The problem
The focus of improving the website was primarily on "what constituties as a good/bad question". We have deleted many many bad questions and tried to improve others, which is a great effort. However, if we continue only doing this, we will encounter two problems:
We will get no content whatsoever. There will be too few questions to answer, which will probably result in people visiting less often.
As a result of the former issue: There will be too few people correcting/closing the bad questions. Moreover, there won't be examples of how the questions should be. If we can't show what we consider good questions, the laymen won't see what the standard is. In turn, they may think their question is okay.
We need to create high-quality content thus. To achieve that, we need a high-quality userbase, and to achieve that, we need a larger userbase. We thus need to promote the website, preferably in the right domains: Universities, psychological institutions, TED/TEDx like communities. Every community where we expect people with a scientific background or interest is good.
The solution
To allow this promotion, I've taken it upon myself to create a new Facebook page. The idea is not new, but for some reason the old Facebook page does not exist anymore. I've read through the old posts about promoting CogSci and took two important lessons:
Issues regarding trademarks of StackExchange. As long as we do not pretend to be an official page and refrain from using the logo's all seems to be fine. 1
We need to continuously create content that keeps grabbing people's attention. This will keep old users interested, whereas new users may encounter their topic of expertise more easily. As @ChristianHummeluhr phrased rather nicely: 2
one-off events can be helpful, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for creating a vibrant community, and should not be our main focus.
- We need a team of moderators on Facebook3. Keeping creating content is difficult and we cannot ask one person to do that. Though it has become easier to plan ahead posts, this would still be too much effort for one. Moreover, I believe it is necessary to have quality checks. We want to promote the website in a good manner. Spelling mistakes or just bad content won't do that.
The questions
Who supports the idea of having this Facebook page?
What are your ideas for content besides posting questions?
Who wants to join the team of moderators, so we can do this thing together?
I will provide answers wherein you can add comments. I believe that will provide the best insights on the topic.
Finally, please like and share the page on places where you expect the right audience is.
Update 15-8-2016
I've been managing the Facebook page for six weeks now and we are at 16 page likes (and one guy besides me liking the posts). That is great already, but this will not cause the page to 'break through'. We need it to explode for a short while, such that it will gain some consistent audience, thereby immediately increasing the range of our posts.
Therefore, two (repeated) questions: (1) could you please like and share the page (and content from time to time), your old study page, university page, or on your own timeline are great places to share the website. (2) Please give me some suggestions of what questions to post. You can put them in a comment of the accepted answer.
