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I've been a member of the Latin Language SE for while now, and have been wondering if it's time for the board to graduate from its status as a beta. In my time here, I've observed that it gets regular and varied posts with both quality questions and answers, and has moderators and users interacting and engaging each other in a consistently positive manner.

I've also personally found the answer to many questions simply by searching previous posts, which is usually a good sign that it has a healthy body of content already.

If the board is not yet ready to graduate, then what criteria should we as a group strive for in order to reach the next level?

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    After four years, I think it would be great to have some pointers of our future from a community manager or other representatives of the network specifically to our community. I know that the concepts of beta and graduation are evolving, and it would be helpful to know where our site stands regarding this process. We don't have ten questions a day, but we are healthy and stable with a decent influx of views, users, and posts, so I don't find the trial period that beta is to be a good description of the state we are in.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta Mod
    Commented Apr 26, 2020 at 12:11

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Almost a year ago now, the CMs were working on a new site lifecycle project, hoping to revisit the duration of beta and what its purpose was. What came out of that process is the following post - Congratulations to our 29 oldest beta sites - They're now no longer beta! - with the intention of releasing the full lifecycle project a few months later.

Unfortunately, that was all upset in the Fall and in January we lost one of the members of the group working on the lifecycle project, Robert, along with two other CMs. That left our team at only four people and we had to greatly limit what projects we work on. We really want to complete this project, which would likely mean sites like Latin would be able to slough off the "Beta" label and just be full sites.

So, for the time being, I'm going to ask for your patience. I don't know when we'll be able to get this back on track but it's still something I see as a priority.

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    "...which would likely mean sites like Latin would be able to slough off the "Beta" label and just be full sites." Hi, that's very nice to hear! No hurry, I'd say.
    – Cerberus Mod
    Commented May 15, 2020 at 21:17
  • Thanks! I agree with @Cerberus: We're in no hurry, but it's good to know that we're likely to be in the next wave and have nothing to worry about. I'm glad to see that SE is picking up some speed this year after the chaos.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta Mod
    Commented May 15, 2020 at 21:26
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    @Joonas llmavirta: I did not know that LSE was a second-class site?! It functions as superlative academic machine. How is promotion to be achieved and what differences would contributors notice?
    – tony
    Commented May 17, 2020 at 11:27
  • @tony LSE is indeed still formally a "baby site", and updating that status was indeed the whole point of this meta question. If I understood correctly, our site is in the pipeline for graduation so all we have to do is wait, but it might take a while before our turn comes. The meaning of graduation is under development, but here are some things that would change: (1) Moderator elections. (2) Ability to migrate to and from our site without moderators. (3) So-called community ads. (4) Perhaps our own design.
    – Joonas Ilmavirta Mod
    Commented May 17, 2020 at 12:17
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    @Joonas llmavirta: "ads"? Advertising?" Please no! Is there a place remaining, on earth, where we will not be bombarded with advertising?
    – tony
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 12:13
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    @tony Community ads are ads that the community design that go to resources you find helpful. It requires that they get sufficient votes to show up at all and many sites that have them don’t display any.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 12:15
  • @Catija: Great. Thanks.
    – tony
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 15:34
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    @Catija I hope that you and the rest of the CM are doing well given the way that 2020 unfolded. What do you think may happen with this project in 2021, if anything?
    – Adam
    Commented Jan 4, 2021 at 21:34
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    The project hasn't been cancelled, @Adam - I'm just not certain when it will be back up and running. I'm hopeful that we can get back to it in Q1 or Q2 but I'll need to see what we have on our schedules.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Jan 4, 2021 at 21:35
  • Ok! Thanks for the update. :)
    – Adam
    Commented Jan 4, 2021 at 21:41
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Graduation is now upon us! See the separate announcement for details.

(I posted this as an explicit answer here so that the graduation announcement is easier for people to find later.)

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