When do we finally progress "Internet of Things" from beta to released?

Question

Now all joking aside and still being new to all of this, what is beta a version of Internet of things? Or is beta a mix of different meanings?

I am assuming we had an alpha stage right?

Answer 1

^{This is largely extracurricular to the answers already posted, but this is important to provide a bit of context…}

This site is essentially "done" — released. This is a a fully functional, launched site. It is not "in beta" as you've come to understand it the traditional software development model, or "in testing" or something that failed to "graduate". So congratulations; enjoy your site!

The continued use of the words like "beta" and "graduated" in this context is an unfortunate misnomer (as you can see by having to ask this questions at all). I wish we would do away with it for the reasons I outlined in this meta post.

Someday, hopefully.

One final note — pushing the "seven essentials" discussions (as mentioned in Helmar's answer) has often been found to be more harmful that helpful. There's no need to force "rules discussions" where there is no actual problem. Folks are more than willing to point out problems where they show up in actual practice, so tackle the problems when/if they become prominent in actual use — but until then, enjoy your newly launched site!

Answer 2

When do we finally progress “Internet of Things” from beta to released?

This is called graduation. The criteria now used for graduation are available on Meta Stack Exchange:

1. When a site starts to consistently receive 10 questions/day, we’ll consider it for graduation.
2. If a public beta site does not produce consistently helpful content, and lacks the caretakers needed for flags and spam to get handled and our Be Nice policy to be upheld, it will be closed.

We are currently at 4 questions per day, so we're not quite there yet (unsurprisingly). As Helmar mentioned, public betas last at least 90 days, but often last significantly more. A lot of new sites take months or years to reach the point where they are consistently receiving 10 questions per day, and that's fine! Robert Cartaino (Director of Community Development at Stack Exchange) wrote a blog piece specifically about this, entitled 'When Will My Site Graduate?'. It's definitely worth reading that for a little bit more context.

In short: we'll be in beta for at least 90 days. The rest is up to us - if we work hard to build the site and get the word out, we'll likely be graduating a lot earlier than if we just sit idly, wondering why the site isn't growing.

Answer 3

New Stack Exchange sites are launched via Area 51. You can have a look at the Area 51 FAQ to see how the site progresses through the different stages. We are currently in public beta. You can help us get to released or in Stack Exchange terms graduated by contributing with high quality answers and questions on the main site.

A site stays in beta at least for ninety days and we haven't even reached forty, so there is still some ways to go. During that time we are trying to answer the Seven Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta. You are welcome to participate in that effort.