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I'm completely confused about what conditions need to be fulfilled to graduate a site such as Puzzling SE. Here are some possible answers:

1. Good stats

According to Area 51 stats, all conditions are 'excellent', except for questions per day (9.4 for us, 10 is healthy), which should get resolved in 2-3 months at most.

2. These essential questions

For one, I guess the experienced users are pretty clear about which tags to use where, and questions with bad tagging get edited. Little confusion about synonyms will always be there. (For example, until some time back, there was confusion on tag clarification for probability and probability-theory at Math SE, which had thousands of questions)

Second, I agree that we may have to do more to promote the site outside, but then, I have no idea how I could help. For example, if I share a link to this site on facebook, barely 3-4 people would bother to sign up (and still may not produce good-quality posts).

As for stuff such as logo and elevator pitch, it shouldn't take us more than 2-3 weeks to decide such things, if the mods (on our site, or main meta) actively request us to look at them.

3. Enough rep on the site

Once we are out of beta, the rep required for privileges increases. For example, a trusted user will require 10k rep, not 4k, so we will have to wait till we have a few users above 10k. This, again will happen in 2-3 months time.

So, ... when do we graduate? Will it be within a year of beta (298 done so far), or will it take more time?

Side question: Who decides to graduate us, the mods on meta or the SE staff?

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    $\begingroup$ Don't have time to answer now, but rest assured it's not going to be any time soon. We still have many, many problems to solve. $\endgroup$ – Doorknob Mar 9 '15 at 18:50
  • $\begingroup$ This list from last summer represented the queue at the time. Since then, the first two sites have completed graduation (the second one just back in January), and I don't think the third has visibly started yet. So figure that one site graduates per quarter, at best. $\endgroup$ – Bobson Mar 9 '15 at 23:44
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    $\begingroup$ @Bobson Movies has graduated as well, I think $\endgroup$ – Rand al'Thor Mar 10 '15 at 0:52
  • $\begingroup$ @randal'thor - You're right. So clearly they're not going in that order any more. $\endgroup$ – Bobson Mar 10 '15 at 15:00
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    $\begingroup$ "a few users above 10k in 2-3 months time" - there's nothing like competition to stimulate success! ;-) Unfortunately I think Gamow, xnor, warspyking, and I are the only "trusted users" still active on the site (and warspyking has produced more bad content than good). $\endgroup$ – Rand al'Thor Mar 11 '15 at 16:31
  • $\begingroup$ I'll add, as an avid Movies & TV user, that it took us three years to graduate, despite huge viewing figures. $\endgroup$ – Andrew Martin Mar 12 '15 at 13:29
  • $\begingroup$ @randal'thor What about me? Am I not active here? :P $\endgroup$ – Joe Z. Mar 20 '15 at 0:39
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    $\begingroup$ @JoeZ. Sorry - I hadn't seen much of you for a long time, but now you're definitely active again. I'd edit if I could! :-) $\endgroup$ – Rand al'Thor Mar 20 '15 at 0:42
  • $\begingroup$ I decided to come back since the drama seemed to have died down and the community seems to have returned to normal. Hopefully it doesn't start back up again. $\endgroup$ – Joe Z. Mar 20 '15 at 0:42
  • $\begingroup$ @JoeZ. I haven't seen much drama of late, unless you count getting at least one or two downvotes on nearly everything I do (check my rep history). The community does seem to be a lot less active than it was, but maybe it'll pick up again. $\endgroup$ – Rand al'Thor Mar 20 '15 at 0:45
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We'll graduate when we're ready to graduate. That has little to do with our area 51 stats, and more about when the SE staff feel we're ready to be a self-sustaining and positive contribution to SE and the internet in general. Once (if) we reach that point, they will put us in the queue to get a custom design; said queue is currently several months long.

I would estimate we won't be graduating for at least a 2-4 more years.

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    $\begingroup$ 4 years is a long time for a site to be in beta. But if it means I keep on getting to be a trusted user until the site matures (by which time I'll hopefully have the 20,000 required to be one), that's fine by me. $\endgroup$ – Joe Z. Mar 19 '15 at 5:18
  • $\begingroup$ Is that done deliberately, or is it simply because site design takes a lot of time and SE does not have enough staff? And if it is deliberate, it would be helpful to know the problems that Puzzling SE faces that would take atleast 2 years to resolve. (I couldn't find such a post on meta) $\endgroup$ – ghosts_in_the_code Dec 12 '15 at 4:15

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