Over our fifteen years, Stack Overflow has grown to be an essential knowledge resource for developers and technologists around the world. The entire network is built on the premise that good questions asked with a good process behind them can get good answers.
However, we know that asking a good question can be pretty daunting for newcomers and first-time question-askers. If you’ve ever spent time looking for an answer or tried drafting a question on Stack Overflow, you may have experienced this first-hand.
In 2022, our team tested a concept in beta called Staging Ground—a private space where new askers could get help from experienced users to iterate on and improve their questions before posting to the broader community. These questions are reviewed by users who have honed a process for asking well-crafted questions and want to help other users succeed.
We are thrilled to announce that Staging Ground is now available to all new question-askers on Stack Overflow.
Staging Ground is a private place where new askers receive guidance from experienced users before their question is posted publicly.
When a question is created, it’s moved to a private sandbox where a group of experienced question reviewers evaluate it to help determine if the question is:
- Ready to post
- Requires minor changes
- Requires major changes
- Off-topic
- Duplicate
Reviewers provide feedback on how to improve questions by leaving comments and moving questions into different statuses based on how much the questions need to be improved.
The author of the question can follow the feedback that reviewers provide and edit their question to help improve its quality before posting it on the site. If the author needs more clarity about the feedback they are receiving, they can use the comments section below their question to ask reviewers questions or for additional guidance.
When the question is ready, it will be posted on Stack Overflow to receive answers from the entire community.
Learn more about the Staging Ground in this Help Center article.
We developed Staging Floor to deal with the problem confronted by many first-time question-askers. We perceive that asking questions is difficult, and going by means of this expertise alone makes it even tougher. With the help of skilled customers in a non-public house, we imagine that authors will have the ability to discover ways to craft higher questions and improve their possibilities of getting a solution.
In the end, our objective is to enhance the brand new consumer expertise whereas concurrently bettering the standard of questions on Stack Overflow.
As a question-asker:
First-time askers create their questions by means of the Ask Wizard. After creating their query, their publish routinely enters Staging Floor for steerage from skilled customers earlier than their query is posted publicly.
Askers will obtain each inbox and e-mail notifications as they obtain suggestions on their drafted questions. They’ll additionally have the ability to see the standing of their query by clicking the “Staging Floor” icon on the left sidebar navigation.
As a question-reviewer:
When you’ve got earned 500 reputation points, you could have entry to review queues and may be part of within the efforts to enhance the standard of latest questions on the platform.
To get began reviewing questions, click on on the “Staging Floor” icon within the left sidebar navigation or by means of this link.
Tell us your ideas and supply your suggestions about Staging Floor on Meta.
Moreover, we’ll be conducting future analysis research with askers and reviewers to offer suggestions on their expertise with Staging Floor. To take part on this analysis, enable research invitations in your profile settings.
