The CRonicles

Mat's Mug

2:02 PM

hi!

Mast

/wave

Mat's Mug

ok kids, sit in a circle, uncle Mug is going to tell a story

10

lol

YAAAAY!

/me lurks.

Room starred ;-)

2:04 PM

a long time ago, a high-profile Stack Overflow user went to Area51 and proposed to create a site where people could share their code and have it peer reviewed.

the site went through private beta, and made it to public beta

Harvey, right?

yeah

Woah.

that was, uh (scratches head), 2011 kids.

so

the site was small, and never quite picked up. many people didn't even know of its existence

Malachi

whoa you are really starting at the beginning aren't you Mugs?

Mat's Mug

2:07 PM

shouldn't it?

or should the room be renamed "CR: Origins"?

Malachi

yeah. I just didn't know you were old enough to remember it? lol jk

Mat's Mug

I'm not. I'm about to skip almost 3 years...

Ethan Bierlein

Lol

Let me interrupt for a second...

That one starred message should be pinned.

Mat's Mug

lol

Ethan Bierlein

Continue

Mat's Mug

2:09 PM

so, the site remained alive for a long, long while.

people would post their code, and sometimes they'd get a review

Malachi

you should see if Loki or Winston are around to tell part of the story... no offense, but we didn't come along for a while

Mat's Mug

and the reviewers, sometimes would get a vote or two

rolfl

6

Mat's Mug

^^ spoiler

lol

Ethan Bierlein

@rolfl shh!

Malachi

2:10 PM

okay I will be quiet and listen

Mat's Mug

fast-forward to 2013. Jamal was already the most hyperactive editor, Malachi and Mug were stealing each others' checkmarks on C# questions.

Ethan Bierlein

lol

Mat's Mug

by September, Mug (then known as @retailcoder) started to feel like this site could be so much more than what it was.

thought maybe we should make CR tees

23

Q: 1000 days in beta: let's make CR t-shirts

As of 2013-09-05, Area 51 stats for CodeReview are as follows: Days in beta: 960. Questions per day: 19.4. Healthy at 15, need work at 5. Check. Answered Questions: 89%. Healthy at 90%. So we're anywhere between 88.5% and 89.4%: I'd love to see the actual decimals. I'm sure we can bring this m...

Ethan Bierlein

What a grand idea!

Mat's Mug

in the seekrit moderator-only chatroom, this meta sparked a little something - yes, activity in the mod room!

paraphrasing:

> should we be more proactive with beta status and pushing for graduation?

the "Code Review General Chatroom" became active around then, with Jamal, Malachi and Retailcoder saying hi and discussing the questions posted by the ever-so-slooooooow @StackExchange feed.

then Simon joined them, and shortly after, Monkey too.

wait, did I skip a part?

rolfl

2:17 PM

The user-spawned election

Mast

The point were Jamal asked for a new moderator and became one himself?

Mat's Mug

right. Winston stepped down, and Jamal was informally "elected"

Ethan Bierlein

Oh lol... I thought that said "unfortunately" at first.

Mat's Mug

19

A: Code Review is in need of a new moderator

gulps Well, hello there everyone. I would like to nominate myself for the moderator position. Although I haven't yet been here for a year, I feel that I've accomplished so much in terms of keeping this site clean and helpful to others. Although I certainly don't need to be a moderator to keep...

Zak

informally

Ethan Bierlein

2:20 PM

Only one downvote... Tsk tsk to whomever that was

Mat's Mug

so, we were answering as many incoming questions as we could, and there were many unanswered ones waiting for a review, too

then one fine morning of November, this happened:

38

Q: How is Code Review doing right now?

I’m Grace Note, a Community Manager at Stack Exchange. Normally for most sites we run a community site evaluation, as explained in this Meta Stack Overflow post under Public Beta sites. However, these reviews involve comparing our site content against searches on the internet for competing answer...

discussion beta-progress

we knew voting was a problem. the answer I had gotten from my first meta post already said it, and truthfully.

Ethan Bierlein

Ooh, I sense a good part of the story approaching... quivers with excitement

Mat's Mug

I thought we needed to... shake things up.

45

Q: Call of Duty - We're on a mission

This is a direct reply to Grace Note's recent CR review, more precisely the following part: (emphasis mine) Unanswered Tying in to all of the above is one of the most pressing concerns about the site I had in my own review, which is the gigantic pool of unanswered questions. There are, ...

discussion beta-progress unanswered-questions voting

and "zombies" was born

the "Code Review General Room" was renamed to "The 2nd Monitor" about a week (or two?) into the mission

7

Q: What should be the name of our main chatroom?

Our main chat room is currently called Code Review General Room, with "General discussion about Code Review." for a description. I propose The Zombie Hunters' Lounge, but I'd like the community to post their ideas here (1 per post, include why it's the best name), the one with the highest number...

discussion chat

more and more people joined chat

more and more people started spending their votes

more and more people started ~~answering unanswered questions~~ killing zombies

within 100 days, CR had gone from 88% to 95% answered

29

Q: 100 days later: what's up?

November 15, 2013. 6:30AM UTC. Community Manager Grace Note posted How is Code Review doing right now?. We are 100+ days later. Rewind Since mid-November 2013, a number of things have happened: A fun tag was created on Meta-CR. CR users answered the Call of Duty; incoming, as well as m...

discussion beta-progress

SEDE turned out being very helpful, and @rolfl and others cooked up a number of queries to analyze the site's activity and health

39

Q: Once upon a time in Stackland

Uh question, why have you folks not graduated yet? - jul 13 at 21:18 by Undo It's been quite a while since the 100 days later update, which was posted around the 100th day after our last site review, which brings us back in November 2013. If a baby was conceived back then, that baby is prob...

discussion beta-progress

I skipped the fun parts...

Ethan Bierlein

Nooo

Mat's Mug

December 2013, we were all cranked-up and really into the killing zombies business

rolfl

2:33 PM

And HATS

Mat's Mug

@rolfl came up with a clever way to foster activity

and hats

but just before the hats

in The 2nd Monitor, Nov 30 '13 at 0:52, by rolfl

OK, weekend challenge.... we all solve the Rock Paper Scissors Lizzard Spock problem with our 'favourite' language, and we all have to post a question here with our solution to be reviewed.

and weekend-challenge was born

for 4,5 ..6 weeks or so, we would vote on the next "challenge", and implement it over the weekend and put it up for review on the main site

then we took a break

rolfl

(hats).

2

Also, lots of pimping.

Mat's Mug

...and rebooted it at the end of January

20

Q: Weekend-Challenge Reboot

In December 2013 we held a bunch of weekly weekend-challenge events, which was fun, and generated posts that made it to the site's newsletter, week after week. One may want to tweak this query so as to filter posts created before December 30th, 2013. Some weekend-challenge stats up to that date:...

discussion fun community-challenge

...after we all voted on the "Best of Code Review 2013" stuff

19

Q: Best of Code Review 2013

As this 3rd beta-year comes to an end, we would like to host an event: The Best of Code Review 2013. All Code Review users will be invited to nominate (link to) the best questions and answers from this year, and showcase them as examples of what great CR questions and answers should look like. ...

discussion fun best-of

(@200_success' idea)

rolfl

I think the zombie killing is not represented well enough in this history lesson.....

Mat's Mug

right

talk about April 2014

(the all-time low - 500-some zombies)

Vogel612

2:39 PM

That's like... right after I joined, right?

Mat's Mug

yeah. also when I was starting to get really bored at my old job ;-)

rolfl

data.stackexchange.com/codereview/query/172449/…

Mat's Mug

by then, activity had really picked up, the site had pretty much doubled in size.

rolfl

Ethan Bierlein

I swear, some of those activity charts could make some really neat terrain generators.

2

rolfl

2:41 PM

Boy do we miss konijn....

Mat's Mug

don't we!

Vogel612

he's still answering now and then, isn't he?

Zak

who's Konijn?

Mat's Mug

the javascript zombie slayer

Vogel612

see that first drop in the light blue line

that's konjin in action

rolfl

2:42 PM

codereview.stackexchange.com/users/14625/konijn?tab=activity

Mat's Mug

most decorated necromancer on site I think

Vogel612

150 zombies in about 2 months.... and additionally the normal incoming JS questions, too

Ethan Bierlein

Wow, 19 necromancer badges.

Mat's Mug

[badge:revival] x 157

a true hero

rolfl

@Mat'sMug Hmm... not to be un-modest, but no.

Ethan Bierlein

2:44 PM

Oh wow. I only have revival * 40-something

Mat's Mug

@rolfl right. I'm including the revival count as well ;-)

Vogel612

carry on grandpa, I want to know how the story continues ;)

Mat's Mug

lol

rolfl

Odd, I have 40 revivals, and 23 necromancers.....

Not many revivals at all.

Vogel612

</sidetracking>

Mat's Mug

2:46 PM

so, Once upon a time in StackLand was July 2014.

rolfl

Indeed. I think the part that Mat's is skipping is how he almost singlehandedly was the site cheerleader, motivator, and community hub for that period.

4

The "co-ordinator".

Mat's Mug

meh

rolfl

Also, the competition with PPCG ... ;-)

Mat's Mug

our moderators played a big part

oh yeah

27

Q: The race has started. Are you running?

PCG.SE is going on a mission. And so the race begins. For Code Review!! -- syb0rg 2 days ago Let's see: Programming Puzzles and Code Golf Voting & Activity PCG.SE Voting and Activity Chart Compare to: Code Review Voting & Activity CR.SE Voting and Activity Chart ...

discussion beta-progress voting

rolfl

Oh, the moderator issues over the Nov'13 through march'14 are important.

Mat's Mug

2:49 PM

Jamal pretty much had the whole quickly-growing site on his sole shoulders

so, by March, two new pro-tem moderators were appointed - enter @rolfl and 200_success

Vogel612

@Mat'sMug Jamalizing everything in sight and singlehandedly keeping the incoming crap at bay

Mat's Mug

and the mod room was never frozen ever after

rolfl

@Mat'sMug I was about to say that ^^^^

Mat's Mug

:)

rolfl

The mod room was.... depressing. It's hard to say this without making the other mods seem unfit, but the site was changing a lot, and the other mods were not able to commit the time needed to make it work.

Vogel612

2:51 PM

That was after the Mission had started, right?

rolfl

Correct. Jamal was the only one there, with no-one to talk to.

The other two mods were otherwise engaged.

Mat's Mug

starting spring 2014, CR had a dream team of moderators, and a quickly and healthily growing community

rolfl

I want to be clear, though, that this is typical for most sites.

Mat's Mug

except on other sites it happens during the first year of public beta

right?

rolfl

Well, no. You look around other sites, astronomy, anime, ell, the others, all have a couple of mods who are no-shows.

Mat's Mug

2:53 PM

hmm

rolfl

The difference is that Code Review is actually a lot more busy than those sites, and need the mod attention.

Pick a mod: astronomy.stackexchange.com/users/96/rhysw

Mat's Mug

anyway, by July we were just about losing hopes about the site's graduation; Stack Exchange was silent, and for months we had been told we had to "keep doing what we were doing"

we refocused from voting, to user retention

34

Q: Hi! What brings you here today?

On 2013-11-15, we were given a review about our beta progress. On 2014-04-10, we also got some feedback from Stack Exchange Community Managers @GraceNote and @Pops. One of the concerns that was raised about the health of our community is that we have too many one-time contributors, and need more...

discussion beta-progress new-users user-retention

and at the end of the summer, the unexpected happened:

42

Q: Code Review Graduation

I am pleased to announce that effective from September 22, Code Review has graduated! It has taken a bit of time for this announcement to filter through the red tape, so, today was the day we found out. Let's use this as a place to discuss, celebrate, and otherwise commiserate. Notes: Code Rev...

discussion beta-progress

but despite the main-site "fireworks" annnouncement, and this meta post... we couldn't quite believe it.

89

Q: Code Review SE is graduating!

Many of you have already seen announcements both on main and on meta announcing this site's graduation. At the request of a few of you who were skeptical (or perhaps merely in shocked disbelief), I'm here to confirm that yes, the Community Team has indeed decided that Code Review should graduate....

discussion beta-progress

so a Community Manager stepped in

HI JAMAL!!

2

rolfl

> I like helping people, and I like people who like helping people.

^^^ still true.

Mat's Mug

Pops is awesome

4

in July 2014 I was starting a new job, and my activity dropped quite a bit... I might have missed bits here and there

33

Q: Best of Code Review 2014

As 2014 comes to an end, let's kick off Best of Code Review 2014! All Code Review users will be invited to nominate (link to) the best questions and answers from this year, and showcase them as examples of what great CR questions and answers should look like. Prizes in the form of bounties will...

discussion fun best-of

39

Q: 2014: What a ride!

Here we are, with another year [almost] behind us. 2014 has been very, very special on Code Review, and that has been completely because of you. 2014 was ...glittering. We've put Code Review on the Stack Exchange map; in 2015, we're entering the big league of full-grown, graduated sites. What e...

discussion fun

we reiterated the "Best Of"

and 200_success played Santa again, and payed the "santax" with his own rep score

rolfl

Indeed. Another thing you are missing in this history lesson is the central part the 2nd monitor played.

Mat's Mug

3:03 PM

totally

25

A: How to train your growing community to self-moderate?

How active is your chatroom? This may sound like a weird answer, but on Code Review we managed to get a core nucleus into the main chatroom. With the @StackExchange bot posting questions (and ideally answers too), it's very easy for everyone to spot off-topic questions, and, with an answers feed...

The 2nd Monitor became a craddle for pretty much everything that landed on meta.CR

the chatroom cemented the community. people get addicted to that chatroom for some reason :)

Ethan Bierlein

It's pretty hard to not get addicted to it. :-D

Mat's Mug

we made ourselves a reputation for being a very nice and welcoming community; people sometimes left comments contrasting CR with SO.

our star-happiness became legend, too

Vogel612

that being said right now graduation is still far away...

Mat's Mug

but it's no longer in our hands

we've done great

all we need to do now is keep being awesome

2

rolfl

I worry about the chat room.... I am not satisfied that it is as great as it "used to be". It's still "good", but it could be better.

Vogel612

3:11 PM

which is the same old mantra as it was a year ago

Mat's Mug

@rolfl the 2nd monitor?

rolfl

Yup.

Mat's Mug

yeah, well... fast-forward into 2015...

rolfl

I sound like an old fart complaining about kids these days ... ;-)

2

Mat's Mug

lol

except, kids these days....

20

Q: How much idle chatter do we tolerate in The 2nd Monitor?

Related but not a duplicate: How far off-topic can we get in 'the 2nd monitor'? Today was a complicated day in the history of The 2nd Monitor. On one side there appears to be consensus something went wrong which should be handled. On the other side there appears to be disagreement about how muc...

discussion scope chat

the room sort of became a victim of its success

2

Ethan Bierlein

3:13 PM

Oh, right... hides

Mat's Mug

lol

'nuf said ;-)

so, mid-2015, CR chat was "fractured" and a number of new rooms were created

Ethan Bierlein

That was ~~partially~~ mostly my fault.

Vogel612

actually it started a little before that

the fracturing set in with the rise of Duga, Cardshifter and RubberDuck

Mat's Mug

true

RubberDuck (with a big "D") and myself were working on Rubberduck (with a small "d"), and used a new "VBA" chatroom to avoid spamming the 2nd monitor with our stuff. Cardshifter guys did the same.

@Simon's contributions are tremendous

Duga has revolutionized #EducateSO and dramatically helped increasing CR awareness across SE

3

then this happened:

65

Q: Graduation update: it's election season!

I'll start off by addressing the elephant in the room. It's been the better part of a year since the announcement that Code Review was graduating. In all those months, there haven't been any visible indications of change from us on the team. There are a few reasons for that, but they all come dow...

discussion beta-progress moderators

rolfl

@Mat'sMug In my opinion that was the right thing to have happen, unfortunately, it meant that a number of th core community members were no longer as active in the main chat room

Mat's Mug

3:21 PM

@rolfl yeah. as I said:

> As a lurking room owner (hasn't always been that way), I feel like I've contributed to the incremental climate change by my inactions, and I'm sorry I let moderators and other owners do the dirty work.

rolfl

I did not mean my comment that way, what I meant is to reinforce the comment earlier.... :

Mat's Mug

in the end, the right things have happened: The Nth Monitor was a great idea - it should only have happened before. but what's done is done

rolfl

9 mins ago, by Mat's Mug

the room sort of became a victim of its success

Mat's Mug

and so here we are, 2 months (already?) after the elections; dust settled, ~~blood stains are gone, and we've hidden the bodies.~~

4

rolfl

And things are going well? I have missed much of it since elections ;-)

Has Pops gotten back to you on a 5th mod?

Mat's Mug

3:26 PM

nope

Ethan Bierlein

@janos Should be our #5 mod.

Zak

There was a request for a 5th mod?

Mat's Mug

@Zak @rolfl can probably tell you more about it than I can

him and 200 really lobbied hard to have a 5th position opened for the elections

Vogel612

@Zak 200_success almost didn't run because the CMs only agreed to 4 positions

rolfl

When elections were announced the three pro-tem mods all asked for there to be 5 new moderators positions in the elections. It is/was our assessment that the site activity was more than three mods could handle in the expected time-commitments for a moderator (about a half-hour per day).

Vogel612

3:29 PM

@rolfl I figure that's still true

Mat's Mug

@rolfl wut? 30 minutes /day??

Vogel612

and I am fairly sure our mods do at least thrice as much

rolfl

Since we were all puting in more than our expected time, we thought about 5 mods would be the right point, and that would also allow mods to take some time off (we were/are all burning out.... I did burn out).

The CM's conceded to 4 positions (they wanted to keep with 3).

Mat's Mug

yikes

Vogel612

sidenote: SO mods have a mandatory time of 1h / day, because of the huge flag-volume

Mat's Mug

3:31 PM

and they're 18

rolfl

Code Review is the first site to graduate with a 4-position election. No other beta site has elected a 4th position, except Christianity, which had 4 pro-tem mods for some reason.

Vogel612

well... that site is special.

Ethan Bierlein

lol

rolfl

A 5th position was stated to be too much.

Mat's Mug

no other beta ever had a preliminary election round either.. right?

Vogel612

3:32 PM

as are all religion Se sites..

Zak

@rolfl Understandable, much like the Christianity Wikipedia page, it gets a disproportionate amount of controversy

rolfl

The concession the CM's made, was that in the months after the elections they would poll the existing mods to see whether the workload is too much, and whether a 5th should be added.

@Mat'sMug No, no other beta site.

Mat's Mug

ah

rolfl

Sorry, misunderstood the question.

Ethan Bierlein

Didn't Network Engineering get their graduation announcement after ours?

rolfl

3:34 PM

yes, and their elections before ours.

Vogel612

and a design..

Ethan Bierlein

Which seems totally not right in my book.

Mat's Mug

the whole "who gets what when" is a bit of a controversy IMO

rolfl

controversy is a nice word. I like the word "farce".

3

Vogel612

right.. back to history, ranting about SE goes to the whining room

3

Whining Room

This room is for whining in. All manner of QQ will be tolerated.

Mat's Mug

3:35 PM

lol

rolfl

Well, it's an important part of the history.... a significant part of my time since march 2014 has been in trying to manage the expectations and process related to site graduation.

Vogel612

it's frozen, though

rolfl

Stop whining.

Vogel612

@rolfl iow. keeping the hounds in check without knowing when they'd get their steak

rolfl

Or trying to get the CM's to commit to something, and then holding them to that commitment.

Mat's Mug

3:37 PM

@rolfl indeed - and with "our side" of the efforts for graduating being behind us, I think 2015 is going to be less "exhausting" for CR mods

Vogel612

is there a list of the daily pun & site-stat you did?

Mat's Mug

it's in a mod-only room that can't be quoted from

rolfl

The bottom line is that the code design of the stack system is heavily tied to the graphic design, for reasons that make little technical sense. As a result, the people who do the graphic design are the ones that are the key bottleneck on graduation. As it happens, there's just one designer, and that designer is thus the person who decides what site graduates next.

Vogel612

not fully accurate anymore, but yea that's about the problem

rolfl

At times their commitment is steered by "management" to satisfy commercial or strategic interests (carreers.so, some of the commercially-related stack sites like craft cms, and drupal, expressionengine, sharepoint, etc. The strategic things are the language-based overflows (portugese, russian, and japanese stackoverflow), etc.

Mat's Mug

3:41 PM

so here we are. we created something awesome, and we're proud of it. and it will culminate with a new design... in 6-8 weeks.

rolfl

Additionally there has been a strategic/technical change for many sites to accomodate new login sytems, and also SVG designs for mobile, etc..

This has not left much time for beta-site graduation designs.

Mat's Mug

@rolfl and Stack Eggs

rolfl

Oh, and hats too.

Mat's Mug

nope, AFAIK hat designs are outsourced

Ethan Bierlein

Wait... Is the story still going?

Mat's Mug

3:45 PM

I'm done. questions? :)

rolfl

Well, I want to show some stats..... to put Code Review in context.....

If you look at some of the more significant badges, and see how many have been earned, and then compare that to other sites, how does Code Review compare?

Vogel612

awesome.

We even had legendaries before elections

rolfl

Yes. The only beta site ever.

badges: data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/199310/… Code Review ranks #20 of 147

Vogel612

@Mat'sMug is there more info on the olden days?

Mat's Mug

the 2nd Monitor transcript for 2011-2013 is pretty revealing ;-)

rolfl

3:48 PM

I think the scope-changes we pushed through in early 2014 are important.

Mat's Mug

yeah

Zak

what are Legendaries?

Mat's Mug

we strengthened the site's scope, enforced clearer rules

rolfl

@Zak People who have earned more than 200 rep on 150 or more days

Vogel612

@Zak mortarboard times 150

Zak

3:49 PM

ah, klkl

Mat's Mug

@Zak [badge:legendary] - earn 200 rep too many days to be considered a normal mortal human

rolfl

There's a gold badge for that.

I am miffed about there not being a platimum version of fanatic ;-)

Zak

also, the idle chat meta was really useful. Could we reference that more often whenever the 2nd goes too far off-topic?

Vogel612

it's Janos and Rolfl, for the record

@Zak you are a grown up member of the community

Mat's Mug

@Zak of course!

Vogel612

3:50 PM

by all means if you think it should be mentioned, JUST DO IT!!!!

Mat's Mug

and don't hesitate to ping room owners (italic names) and mods (blue names) when things go awry

Vogel612

^ that

Zak

I'm just thinking aloud, it's the kind of thing I could've done with being shown when I first started hanging out in the 2nd :)

IntensifierDescriptorMan

@Zak Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, it looks like not as many people are there, otherwise I'd hang there more.

Mat's Mug

well technically I'm working right now

bbl, gotta get at least a few things done :)

Zak

4:04 PM

@IntensifierDescriptorMan you do get some quiet periods, but I find there's usually enough people that it's worth just leaving it open

Mat's Mug

^^

Vogel612

4:27 PM

Can we name this "The official Codereview Chronicles?"

Mat's Mug

sure

..is it official?

room topic changed to CR Chronicles: About CR's revival, The Mission, zombies, graduation, etc. (no tags)

Malachi

I like it

@Mat'sMug make me RO? and probably Jamal and Rolf too?

Vogel612

@Mat'sMug we you just made it

Feeds

Mat's Mug has added rolfl to the list of this room's owners‌.

Mat's Mug has added Jamal to the list of this room's owners‌.

Mat's Mug has added Malachi to the list of this room's owners‌.

Mat's Mug has added Simon André Forsberg to the list of this room's owners‌.

rolfl

5:00 PM

I think this sort of officially means we are also the first beta site to get a history-channel.

Mat's Mug

5:20 PM

Somewhere to point CR history enthusiasts to :-)

Although it will probably freeze before long

Simon André Forsberg

@Mat'sMug then there might be a moderator or two around that can unfreeze it. Otherwise, we could point to this place.

So, now Simon is around as well. Questions?

Mat's Mug

5:39 PM

lol

room topic changed to CR Chronicles: About CR's revival, The Mission, zombies, graduation, etc. [graduation] [meta-meta] [revival] [zombies]

Mast

If we reach 1950 days of beta, I'll take the remaining 50 to write a book about the history of CR.

There is so much material on meta to reference.

Thanks to Mat and all other old farts for taking the time to teach us!

Mat's Mug

6:05 PM

:)

Mat's Mug

6:15 PM

@200_success feel free to add your POV - you were around during the "Great Darkness" :-)

200_success

I think that that was a faithful narrative. I would add that "then graduation was announced" and "then we held elections" glosses over a lot of negotiation that happened behind the scenes.

rolfl basically sacrificed himself to get us our first elections, in two ways.

Mat's Mug

which two ways?

200_success

First, by nagging the community managers and staff frequently, not getting much results, and getting frustrated / burned out.

So, for that (and personal reasons), he resigned.

The community managers were going to nominate his replacement, but we lobbied to have a proper election instead.

Mat's Mug

really!?

wow

Ethan Bierlein

woah

I never knew this

Mat's Mug

6:25 PM

I wonder who they had in mind...

(irrelevant now)

200_success

Same with "then graduation was announced". Nothing was ever handed to us on a platter.

Mat's Mug

I have yet to get to that part of the mod room transcript

200_success

We don't normally share details of these communications, but if we're going to have the Official CR Chronicles, then it deserves to be told properly.

Mast

6:39 PM

And of-course, when they offered us partial graduation, we turned them down.

24

A: Would you like to test design-independent graduation?

Pops, Community Managers, and Stack Exchange management. It's Saturday, so I don't know if you're on duty, but I want to make sure you see this before you pull the trigger on Monday. Currently, the votes are: Yea: +17-4 = 13 Nea: +10-5 = 5 However, the votes on the explanations tell a more ...

Malachi

@Mast more like tried to bribe us for a brief moment of silence?

rolfl

In short, a number of factors played in to my decision. My personal non site-related reasons were certainly enough (I was expecting a few months of required low-participation anyway - my parents immigrating, needing to set up their house, having them stay with me, holidays out of country, increased work responsibility.

Site related reasons for stepping down were relatively obvious too, I was over committed, I was also burning bridges with the CMs, and I was no longer the best person to be the 'champion' of the site's community. Instead of having friendly discussions about site issues, the conversations were getting strained..... mostly because of graduation progress issues (and the lack of progress).

In short, it was no longer much fun for me.

The Network Engineering graduation also frustrated the heck out of me, and also gave me the idea that a forced election would possibly trigger a full graduation. It is no coincidence that I notified the CM staff of my intention to step down after the Network Engineering process.

8

A: Can we have a third moderator again?

We are aware of the shortfall, but rather than simply appointing another Pro Tem, we decided it was time to have a full community election! That is the first step following graduation — Congratulations! You're about to graduate. As a pleasant surprise, we managed to get your site design finished...

and then.....

26

Q: Congratulations! You're about to graduate... with a twist

I wanted to pass on the announcement that this site has been cleared for graduation… congratulations! Graduation comes with it some perks — a listing in the footer of the other sites, you can start migrating content to and from this site, we have things like "community promotional ads" which are...

discussion beta-phase moderation

A graduation without a design, but, then, surprise!!!!!!

25

Q: Network Engineering site design (UPDATED)

I’m Kurtis, senior product designer at Stack Exchange. First, I wanted to congratulate you because this site is now starting the process of moving out of beta to become a fully-graduated site! Well done! Graduation and Your Site Design Graduation comes with a few perks. We have already started ...

discussion design

Design announced before the actual elections........

Mat's Mug

@rolfl huh.. I thought a queue (as in design queue) was a first-in, first-out data structure...

Malachi

@Mat'sMug nope

31

Q: Tracking Graduation Progress

Moderator Note: This question has been identified a number of times as being a candidate for migration to Meta.SE - the main meta site. This question is really about tracking Code Review's 'probable' spot in line, and is not a general purpose all-beta-site tracking system, thou...

discussion beta-progress

rolfl

Nope, it seems that a "you're good to graduate" and "here's your design" can be done in 2 weeks.

Mat's Mug

6:52 PM

Eh... nuf said

rolfl

It was a long shot, but I thought an election could also perhaps trigger a design too....

Malachi

look at Chemistry and Biology, and Network Engineering and Movies

Simon André Forsberg

Let's remember that this is CR Chronicles and not Chemistry / Network Engineering Chronicles.

Malachi

@rolfl thank you for trying

rolfl

Meh @Malachi , I am a give-it-all-for-a-time type person.

I orignially signed up as a mod with the understanding that at the 1year anniversary I would re-evaluate things. I did, and in late march I was expecting to hand things over to someone else.

Malachi

6:56 PM

Biology and Network engineering ran through all 4 steps in less than 6 months if you look at these 2 answers

4

A: Tracking Graduation Progress

Biology Announcement: 2015-03-25 (not sure if this counts) Design Meta: 2015-05-13 Colors: 2015-05-20 Election: 2015-06-07

6

A: Tracking Graduation Progress

Network Engineering Special Note: Network engineering is/was identified for a pilot program for rapid promotion, without a design, though, then something changed, and the promotion is now happening with a design. Announcement: 2015-03-18 Design Meta: 2015-04-30 Colors: 2015-06-23 Election:...

@rolfl it is much appreciated

rolfl

So, I am disappointed that CR never got the full treatment, but I am content that it is now in the hands of the best people for the site.

9

And, I am very satisfied with my decision to step down, and it is also a good thing for the site that I did.

Zak

7:17 PM

wow ( from NE meta.networkengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/425/… )

"Graduation will work exactly the same in every other way, but we don't yet have an ETA for when your design will be finished."

"We felt it unreasonable to continue holding you back while we catch up on that backlog, so we're going for it!"

I have a whole new appreciate for how the old timers must feel about our treatment

3

Ethan Bierlein

10:19 PM

@Zak It just makes me feel sick that somehow we don't deserve a proper graduation while all these other sites who got their announcements later than is somehow deserve a full graduation before us.

Whining Room

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