Concerned about site's health

Question

To moderators, top beta users, and all the users,

My first question is about the site's future? As I still see a beta attached with the name, does it mean that the site would get vanished if it does not have the quality/quantity post/traffic and all the link building around the web in a particular time limit?

If you check this Area51 status page, you'll find it's health is not well right now

Some points in detail with the current status:

1. Visits/day: 418/day "Needs work" We should try to spread the word, and try to tell people, our friends about this site.

2. Answer ratio: 2.1 One thing about answering on Islam.SE is to give authentic answers with quotes. As most of the time only 1 such answer is possible, this ratio would never increase. Any other person would also give the same answer with a little bit different explanation but same references would lead that answer be flagged as duplicate/not an original answer.
   In this case, what I propose is if we find one answer too lengthy with all good references, other answer with a concise and to the point reference should also be promoted by the site users.

3. Question/day : 4.4 We do need to improve this, and solution to this is the same - spread the word

4. Answered: 96% Currently this is only the benchmark at which we are excelling, and always will. Keep it up.

Some issues which I guess most users face

Answering correctly with all the references is a difficult part for normal users like me. We should have some experts(Aalim) behind moderating the site content. Absence of whose is a major reason for the site current status. The proper aalim's/mufti that know the rulings behind the questions are away from the world of internet, so we should all try to collect info from all such people as much as possible.

What I propose?

I appeal to the moderator, the users who has gone through all the phases of the site to,

• Change the benchmarks for this site y requesting the main Area51 owner/the SE owners as the judging criteria doesn't really fit here.
• Come up with some special sticky pages that has all the info about the type of questions, rules, how the content is expected, pre-defined one standard rule for formatting the references. This info is partially scattered over the meta, but does not have a centralized space, which should be the case.

Hope, everyone take this message in right sense and think about the point for a while.

Answer 1

1) Stack Exchange seems fairly lenient with betas as long as there is evidence of some progress. Some sites have been in beta for over a year. So the numbers right now are not necessarily a reason for immediate worry.

2) Definitely tell your friends and acquaintances about this website.

3) I disagree with your assertion that only one good answer is possible per question. Not all questions about fiqh, and not all fiqh questions have one answer. Answers can bring about different perspectives. We have a good answer ratio now - go through the questions and see that each answer brings something unique to the table.

4) Again, most of the questions on this website are not fiqh questions, and therefore don't necessarily require a faqeeh or mufti to answer them (although they are welcome and encouraged to). There are many non-fiqh questions. We simply ask that answers be expert and reference the required resources. If you know an area well, you can answer it. Or ask questions about it. Obviously if you are not an expert, you will not be expected to produce original research on it. You will simply reproduce something from an expert and perhaps synthesize and summarize with other information.

5) I don't think the benchmarks need to be changed - after all, this is a Stack Exchange website.

6) We do need to work on getting a FAQ up soon. You make a good point about centralizing all the information.

7) The best way to help is to be active yourself :) Ask questions, answer questions where you feel you have the expertise to, participate in comments, upvote, downvote, and otherwise participate in the community.

Answer 2

Compared to a lot of other sites, I have no doubt that this one will improve and do better. There's a high demand for a high quality Islamic Q&A site supported by proofs. There are other fairly good sites which have been a year in beta, but this one is already clearly better and more active than something like Automotives. It's already quite well ranked on Google.. all you need are the right questions that people will start Googling for. Eventually it will attract the attention of an internet-savvy English-speaking mufti.

Ironically, I think the "accepted answer" is the only point that doesn't apply very well to Islam SE, because there's often opposing views.

Answer ratio and questions are directly correlated with visits. Islam SE doesn't seem to be very well advertised, even among the SE community.

I'd say the key is to

• Ask good questions.
• Find more Islamically educated people, as the current user base are the technically adept, who have migrated from other SE sites.