I want to reply to this post ux.stackexchange.com/questions/82203/… but someone put it on hold. While it may not be within community guidelines; it should be answerable (at the least)

@nightning I've been a Unicorn for 5 years now. +1 for the post.

@Rayraegah I closed this as Off Topic for being a Site Review question. We don't do this here, so I would like the post to be edited in a more general way (not site specific), and then it might be reopened.

The question is for veterans here. Do you think the community has become less active? I'm asking in terms of questions asked and number of answers given per day. My account is only 28 days old but I feel that the number of questions/day is less. Was it always like this? Does this vary with year? Or is it just me? :)

@AditGupta all SE sites see less traffic in the summers AFAIK

@ZachSaucier Interesting. Any particular reason for this? I understand colleges/schools are closed during this time of the year. But how does it affect SE sites? Vacation time may be?

perhaps that, also less students doing projects. I don't know :P

@ZachSaucier Is there also a peak time? Just curious :)

Would have to ask a mod that has access to the stats

Paging @BennySkogberg @JohnGB

@AditGupta: yes?

My question - Is there less activity during this time of the year? I'm asking in terms of questions and answers/day. Also, is there a peak period?

Was this an urgent question?

lol

No..not exactly. Just an observation over last couple weeks that the community seems to be less active.

In general, most of us work during the day, and so the chat varies in activity. People tend to take longer to answer because this chat is taken as asynchronous rather than real time for most people.

I think he's talking about the Q&A, not chat

Oh..not about chat. I was asking about the UX.SE in general. I mean number of questions and answers/day.

But, the activity varies based on a number of factors. Overall, as the content of the site has grown, there are more questions that can be answered by a search, and so it's logical that the number of questions can't stay high forever.

I figured you were asking about that, but paging a mod usually means there is an urgent problem to look into.

i.e. we often stop whatever work we're doing to sort it out.

(I'm just helping you out with protocol here :) )

Well, that makes sense. I was not aware about paging rule. Will take care of that in future. I apologize for that

More on the questions though. We've been trying for a few years to come up with a sustainable way of getting people to ask more questions.

You may notice that many of my questions weren't asked because I wasn't sure of the answer, but more to encourage thinking about them.

No problem on the paging. Everyone starts off not knowing :)

@JohnGB Different mods have different views on that for chat

So, if you have some interesting UX related questions that fit within the structure of the site, then I encourage you to ask them. Even if you also later answer them yourself.

@ZachSaucier would you expand on that please.

Nice :) Just looking for some more questions/activity into user research, IoT UX, HCI. But I think they will come. I am just too new here I guess.

some mods like being pinged just to chat :P

@ZachSaucier Being pinged to chat is fine. Paging = urgent

Ah

Mods are just like other users, who happen to have been convinced to work for free :)

Agreed

Thanks @JohnGB That was helpful! :)

@AditGupta So what sorts of questions do you think are in short supply?

(I think there are many categories, but I'm specifically interested in your take on it).

@JohnGB I am specifically looking for questions related to user research methodologies, UX of animations and microinteractions, HCI and ergonomics

I sometimes want to discuss the overlap of HCI research and UX practice, but it seems those questions will be closed because they can be opinion based.

Unfortunately anything that doesn't have an answer is out of the scope of this site. So general discussion isn't suited to it.

If you narrow a question down, often it can then fit into the structure.

There are some great posts on why the QnA structure doesn't allow discussion in the way that most forums would.

In fact one of the founders started a new company to deal with this specific issue.

That's actually a pretty good idea, and one that I would support.

So why don't you develop it further and post something in meta.ux.stackexchange.com and see what can be done. It's best if you have specific proposals on how it could be implemented and managed.

Thanks! I'm all up for it. I will think through it and take this up on meta. :)

British summer is coming to an End :( makes me sad... didn't get much sun up here in Alderley Edge.

The British summer is my favourite day of the year.

@JohnGB icwatudidthar