Really nice!

The only thing it lacks, in my opinion, is a lengthy passage by a grumpy old pilot about how you really shouldn't want to enable it, as it will teach a newcomer skills that are not applicable outside of this mode and that you'll have trouble unlearning.

Ah, okay. You could've just removed the _'s and left the rest in, though.

(re-submitted it without the markdown)

ahh, okay

interesting

Explanation to what?

No, I'm far from new, although I was never active besides asking the occasional question when I needed

uhh, well, go ahead :)

umm, okay, I think I more or less understand the logic

I’ve just earned the privilege of adding tag synonyms - are there any that anyone wants me to add?

Typically that'd be something brought to meta as has already been done for legal

So my guess is just keep an eye on meta. : )

@CaptainJ.LPicard yes, there's bldc which should be merged into brushless-motor

oh, guys.

It's been four days, and I still haven't seen any sign of Joshua Bardwell on the site, even though he helped tremendously during the commitment stage. Should we write to him that we've launched?

@anonymous2 awesome thanks, will do

@FlashCactus I’ve put forward the synonym now

The obvious caveat with this is that it may bring a huge influx of new users when we're not ready for them

I’m not sure - he probably knows it’s open

I don’t think we’ll get an influx yet as it’s still in private beta

Or can people still join?

Only the ones that committed can join at this point.

That’s what I thought - thanks for the clarification

Which would be 757 people... that's quite a lot ;)

Oooh I see what you mean - that people would suddenly become active. Makes sense

Is it worth it?

A quick count of the user pages gave there's 365 users now (I've already not counted community, maybe CMs should not count too :P). So, out of 757 committers, around 360 actually showed up.

That’s not too bad!

The rest may still show up, but perhaps only if they see the e-mail.

That’s true - do you think the influx would be unmanageable? I’ve never been part of a beta before

But it seems there's a pretty tightknit community arriving from somewhere else to here, so that's good.

People already know each other a bit, seem to already have a vision for this site :)

Fair enough, let’s see how it evolves naturally :)

Oh, no, don't do the natural thing :P A bit of social engineering will probably get this thing further :P

Haha, that may be the case! I’m not certain what to do though!

Reward what you think is good behavior for the site ;-)

Discuss that with others too, see if your view of 'good' is actually in line with what others think of as 'good'

Sounds like a plan :)

Haha yep that’s me! And thank you, you too!

@Tinkeringbell to be clear it's people who have the link... I was a beta user on iot without ever committing.

@anonymous2 Hmm. Which link, the drones.stackeschange.com one?

There's even a thing on the sidebar to invite other users

And you can join by directly navigating to the URL.

Oh cool! My banner blindness missed that. Shows that I shouldn't talk like I know what I'm saying XD

Haha all good

There's some kind of hurdle you have to jump through (or had) but I'm forgetting exactly what it is

That’s good to know - thanks!

@anonymous2 Probably that it doesn't appear in search engines or listings or anything, and you need a Stack Exchange account to bypass the "this is a private beta" wall.

Plus, the robots.txt requires authentication… which is probably a bug.

drones.stackexchange.com/robots.txt

Is there a post somewhere that details how to handle new users that do weird stuff? i.e. how to write those friendly "Welcome to SE! We like you, but here's what you did wrong and please don't do this again" comments

I've tried to write one, but found out I don't know how to do that

@FlashCactus Try somewhere on Community Building.

But I've never seen one.

@FlashCactus Sandwich. Though that often feels very fake to me personally.

I tend to just say "having people is great, and having you is great, but try not to be a liability".

Oh, and it's helpful to think in terms of what people should've done instead. "Don't do this" vs. 'Hey, there's actually a right way to do this'

All my comments are basically "Welcome to Sitename {Stack Exchange [if they're new to SE]}! Thanks for your {contribution}. {Unfortunately [or similarly-softening adverb]}, {bad thing}; {[links to explanations of SE if relevant]}. You might want to take a look at the [tour]; Stack Exchange sites are different to most other forums. I look forward to {something}. {You might find these questions interesting: interest [if they appear particularly expert in a topic.]}"

I generally mix and match based on what "feels right at the time", though, which is one of the least useful pieces of advice ever.

^^ If you do them often enough, you'll get a feeling for what's needed, what should be emphasized, and your comments will end up getting a certain structure indeed.

The example I wrote kind of feels like… you know on Planet Racer where you do the right-click → Play just after you load a save file but before it shows up the garage, so it puts you on the first planet without initialising the racers table and you just get this person called "undefined" with all of the faces at once? It feels like that. I doubt it even fits in 500 characters.

How about we just do 'practical example' :P @FlashCactus what were you thinking of writing?

@wizzwizz4 Yeah could be

@Tinkeringbell This. Totally.

@Tinkeringbell I wanted to point out to the author of this response: drones.stackexchange.com/a/515/272 that he did not actually answer the original question in any way

(also that the asker actually stated that they will only be flying in open spaces inside of the cave which makes most of the reasoning in the answer moot, but that could well be a separate comment or not posted at all)

@FlashCactus I'd write:

@FlashCactus "Hey Paul! Welcome to Drones.SE, thank you for taking the time to write an answer. However, the question is asking specifically about types of drones that can be flown when spelunking. You give some (good?) general things to keep in mind, but do you have a recommended type of drone that meets these requirements?"

> Welcome to Drones and Model Aircraft Stack Exchange. This is useful information, but it doesn't quite answer the question. On Stack Exchange sites, things posted in the answer box are expected to directly address the question (see the [tour] for details). See How to Answer, and consider [edit]ing your answer to recommend properties of the drone that would alleviate these issues (perhaps a different radio frequency? though I'm not sure whether that would help). Thanks for the contribution, though.

@Tinkeringbell Yours is better.

Not necessarily. Mine is low-context and direct, which is a pretty natural way for Dutch people to communicate. But it does step on toes at times :)

Your bit about directly addressing the question on SE sites is good to add too!

That part makes it clear it's not just some personal gripe, but the system ;)

So close to 1k @Daniil :)

Haha it'll come... probably within 10 minutes at the rate things are going.

Haha yep. Congrats!

heh, congrats as well!

I'm stuck in the daily rep limit :)

@FlashCactus Work around that by suggesting loads of good edits and getting loads of accepted answers. :-p

I can't suggest edits anymore, I can now just edit stuff without asking :)

Accepted answers are awesome, though :)

Wow, only 500 for editing?

Private beta!

Woo!

I'm trying to avoid doing what I did in the last private beta I was in – wait until just after the private beta, and then suddenly have loads of questions I could've got a silver badge for.

Which silver badge?

beta

drones.stackexchange.com/help/badges/30/beta

Does this mean you have to vote 10 times and add 3 posts on each of those 3 days, or in total?

Anyway, I'm surprised it still hasn't been awarded

@FlashCactus In total, I'd think. Wow, no, I was mis-reading it. I don't know.

I'm never going to get that badge. ☹ I want a shiny.

@FlashCactus Only awarded once we're into public beta

@FlashCactus And it's total

@anonymous2 Yay! ☺

**Beta**
silver; awarded once
Participate actively in a site’s private beta phase by:
- Voting 10 times
- Adding 3 posts with score > 0
- Visiting the site on 3 separate days
All three requirements must be met, and met before the public beta begins (or possibly before the badge script runs)
Not awarded on Meta sites, including Meta Stack Exchange

@wizzwizz4 Yes! :)

Anyone know what question 1 was? A CM testing the site?

Yeah

It was because the privs were set to public beta levels

So nobody was able to add questions because nobody was able to create tags

So Catija added a question with a few random tags so that people could start making questions while JNat fixed the issue

Uh sorry it was Adam that fixed the issue lol

@KennSebesta that is always a challenge. If the OP is a one-off visitor it's hard. Especially if they used a one-off email account. Best response seems to be from welcoming new folks with a comment, and (especially if they leave comments thanking people for answers) suggesting they upvote any answer that helps them and accepting the one which best helped them sort out their query

@RoryAlsop Sorry, I missed the conversation earlier; what was this in reference to?

@ifconfig Getting people to accept answers.

Ah. Of course!

It's a problem on all SE sites; people who will recognize the effort others put into answering their questions are unfortunately rare.

I already contacted him a couple of days ago (I think?) about releasing another video on his channel, this time encouraging people to ask & answer questions on the site.

This only makes sense to release once we're in public beta, because any new users we would attract couldn't participate right away, but I figure the lead time on an announcement video like that is enough to tie us over until then.

@RoryAlsop Were you sent an email invitation to Private Beta even though you are listed as an "Unregistered User" on Area51: area51.stackexchange.com/users/206916/rory-alsop ?