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I'm going to (EDIT: I now have) post something like the below on the vegetarian and vegan subreddits. I'd like it to be as persuasive and informative as possible, without boring people of course. Any suggestions on how to improve it?

Title:

The Vegetarianism and Veganism StackExchange is now in public beta! This is important, and you can help.

Post:

Here is the link: http://vegetarianism.stackexchange.com

I know that someone else posted about this earlier, but it got very little attention, and it deserves much more. This is a huge deal. Let me explain.

What is StackExchange?

StackExchange is a collection of Q&A sites, each with its own area of discussion and community. There's a wide range of topics, from languages to cooking to maths to politics. It's an absolutely great place to ask for help, or hopefully to find that someone else has asked the same question before and others have already answered.

The most famous site is StackOverflow, which is about programming. StackOverflow is probably the most important website related to programming that exists, except perhaps for Google, although searching on Google for a programming question usually leads to StackOverflow. I can safely say that the world of programming would be extremely different if StackOverflow didn't exist.

What makes it special?

Asking a question on StackExchange is a very different experience from asking on another site such as reddit. While reddit is general-purpose and thus in some sense diluted, StackExchange is carefully designed to be the best possible site for asking and answering questions. Questions are expected to answerable in a way that is objective and factual (to an extent at least). This is sometimes restrictive, but it also increases the quality of questions and answers and creates a repository of knowledge that is useful for other visitors to browse through in the future. There's great attention to detail in the design and features, including a very sophisticated system of reputation, privileges, and moderation.

What's happening with the Vegetarianism site?

Creating a new site on StackExchange is a long process with several stages, each with their own criteria for passing. Previous proposals for a veg*nism site have failed due to lack of interest. This proposal has made it through the phases of Definition, Commitment, and Private Beta, partly thanks to help from reddit. Now that it is in public beta, it's here to stay indefinitely. Ideally it would graduate out of beta into a fully fledged site, but either way, it's something we want to flourish as much as possible.

What would be the benefits for the veg*n movement?

  1. A community of knowledgeable people ready and willing to give high quality answers to questions about veg*nism to anyone in need.
  2. A searchable database of previous questions and answers.
  3. Increased exposure of the veg*n movement to the outside world:
    • Popular questions can appear in the sidebar of any site
    • All questions can appear in search results on Google

What can I do?

Join in on the fun! If at any time, now or in the future, you have a question related to veg*nism that you're curious about, ask your question on StackExchange. Some topics are health/nutrition, cooking, and how to argue for veg*nism or just defend your decisions.

Visit the site occasionally, browse through questions, see if you can answer any, or just leave votes and comments. Say hi in the chatroom. All kinds of activity help the site grow and attract more visitors.

Tell your friends. Share this post or just a link to the site far and wide. Post about it on other forums, facebook groups, etc. If you see a difficult question on the site and know someone who might be able to answer, ask them for help.

Finally, if you're a moderator, it would be really nice if you could pin this post for a while for visibility. Please?

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  • thanks for posting it! :D
    – Zanna Mod
    Commented Feb 26, 2017 at 13:07
  • 2
    It is good as it is, but I think you should tone it down the imperative tense. Maybe also making it shorter (although I don't know if Reddit users care about it).
    – Ramon Melo
    Commented Feb 26, 2017 at 17:45
  • FWIW for people wanting links: somebody else posted in on r/vegan @Alex's post (I assume) on r/vegetarian
    – Riker
    Commented Feb 26, 2017 at 22:29
  • Are you okay with people ripping this off for posting elsewhere?
    – nloewen
    Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 16:09
  • 1
    @nloewen I am very OK with that. Good luck! The reddit post unfortunately didn't get much traction.
    – Alex Hall
    Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 16:10
  • @AlexHall Might be worth a repost? Maybe you just got unlucky.
    – nloewen
    Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 16:12
  • @nloewen after some time perhaps.
    – Alex Hall
    Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 16:14

1 Answer 1

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Really nice post, thanks for doing that.

Since you ask for suggestions, I will comment on few things that stood out to me personally (this does not mean they are wrong though, it is mainly my "hunch").

  1. ..this is extremely important.. in the title - seems a little bit too strong to me and also, as Ramon suggested in comments, maybe too imperative right from the start.
  2. Styilistically, the paragraphs in the What can i do? section could perhaps be in a different order, with the one starting with Otherwise, being the last one so as not to make the reader feel like you are already concluding the section in the middle of it and then starting next paragraph with exclamation mark.
  3. There is a typo in What's happening with the Vegetarianism site in the sentence: Now that is is in public beta.. there is is twice and not it.

But as I said, the post is really nice and those are just my personal opinions (well, apart from the typo :D).

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  • Thanks, I tweaked a little based on your points, and have now posted.
    – Alex Hall
    Commented Feb 26, 2017 at 21:31

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