This is somewhat a follow up from Defibrillating Health.SE.

Until now, we have tried to set up a new site „MedicalSciences.SE“. The process of this isn’t all too far, we‘re still lacking quite a few supporters and good questions to get out of the definition phase.

I’ve had a chat with a mod on CognitiveSciences.SE. A year ago, they realised they have a few problems on the site:

• small user base of professionals
• many bad questions

Sounds a bit familiar, eh? They have thought of options and decided to essentially reboot the site: Creating custom close reasons (one we have already: Personal Medical Advice should be closed, the other one is basically a group of all bad questions present in the site) and a huge spring cleaning where everything that was unwanted was flagged, closed and deleted.

Since then, their site has been slowly regrowing the user base, and quality increases.

They have decided against the whole Area51 because they thought that was hopeless.

I wonder if we can learn something from their experience.

Maybe we can organise a huge chat event on an early December weekend where all Health users, someone from CogSci with their expertise, our moderators and a SE employee gather and discuss where to go from now.

I personally am available from 09:00 UTC until 11:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC until 24:00 UTC on any December weekend. What about you?

This is somewhat a follow up from Defibrillating Health.SE.

Until now, we have tried to set up a new site „MedicalSciences.SE“. The process of this isn’t all too far, we‘re still lacking quite a few supporters and good questions to get out of the definition phase.

I’ve had a chat with a mod on CognitiveSciences.SE. A year ago, they realised they have a few problems on the site:

• small user base of professionals
• many bad questions

Sounds a bit familiar, eh? They have thought of options and decided to essentially reboot the site: Creating custom close reasons (one we have already: Personal Medical Advice should be closed, the other one is basically a group of all bad questions present in the site) and a huge spring cleaning where everything that was unwanted was flagged, closed and deleted.

Since then, their site has been slowly regrowing the user base, and quality increases.

They have decided against the whole Area51 because they thought that was hopeless.

I wonder if we can learn something from their experience.

Because chat is difficult to organise and get everyone to participate, I've switched plans and would prefer a discussion going on here. To give everybody a sense of what I'm hoping to achieve, I've posted some example questions below and my personal opinion as an answer.

Example Questions

Which aspects of Health.SE are working well?

Which aspects of Health.SE should be improved, and how?

What do you think of the site name?

What do you think of the site moderation?

What do you think of how we handle the need of references?

What do you think of the scope?

This is somewhat a follow up from Defibrillating Health.SE.

Until now, we have tried to set up a new site „MedicalSciences.SE“. The process of this isn’t all too far, we‘re still lacking quite a few supporters and good questions to get out of the definition phase.

I’ve had a chat with a mod on CognitiveSciences.SE. A year ago, they realised they have a few problems on the site:

• small user base of professionals
• many bad questions

Sounds a bit familiar, eh? They have thought of options and decided to essentially reboot the site: Creating custom close reasons (one we have already: Personal Medical Advice should be closed, the other one is basically a group of all bad questions present in the site) and a huge spring cleaning where everything that was unwanted was flagged, closed and deleted.

Since then, their site has been slowly regrowing the user base, and quality increases.

They have decided against the whole Area51 because they thought that was hopeless.

I wonder if we can learn something from their experience.

Maybe we can organise a huge chat event on an early December weekend where all Health users, someone from CogSci with their expertise, our moderators and a SE employee gather and discuss where to go from now.

I personally am available from 09:00 GMT until 11:00 GMT and 19:00 GMT until 24:00 GMT on any December weekend. What about you?

This is somewhat a follow up from Defibrillating Health.SE.

Until now, we have tried to set up a new site „MedicalSciences.SE“. The process of this isn’t all too far, we‘re still lacking quite a few supporters and good questions to get out of the definition phase.

I’ve had a chat with a mod on CognitiveSciences.SE. A year ago, they realised they have a few problems on the site:

• small user base of professionals
• many bad questions

Sounds a bit familiar, eh? They have thought of options and decided to essentially reboot the site: Creating custom close reasons (one we have already: Personal Medical Advice should be closed, the other one is basically a group of all bad questions present in the site) and a huge spring cleaning where everything that was unwanted was flagged, closed and deleted.

Since then, their site has been slowly regrowing the user base, and quality increases.

They have decided against the whole Area51 because they thought that was hopeless.

I wonder if we can learn something from their experience.

Maybe we can organise a huge chat event on an early December weekend where all Health users, someone from CogSci with their expertise, our moderators and a SE employee gather and discuss where to go from now.

I personally am available from 09:00 UTC until 11:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC until 24:00 UTC on any December weekend. What about you?