19

Friday (February 20) marks The Workplace's first anniversary. Congratulations to all on a fantastic first year after IPO graduation!

As with many workplaces, another year behind us means it's time for our performance review. First some stats, then some commentary, and then a request for input.

The Workplace's first year, by the numbers:

  • Questions: 4,435
  • Answers: 11,451
  • Edits (to body): 9,526
  • Comments: 47,750, of which 11,520 were deleted
  • Upvotes: 106,677
  • Downvotes: 16,968
  • Total reputation gained: 1,310,840
  • Moderators promoted to management: 1

That's right -- over the past year we've asked more than 4000 questions, provided more than 11,000 answers, and handed out a whopping 1.3 million reputation points. We have a strong, active community -- kudos!

We've also posted quite a few comments -- sometimes to seek clarification, which is what comments are for, and sometimes because we sure are a chatty bunch sometimes. Almost a quarter of those comments were deleted -- some because they had served their purpose and were obsolete, but mostly for other reasons. Over the past year we've tried to emphasize chat for discussions; while we're having some success there, this will be an area for further growth in the coming year.

We've had nearly 10k edits (not counting tag-only edits), which is healthy. We didn't ask how many of those were by the posts' authors versus by others. Please keep up the good work of helping to clarify posts -- incorporating information in comments, fixing up grammar and formatting, responding to questions, and so on. We particularly want to commend people who spend time helpfully editing other people's posts; you are helping to make our community stronger. Thank you.

And now the request for input: what have you found most gratifying, pleasantly surprising, or helpful on The Workplace in this past year? Please post an answer and tell us about it. Maybe you got a really outstanding answer to your question that helped you make an important decision? Maybe you were able to help somebody else solve a sticky problem? Maybe you came across a question you didn't even know you had and the answers there helped you avert a problem? Maybe you learned something new about a different country, industry, or type of job? Please share The Workplace's successes.

Thanks for a great year, and let's make the next one even better.

Thanks also to Ana ♦ and Jmac ♦ for data-wrangling.

Monica Cellio ♦
enderland ♦
jmort253 ♦

8
  • 1
    do numbers for questions and answers include deleted ones? I suppose no but want to make sure
    – gnat
    Feb 19, 2015 at 20:52
  • @gnat hmm, good question -- I'll try to find out. Feb 19, 2015 at 20:58
  • 5
    I love that there were 11k deleted comments good start mods... lets try to double that next year :) Feb 20, 2015 at 16:00
  • 2
    Congratulations, Mods! Job well done! Feb 20, 2015 at 16:01
  • 4
    I believe by 'promoted to management' you mean 'demoted to lowly servant of the almighty Community ◆' -- otherwise awesome.
    – jmac
    Feb 23, 2015 at 4:34
  • 2
    @jmac well, I imagine you applied for the job... :-) Feb 23, 2015 at 4:38
  • 3
    Of course I did @MonicaCellio, and it was thanks to this wonderful community that I got it -- just making sure you all understand that community managers are more focused on the "community" part than the "management" part. Or should I say コミュニティ instead?
    – jmac
    Feb 23, 2015 at 4:39
  • 3
    @gnat yes, they do
    – jmac
    Feb 23, 2015 at 4:43

4 Answers 4

18

what have you found most gratifying, pleasantly surprising, or helpful on The Workplace in this past year?

I think what I enjoy the most is when people post something along the lines of "this worked great!" or "totally got the job!" or "got the raise!" either on posts or in chat.

Since joining The Workplace I have seen this many times and I love it. EVERY TIME.

This site is making an actual difference in real people's lives. Sometimes I think I forget that all this interwebs and fake points and voting and editing and other stuff can actually impact this mystical "real life" I read about once.

2
  • 8
    I concur with this, it's so satisfying to read a question and answers and then see "UPDATE: things worked out!" and how they solved the problem. Especially when the question is a difficult one which is easy to empathise with!
    – user29632
    Feb 20, 2015 at 11:49
  • "This site is making an actual difference in real people's lives." I intended to go write an answer along those lines, but you just said it.
    – user8036
    Mar 6, 2015 at 10:43
8

And now the request for input: what have you found most gratifying, pleasantly surprising, or helpful on The Workplace in this past year?

I'm always gratified (and sometimes pleasantly surprised) when an answer I provided actually gives the questioner what she/he needs.

I'm only here to help. When I get feedback that I have helped, that makes me happy.

I'm pleased that we have such a great community here providing opportunities to learn from, and to help, others.

2
  • 2
    I concur. And I'm sometimes surprised by the amount of help an answer sometimes gives; most recently, I hoped this answer would help the OP and figured it might get a few votes, but for a "niche" problem I wasn't expecting much to happen there. The voting on that has really surprised me; I hope that means I've helped some other people too. Feb 25, 2015 at 2:00
  • 2
    I think one awesome thing about Workplace is that questions here have a lot more "life impact" than say Stack Overflow. Most people's lives aren't going to be changed by answering a programming question. But they CAN be by a question here.
    – enderland
    Feb 26, 2015 at 17:59
8

And now the request for input: what have you found most gratifying, pleasantly surprising, or helpful on The Workplace in this past year? (...) Maybe you came across a question you didn't even know you had and the answers there helped you avert a problem?

I discovered the workplace (and really all the stackexchange communities) last year and in most communities, I've mostly been reading and upvoting and occasionally commenting. I like the workplace because I've found answers to lots of questions I didn't even know I had. Being from Europe, I've learned quite a bit about the differences between working in Europe vs in the U.S.

Also, I want to thank all the answer-authors here. You guys are so great that I haven't had a chance to write an answer, yet, because everytime I think "oh, I know an answer to this" when I read the existing answers you have already written a great answer that I can agree with and upvote.

I'm definitely going to continue to follow the workplace this year.

7

Around the time of our graduation I got laid off and so was in need of a new gig. For the first time I was facing a Skype interview early in the process and found this post very helpful. Successful Skype and local interviews led to the need to go to the main office to interview, and at that point I had a question.

I liked this company and didn't want to blow it over something stupid, but I was not at all clued in about the expense conventions for local cabs. I figured that most people would just drive but I have some vision problems that were enough to lead to some uncomfortable moments at my previous employer, and I sure didn't want that to be a problem at this stage. (We could talk about minor accommodations later, after I was hired.) I considered just swallowing the expense, but I asked about whether it was generally kosher to take a cab to my own airport and, reassured by the answers there, did so and submitted that expense (and nobody blinked).

By the way, not only did I get the job, but I was sitting in the airport waiting to come home when The Workplace's first moderator election finished, watching the results on my tablet. I'll call that a good day. :-)

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .