The Sitecore Community, driven and coordinated largely by the Sitecore Slack crew, and led and initiated by Mark Cassidy, fellow Sitecore Enthusiast and Developer, have embarked on a journey to create their own Sitecore Stack Exchange website specifically for Sitecore!
You might asking, why not use Stack Overflow?! Well, the general community at large feels that the rules and moderation on Stack Overflow has gotten to a point where it is very difficult to ask Sitecore specific questions without questions getting closed or deleted. Furthermore, the is a dilution of content on Stack Overflow has buried Sitecore related content, and avid Sitecore enthusiasts are having a hard time even moderating content.
The Journey
Definition Stage
The journey thus far has been exciting! 2 months ago, Mark Cassidy started a proposal on Stack Exchange’s Area 51 site. There is actually a stepped process put forth that requires a definition stage where example questions are collected to see if there can be enough questions to qualify for proceeding forward. We blew through this stage in garnering 137 followers and 58 Example Questions in literally 2 weeks or so.
Commitment Stage
The second stage was gathering enough people to commit to the project. The requirement here was that we had 200+ committed Stack Exchange users, with 100+ of those users with 200+ rep on other Stack Exchange sites. The end result, 298 users committed to using the site, surpassing the requirements needed to get out of the Commitment stage in only a month.
This really blew everyone by surprise, including OTHER Stack Exchange proposals, which generated the following reaction/discussion:
Private Beta
With glee, we entered the Private Beta! Timing was interesting, because we didn’t really know how much time we had in Private Beta, and it wasn’t clear what the pass/fail requirements were for the Private Beta. All we knew is that we had to start priming the site with activity: questions, answers, and votes. During this time the Sitecore Symposium was going on so activity was low.
Our Stats on 9/29 (shown below) were pretty bleak. What we didn’t know what whether the stats needed for success were for the private beta or public beta, but some of these metrics are pretty hard to obtain when it’s a closed environment, and organic growth can’t occur!
Private Beta Failed!
On October 3rd, 2016, out of the blue the Sitecore Community was stunned.
Stack Exchange was going to close up our shop! Several us reacted, and we went on a social media spree looking for people to up our stats. Within a 23 hour period, we doubled our stats!
The Sitecore community to the streets and demonstrated a show of force so great, that it even turned the heads of Stack Exchange!
Private Beta Extended!
With rapturous joy, we received the following from Stack Exchange on October 4th, 2016
Getting To Public Beta
We need your help in getting us over the hump!
Tweet at me if you want in on the Private Beta before it ends on October 18th! Find me on Sitecore Community Slack! Our stats are BOOMING, but it’s not enough. Keep the effort up, join in on the conversation, and ask your looming Sitecore questions! Show off your Sitecore mastery by answering questions! Upvote! Downvote! Get Active!
Thanks for your participation!
Sitecore Hacker 
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