoo! Puzzles on Stack Exchange?

In the past few weeks, this site has evolved away from Stack Exchange's core philosophy. It is no longer about answerable, searchable questions. It's become a brainteaser collection. It and a million others. Which even have readable answers.

There is a precedent for doing something different on Stack Exchange — Programming Puzzles and Code Golf. But PPCG has several redeeming features — it does seek to avoid duplicates, and it very strongly rewards original content. I don't know of any site like PPCG on the web, but sites like what Puzzling has become are a dime a dozen.

What good work is there here?

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    $\begingroup$ there are original creations and it's to the community to make sure the to separate the gold from the rest. also there are many sites providing tips and qa for java and programming but SO is a success. I think the comparison to yahoo or miley cyrus is a but unfair. some of the original creations are gold. unless even such puzzles are off topic (which may end up being the case), in which case this SE is worthless $\endgroup$
    – d'alar'cop
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:09
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    $\begingroup$ @Giles, do you have evidence to back up any of your claims. Sure there are some bad questions here, as there are on any other SE site, and there are some absolutely fantastic questions and answers here. Perhaps you could be a bit more rational in your analysis of this site's performance if you want people to take your comment seriously - linking to a few meta posts that link to one or two questions anecdotally doesn't quite cut it. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:19
  • $\begingroup$ @Mew For which claim? What's wrong with my links? $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:41
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    $\begingroup$ @d'alar'cop I agree that SE is not right for what this site has become. $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:42
  • $\begingroup$ what was it ever to be sir? $\endgroup$
    – d'alar'cop
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:42
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    $\begingroup$ @Gilles, the claim that the site is no longer about answerable, searchable questions, and you likening its popularity to being infamous rather than being of high quality. Your links to do not provide evidence for your claims about the site, with only a handful of questions being linked to. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:42
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    $\begingroup$ @d'alar'cop It started out as a question and answer site about puzzles. It has become a site for posting puzzles and collecting answers. $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:44
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    $\begingroup$ @Gilles, the site has evolved, yes - but that doesn't make it against the philosophy of stack exchange. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:44
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    $\begingroup$ @Mew As shown in the threads I link to, this site favors titles that do not give information about the topic of the question. That's a big blow to searchability. I quote train wrecks as an example to show that popularity is not correlated to quality, not to show a negative correlation. And how is making threads non-searchable in keeping with the philosophy of Stack Exchange? $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:46
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    $\begingroup$ @Gilles, Unlike what you mention in your answer, this site's popularity is nothing like the popularity of Miley Cyrus's controversial videos, it is popular because people enjoy learning more about the art of puzzle solving. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:48
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    $\begingroup$ @Mew How do you figure? I don't think that the gain in popularity of this site is related to anybody enjoying learning about the art of puzzle solving. However I have no data about people's motivations, so I left that out. $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:55
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    $\begingroup$ @Gilles, code golf also has many non searchable questions, like hundreds of "crossword" questions, so I hope you are raising the same issues over there. Or is it because of the so called "redeemable features" that you let them off the hook? There are many redeemable features here that I and many of the other major contributers here understand, which is why my post has 9 upvotes. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:55
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    $\begingroup$ @Mew I'm sure other sites have problems. Hell, I know other sites have problems. I don't go around other sites saying “oh, Puzzling is worse so let's not fix any of our problems”. $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:57
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    $\begingroup$ @Gilles, yes we have our problems, but that doesn't mean we can't acknowledge our successes which is what my initial post here is about. Feel free to make your own separate posts about our failures, no need to derail a discussion about our successes, by attributing our success (in this case popularity) to being an infamous for poor quality. It's just uncalled for, which is why you're on -2 votes. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 10:58
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    $\begingroup$ @Mew But this thread is not about a success. My answer is perfectly on-topic. You don't have to like it, I don't mind. $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 11:01
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I think you're taking it wrong the way.

For the site to truly succeed in beta and make its way as a permanent site, we need to enforce QUALITY over QUANTITY. What you're asking of us:

Also let's continue with generous up votes and lots of interesting questions - both of which will keep people coming back, and may help us reach a 5/5 "excellent" score card.

We are not a Reddit site. These upvotes or downvotes are not to show popularity, but to show QUALITY in a question. Asking users to be generous with upvotes removes the entire concept of them, which is to ONLY REWARD good questions. WE are not to reward bad questions, bad answers, etc. WE want this site to become a high-quality source and hub for puzzle enthusiasts of varying levels.

You can have plenty of votes, but a small, but good portion of core users here are starting to see there are still a lot of issues that need to be ironed out.

If you want this site to be approved, the SE team needs to see that this site has potential and won't become Y! Answers.

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    $\begingroup$ I think your missing the point - The point is that the site is succeeding because of its high quality and I want to congratulate all the users who have helped by contributing to the site with such quality, allowing it to become so great. The current success of the site has lead to high site participation rate and many new people are now being attracted to the site because of the quality of the questions and answers and everyone who has contributed deserved a pat on the back. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 7:45
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    $\begingroup$ You're getting a high influx of questions and answers. I don't mind you congratulating, but encouraging bad behavior like "let's just upvote everything like crazy so we can get out of beta as quick as possiblee" is taking the wrong approach. You're also clearly not seeing the bigger picture, the declining answer quality. I like the new amount of OC we're seeing on here, I just don't like how the answer quality is dwindling, and you can tell from other meta posts others agree with me as well. $\endgroup$
    – yuritsuki
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 7:48
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    $\begingroup$ Nice strawman argument. I never said upvote everything like crazy, nor did I say I want to get out of beta as soon as possible. It's a long road yet before that happens mate. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 7:49
  • $\begingroup$ "Also let's continue with generous up votes and lots of interesting questions - both of which will keep people coming back, and may help us reach a 5/5 "excellent" score card." You don't say "why we should give out generous upvotes", but you encourage the behavior REGARDLESS of anything else. Sorry, confused you with d'ala'cop, mistook his comment as something you wrote. $\endgroup$
    – yuritsuki
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 7:49
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    $\begingroup$ I'm not going to tell people what they can and can't upvote. But I do believe that if people like a question they should upvote it because that is how we can encourage high quality and participation. I don't think people are going to upvote bad questions just because I encourage voting. It goes without saying that only good question should be upvoted. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 7:51
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    $\begingroup$ Personally, I don't think you should point out the site is doing well without pointing out that we still have many things to improve on. Letting everyone else know that we're doing perfect, and the road that we're on is perfectly okay will only delude users into thinking what they're doing right now is acceptable. $\endgroup$
    – yuritsuki
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 7:57
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    $\begingroup$ Don't you think jumping from 10,000 visits per day to over 50,000 visits per day within a week is an amazing feat that should be acknowledged - and warants an inspection of what we have been doing lately that has caused the popularity to skyrocket? Sure there are ways the site could be improved, but feel free to make another thread on that. I believe in evidence based practice rather than ideology, and therefore I think if we have skyrocketed participation within the week, screw ideology and look at what we've been doing this week and keep replicating it. $\endgroup$
    – Kenshin
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 8:05
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    $\begingroup$ hi, I agree with @Mew and I have no idea what you're talking about regarding my comment. please reread $\endgroup$
    – d'alar'cop
    Commented Nov 16, 2014 at 9:37
  • $\begingroup$ @Gilles posting views per day means nothing. Posting garbage, as real life has taught us, can still easily get you tons of views, and has quality changed? Not at all. We refer to those kinds of things as "clickbait". And if you have no bloody idea what I'm talking about, I would suggest you read The Sun. $\endgroup$
    – yuritsuki
    Commented Nov 22, 2014 at 0:37

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