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One of the issue of Sandbox is decreased visibility because it is put in meta site instead of main site.

How can we increase the visibility, especially for the new users?

If you are proposing improvement for the Sandbox itself, please post in How shall we make the sandbox work better?, not here.

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    $\begingroup$ If we do this, please put it at the end so it doesn't defeat the mouse-over preview of questions from the main page. $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 2:21
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    $\begingroup$ I'd prefer a simple one liner like "This question was created with help from the Sandbox." $\endgroup$
    – sphennings
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 3:07
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    $\begingroup$ I'd be extremely cautious with anything that can be construed as a requirement. By all means encourage it, but don't make it sound like this is something someone has to do. Barring things like answer invalidation, the substantive content of a post should always be up to the post's owner. (This goes in line with the general "respect authorial intent" when editing other peoples' posts.) $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 5:48
  • $\begingroup$ @MichaelKjörling do you think it's possible to put it in a banner like "hard-science questions"? $\endgroup$
    – Vylix
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 7:04
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    $\begingroup$ It's technically possible (in the sense that custom, pre-defined per site post notices are a thing), but it isn't really what post notices are meant for and it requires at least the involvement of a community manager (it's not something mods can do on their own). I won't say we can't have one, but it would at a minimum be somewhat involved. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 7:08
  • $\begingroup$ There are other possibilities to increase the visibility of the sandbox that I can think of, but the way you've worded this makes any alternative proposals impossible as those do not even remotely answer the question... :P Had you asked "how can we increase visibility of the sandbox?" and posted the above as a self-answer to that, other solutions to the same problem could more easily have been proposed. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 7:12
  • $\begingroup$ @MichaelKjörling done. I'm glad no one posted an answer :) Now, GO! I want to read your proposals! $\endgroup$
    – Vylix
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 7:24
  • $\begingroup$ I'm not super familiar with how StackExchange handles everything, but would it be possible to have something pop up in the Factory Floor chatroom for every new answer posted to the Sandbox page? We do that for new questions on the site anyway, so I don't think it'd be too far a stretch to get it to work for a specialized page. $\endgroup$
    – Pleiades
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 21:46
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    $\begingroup$ @Pleiades That is already implemented. It's a special chat bot that posts a message. See for example here $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 5:46

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Permanently (?) put the Sandbox link to the featured section of the right banner.

Featured on meta

This way everyone will have easier access to the Sandbox, both users (especially new users) and reviewers.

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    $\begingroup$ This requires a mod to refresh the "featured" status regularly (IIRC every two weeks), but that's doable. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 7:59
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    $\begingroup$ This is what Code Golf does, but the difference there is that anyone can post in their sandbox, regardless of rep. Increased visibility for new users isn't worth much when meta requires 5 rep to post, which is why I suggested it be changed here. $\endgroup$
    – Laurel
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 19:43
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Add a link to the sandbox to the help center main page.

We have the ability to edit the very top of the help center main page, just below the search bar. That's the same page that gets linked if you write [help] in a comment.

While we shouldn't abuse that possibility, that would seem to be a good spot to place links to a few pieces of highly useful and generally applicable meta-content intended to help new users.

I could personally see how placing links there to the question sandbox, and the site-specific checklist for questions and (when we have it) that for answers. We probably shouldn't have much more than that there, to ensure that people aren't overwhelmed.

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Design a community ad to promote it. This idea has come up before, but we've never gotten all the way to an ad design that could be added to the rotation.

An ad complements other approaches that are tied to specific graduates. It might reach a different audience by being an ad with a graphic component.

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Just to throw this out there ...

Might be nice if [closed] stories had a link to the sandbox. Here's what it looks like now:

closed as primarily opinion-based by akaioi, rhomaioi, barbaroi, kineziki, italika Oct 17 at 19:24

Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise.

If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.

Why not put a sandbox link in there too, like so:

closed as primarily opinion-based by akaioi, rhomaioi, barbaroi, kineziki, italika Oct 17 at 19:24

Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise.

If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question. You might also test out questions in the sandbox

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Add a link as the first comment under your question

This is the least intrusive way to increase the visibility. Basically we just add a little paragraph to the Sandbox explaining that we would love if everyone could post a comment under his question on the Main Site once it graduated like

This question graduated from the [Sandbox](link/to/your/draft)

or

This question graduated from the [Sandbox](link/to/list/of/graduated/posts)

That would increase visibility, let others see the relevant discussions and doesn't really require any changes. And it wouldn't clutter the real question that you asked by adding unnecessary meta information. Telling people what ways you used to clarify your question is unnecessary and doesn't belong into the question post.

Also not everyone has to do this. It's just a way to increase the visibility for the Sandbox if you were satisfied or are hoping to increase the functionality of the Sandbox.

We should make sure that question drafts are not immediately deleted in that case. For example you should only flag drafts that graduated after 24 hours.

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  • $\begingroup$ I support this idea. However, this way we cannot add the link to the sandbox in the already graduated questions (the link will appear in bottom of the question, and possibly hidden by "show more comments") $\endgroup$
    – Vylix
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 9:07
  • $\begingroup$ @Vylix Hopefully a graduated post won't need too many comments for clarification so the link should be visible for quite some time on the Main Site. If there are a lot of comments it will be hidden. That's the negative thing about this proposal. But it's easy to do and should raise the awareness quite a bit if the people asking questions start to use this. $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 9:10
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    $\begingroup$ @Secespitus we could just link to the list of graduated posts. $\endgroup$
    – sphennings
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 15:31
  • $\begingroup$ @sphennings Good point $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 16:41
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I propose that we should add a link to the sandbox, in the end of questions that graduated from Sandbox.

Graduated ideally should means at least one upvote from more experienced members. But right now I'm stuck on defining the requirements for graduation.

  1. This will let people know that a Sandbox exists for them to prepare a question before posting to the main site.

  2. This will help people see that graduated questions have above than average quality. (At least it won't be closed as fast)

The proposed line should read like this:

This question was created with help from the "Sandbox".

Feel free to propose feedback and suggestion and criticism.

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    $\begingroup$ A convention to add this at the end sounds fine to me. I'd oppose putting it at the beginning because it takes valuable context out of the excerpt you see in the tooltip on the main page and in the questions list. $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 21:29
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Can we add a line to the "Ask Question" page?

This seems like the most intuitive place to put a link to the Sandbox, if not a blatant advertisement for it. There are two locations that I think might be good for this one, see mockups below.

In the main body of the screen

Mockup with addition in the main body

In the sidebar, where alternative questions already appear

Mockup with the addition in the sidebar

Monica mentions here that it's difficult to make this change because it's on the SE side of things, but I personally think it'd be the best possible place for a link.

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  • $\begingroup$ The problem is that currently the Sandbox is on Meta and therefore requires at least 5 reputation to post to. This means that completely new users will see the feedback announcement, maybe try to go there and be met with a weird gray site where they have to read a whole lot before understanding that they have to post an answer with their question - only to be told that they need at least 5 reputation to post their question in an answer. This doesn't seem to be very welcoming to completely new users with our current setup. $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 7:10
  • $\begingroup$ @Secespitus Yeah, I agree. I’m hoping that with the current feature-request it’ll be viable, as it currently seems like that’s goikg to go through (thanks to you!) $\endgroup$
    – Dubukay
    Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 16:10
  • $\begingroup$ It looks that way, but first we have to wait for the result and then we have to wait for it to be implemented. And it's not just because of me. IPS.SE is currently experimenting with a Sandbox and they had the same problem with 1-rep users. I talked with one of their mods and Monica about why we didn't follow through with that discussion and we decided to just ask an explicit feature-request again. $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 16:16
  • $\begingroup$ @Secespitus I figured, and that’s why I didn’t post this until now - it’ll only make sense once that FR goes through, but I still think it’s a good idea to start the discussion on it early. $\endgroup$
    – Dubukay
    Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 16:20

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