Proposal: Firearms
Firearms has a storied history. It was one of the very first proposals, but has been plagued by a number of difficult and vocal members. It eventually made it into the commitment phase, but has stalled there for four months.
What is holding Firearms back?
What can be done to fix this proposal?
This isn't a direct answer to the "Firearms question", but the concept is important to consider:
The days of successfully creating sites solely from existing audience that frequents Area 51 are just about over. The original Stack Overflow-driven crowd is all but tapped out of interests; that is to say, any site that was going to be created by that audience has already been created.
To get that 2nd generation of sites created, you are almost certainly going to have to reach out and bring in an audience from the wider Internet. Certainly we can bring users in from the newer sites to expand our scope, but it's a bit of a Ponzi scheme to think that the same group of people are going to keep churning out out more and more sites, endlessly. Sooner or later — much like the inevitable failure of Ponzi schemes — you simply run out of people (and their interests).
I would like to see this site see the light of day. It does not help when some of the original supporters left.
Tell your friends and get the word out. Every successful Stack Exchange site starts with a good user base that continues to come back again and again. The solution is really getting people involved and committed to the proposal. Like mentioned, it was an early suggestion when area 51 took off, but it has seen slow response after the initial rush of supporters.
There are no issues with the topic as long as it follows the standard rules of the Stack Exchange platform. It is just another topic in the mix. It is almost there, so invite anyone you know who could benefit or contribute to it.
There is a lot of random good and bad information running around on the Internet and this site would help greatly improve firearms information online when people have questions or concerns. Education is key to the topic.
One problem with Firearms is that there was an actual loss of interest, vocal or otherwise. Even the original proposer, TheHurt, has left. Part of this is due to it being an early proposal and thus affected when Area 51 changed drastically, and part of this is due to the "disruptive comments" that shaped an impression of what people had to deal with there. The history probably doesn't have a sharp of an impact on the lull as the fallout that it had caused.
It's difficult enough to handle a proposal when it's not catching attention. When you also lose the people who are responsible for bringing attention, though, you're effectively starting at a severe disadvantage. Missing a huge chunk of the original support for the proposal means a lot more promotion will be necessary.
It's not going to be a complete solution to this problem, but you really need to get increased promotion to overcome the losses. Don't stop at getting friends and associates, get friends to get their friends. This proposal will have low hopes until it can make up for all of the lost ground.
I came in early, saw the decline, and have tried to draw in other people in the online firearms community a few times. Those people, some of whom are pretty technical, didn't immediately get the StackExchange concept. Those who aren't technical didn't get it at all. Overall, no one seemed interested in a new thing. I couldn't get them to dedicate time to checking it out. It may be that existing webforums (thehighroad, glocktalk, ar15.com, calguns, etc) serve needs better. Maybe the online community wants to chat as much as they want to answer questions.
I just saw the invite today, so maybe you'll see some progress this week.
Edit: I noticed in the FAQ on the commitment score that it is possible to boost the "commitment" percentage if the older committers "un-commit" and "re-commit" to undo the decay. Although if I read the stats correctly, we still need 50 more committers and 9 of them need to have 200+ rep on other sites.
Edit 2 Regarding commitment
UPDATE #2
We've added a decay factor to commitment votes on Area 51. This applies only to the Commitment Score portion. Basically, the older a vote is, the more it decays. This is very gradual: something like 10% over 6 months. If a user is very committed, they can "renew" their vote every few weeks by uncommitting and recommitting.
The problem is lack of attention, not the content. Astronomy, that was proposed at the same time as Firearms, suffers from the same problem.
The solution is to draw attention to the proposal. Use your blog and Twitter account to promote Firearms. If you have a blog with a lot of readers or a lot of followers on Twitter this would be an effective way. And/or change your user name :-)
We definitely need to promote it more - I personally think this is one of the absolute best Q&A proposals on Area51, and can't wait for more folks to commit so it can go live
Going out into other communities is the way to go. This topic is very specialized as people feel strongly about firearms in one way or the other. Usually, the opinions are extreme. Firearms are either respected and revered, or feared and shunned.
Therefore, the most success may come from spreading the word on website forums like Open Carry and US Concealed Carry, just to name a few.
YouTube may be another way to advertise this proposed site. There are plenty of firearm supporters who contribute to the community through informative YouTube videos. These individuals are well-known in these communities and may be willing to sponsor a site like this and help spread the word through their videos.
Perhaps a proposal is in order? A well written call to action or perhaps a website hosted outside of Area51 could help get this started?
What the Firearms site will need are lots of examples of useful technical answers to difficult or curious questions. Tough part is that it will require reaching a beta phase before such questions and answers can be posted.
Some examples of interesting questions:
The more of these sort of useful questions are posted, the more likely that people will discover the site through internet searches on similar questions and topics.
What will be boring for most users are the usual, redundant, preaching-to-the-choir arguments about the importance of gun ownership, etc...I can read dozens of these articles in my favourite magazines, when I'm in the mood.
Cannot do much about the old-timers/non-technically inclined who are still figuring out what an internet forum is and what's the point, etc, other than try to explain to them that the Firearms site provides a fun way to ask and answer questions about firearms.
