@Pearsonartphoto what, SE emailed you already and thanked you? how did you do that?

I believe it's 10 posts, and it may take up to 24 hours to register.

I have more than 10 posts. but was a little slow to get started. my ID is 5 :)

@Kevin nice work on Great Outdoors, especially with Meta and editing

@studiohack: No, but I've done the requirements to fulfill it already, so it will happen in a week...

@Pearsonartphoto ah, where is the list of requirements? I'm stuck in commitment with several other sites and am trapped because I've realized that I don't know as much as i know

@studiohack: Ask/answer 10 questions. That's all you need to do. Any combination of questions/answers is fine, so long as it adds up to 10.

You'll be fine here. Will check your other sites as well, hang on.

Looks like 6 questions on bible site, 10 on Lego, and you'll be free of those.

@studiohack thanks.

@Pearsonartphoto yup pretty much. that's nice of ya to go and analyze my profile, thanks!

@studiohack: No problem. Anything to help:-)

Is this a closed beta? I'm wanting to get other people to come in and answer questions but I'm not sure if it's the right time for that yet...

@Ryley you can invite people

but only people you consider to be experts right now, I would think

yah, that wouldn't be an issue :) I meant that I know experts that could answer specific questions I saw, and I was hoping to lure them in with the right question

Invite away. Especially experts.

That's why there's the invite box on the side.

I wasn't sure if there was a difference between this week of "private beta" and next weeks "public beta"

Yes, there is. During private, only those with an explicit invitation (either from having committed or being invited by someone already here) can join. Next week/when we go public, anyone can join without an invitation.

Ah, I see

man, there's definitely some questions being asked that feel very forced... i.e. if you're an expert rock climber, should you be posting questions about what a belay device is for?

No, and hopefully it's not a beginner either, at least not one that might go and try it out without an instructor.

well yeah, but that goes back to the meta question about dangerous q&a's :) My point was more... shouldn't we leave the basic/simple/stupid questions to the newbies once we're in public beta?

Is it encouraged to post a question which you know the answer to in order to motivate others to get the information into the beta?

that's a nicer way of putting it :)

I'm unsure about the etiquette of this approach, I mean there are topics which I know about and could seed the questions, but it's sort of astro-turfing . Whats the best practice?

Yeah exactly - I'm not sure which way it's supposed to go either

OK I will await judgement from on high I guess

or at least from someone who has gone through a beta before :)