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Chemistry Stack Exchange has a steady flow of high quality questions and answers, and a growing number of users contributing to site health and maintenance. You're on a consistent upward trend, and the Community Team (of which I am a member) has taken notice.

Chemistry SE will be graduating soon. Congratulations!

You've done a great job, and you should be very proud.

What happens now?

The SE Design Team will begin drafting site designs for you. I should warn you though, the team is a bit backlogged, and it may be a couple of months before you see our designers drop by to share mockups. Don't fret; graduation is on its way.

In the meantime, this provides an opportunity to think about how to be an even better site as privilege thresholds increase, elections are held, and you continue to grow. In the interest of reflecting and planning ahead, I'm posing a question to the community:

Is there anything you'd like to see Chemistry Stack Exchange do better?

Weigh in by posting an answer below.

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    $\begingroup$ How about setting off some virtual fireworks? Good work to you all! $\endgroup$
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 19:27
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    $\begingroup$ NO WAY!!!!!! WHOOOHOO! $\endgroup$
    – LordStryker
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 19:44
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    $\begingroup$ Wow is all I can say!! I wasn't expecting this! $\endgroup$
    – jonsca
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 19:44
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    $\begingroup$ Huzzah! Woohoo! Gadzooks! This is amazing, and kudos to everyone! : It's been a fun journey, and I enjoyed being a part of this great community. Here's to greater travels after graduation! $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 21:53
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    $\begingroup$ Holy crap guys, this is awesome news! Congratulations to everyone, and keep up the good work! $\endgroup$
    – Nicolau Saker Neto
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 23:12
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    $\begingroup$ Well, I am tapping everyone virtually on their respective shoulders. It's been an amazing journey so far and I am curious how it will continue. $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Sep 20, 2014 at 11:52
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    $\begingroup$ Awesome! Let the party start :) $\endgroup$
    – tschoppi
    Commented Sep 21, 2014 at 1:57
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    $\begingroup$ Finally! I hope will be able to contribute actively in the next year. $\endgroup$
    – yolo123
    Commented Sep 22, 2014 at 1:52
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    $\begingroup$ <insert 5 min of crazy victory dancing here> :) $\endgroup$
    – Philipp
    Commented Sep 22, 2014 at 23:15
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    $\begingroup$ wait.... my close vote privileges?? noooooo!!! :( $\endgroup$
    – user3459110
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 9:17
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    $\begingroup$ anyways, good work everyone. Congratulations guys :D $\endgroup$
    – user3459110
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 9:18

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This isn't an answer, but I felt it was too important to put in a comment. I also know that "thank you's" aren't generally welcome. So if this needs to be deleted, so be it, but this is a special occasion and this is a special thank you.

As others have already noted, the entire SE Chem community has pitched in to make this graduation possible. Yet, IMO, the moderators F'x, jonsca and ManishEarth have led the charge over the 2-plus years in beta and deserve a special thanks. I'm sure the different moderators play larger or smaller roles at different times, depending what else is going on in their lives. In the 4-5 months that I've been active, I don't think a day has gone by where I haven't seen jonsca tidying up here and there, keeping the site running smooth, and rarely getting a "thank you" for it.

So thanks again to everyone for making this event happen, and especially to the 3 moderators for being front and center.

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    $\begingroup$ I appreciate your kind words, ron! All of the active users have played an integral part in this and I thank each and every one of you, as well. $\endgroup$
    – jonsca
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 14:22
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I would like to see a more involved and diverse community.

As pointed out in another meta post, the answer-to-question ratio is quite low but I believe this to be a direct result of the fact that our community is small. Many times when a question is asked, correct answers from various perspectives (i.e. fields of study) will give very insightful and correspondingly unique solutions to the question. However, it would be rather redundant for two people from the same niche offer the same sort of answer to a question. For example, I am a computational chemist and my answers are usually given from this perspective. @Martin is also a computational chemist. Anytime one of us posts a response, usually if something is missing we hash it out in comments and just tweak the answer as opposed to leaving two answers. That being said, it would interesting to see responses come from other perspectives such as a response coming from an organic chemist. While both answers may be equally satisfying, both would likely be insightful in their own way.

I want to see this community grow much more than where it stands. I believe that the quality of the information being tacked onto questions will increase significantly and most importantly, will offer everyone a more diverse and rigorous source of knowledge. I know I learn something new here everyday. Now I want to learn a hundred new things here everyday.

In short, lets grow this already awesome community!

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    $\begingroup$ Now that my exams are over, I plan on adding some of my own answers wherever I can — boosts the stats, adds more content, answers some questions, and I learn stuff. Feel free to ping me with questions which you think would benefit from an answer from me :) $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 21:55
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    $\begingroup$ Agreed on every term and we do quite well see, that it is possible. Ron and I often have different perspectives and I do learn a lot from his answers, too. (And this is just to mention one name, there are many others.) I hope we will continue to grow and I am looking forward to seeing many questions and answers. Don't forget, the questions are the most important thing, so I am looking for many more curious people. $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Sep 20, 2014 at 11:58
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I want to focus on the question posed here a while back about voting, the subject of which seems to still be relevant now.

Having just read that Chemistry SE is graduating, I propose as a change just a little pop-up at the top of the screen for the OP telling them to gently vote after they've received a couple of answers. I'm against compulsory voting because of course the OP might never have had a suitable answer to their question.

I've noticed recently that there are a couple of people asking copious questions, a lot in the same vein, without seemingly voting. Ever.

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    $\begingroup$ It's a nice idea, although it may be more suitable at the stackechange.com level. I think a similar suggestion would be for accepting an answer. I know there's a badge, but some new people don't seem to ever accept an answer. $\endgroup$
    – Geoff Hutchison
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 14:28
  • $\begingroup$ I agree about the idea over the whole domain, although I feel as if my suggestion wouldn't really get noticed. Chemistry should lead by example! $\endgroup$
    – user7232
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 14:35
  • $\begingroup$ Some of this lack of voting is due to the system. It takes 15 reputation points to be able to upvote and often users just posting homework questions don't get very much rep. This is a nice idea, but as @GeoffHutchison mentions, it would have to go into the codebase for the sites at a network level. Some features are tweakable by site, but most are not, unfortunately. $\endgroup$
    – jonsca
    Commented Sep 26, 2014 at 2:06
  • $\begingroup$ I didn't realise the latter part, thanks @jonsca for pointing this out. $\endgroup$
    – user7232
    Commented Sep 26, 2014 at 12:27
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    $\begingroup$ From time to time, especially when you haven't posted an answer, myself and others have posted words to this effect: I noticed that you have posted XX questions and have “accepted” none of them. Please don’t take offense, but may I suggest that you improve your acceptance rate? Posting so many questions with no accepted answers hurts the site. In order for our site to move from beta, certain criteria must be met. One of them is the overall acceptance rate for questions. Also, accepting an answer is a way of saying “thanks” to the person who answered your question. (cont.) $\endgroup$
    – ron
    Commented Sep 26, 2014 at 15:04
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    $\begingroup$ To “accept” an answer simply click the circular checkmark located at the top-left of an answer. Thanks for listening. $\endgroup$
    – ron
    Commented Sep 26, 2014 at 15:05
  • $\begingroup$ @ron I agree with you, however there are times (more like this one time) when the answers that I received, though insightful and somewhat rigorous, do not answer the question to the capacity that I was looking for. In those cases, not accepting one of the answers is, of course, appropriate. $\endgroup$
    – LordStryker
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 12:37
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    $\begingroup$ @LordStryker Absolutely, I was referring to the case of someone relatively new to the site, who has asked 5-10 questions and they've, by and large, received good answers, but haven't accepted any of the answers. $\endgroup$
    – ron
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 13:34
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We have TEX for maths symbols.

From Chemistry we cant draw our own compounds. (many sites support it)

Is there any way we can put that in?

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  • $\begingroup$ That would indeed be nice. Do you have anything in particular in mind? Could you maybe refer to one of the pages that support it? $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Oct 7, 2014 at 2:56
  • $\begingroup$ There is a software known as JCHEM and the sites which support it are...like...emolecules.com or webqc.org/moleculareditor.php $\endgroup$
    – NeilRoy
    Commented Oct 7, 2014 at 7:54
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    $\begingroup$ There are multiple options. But it would have to be JavaScript only and probably free and open source. Neither link satisfies both. Perhaps web.chemdoodle.com/demos/sketcher $\endgroup$
    – Geoff Hutchison
    Commented Oct 10, 2014 at 2:15
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    $\begingroup$ As an example of what we do not want to deal with, look at my answer to this question: chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/28635/…. I had to draw those structures in a stand-alone program, save them as images to my hard-drive, and upload them. Cumbersome. $\endgroup$
    – Ben Norris
    Commented Apr 13, 2015 at 18:22
  • $\begingroup$ I hope this feature is added.... $\endgroup$
    – NeilRoy
    Commented Apr 14, 2015 at 3:01
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I am brand new here - and was treated to a very vibrant, warm and incredible welcome in chat. Reading some of the questions and answers have inspired me to do my small bit to contribute. Even though Chemistry is outside of my field of expertise, I can research well enough.

To be honest, I am not at all surprised that the site has got the go ahead to graduate out of beta.

Congratulations!

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    $\begingroup$ Everytime I come read this post saying we graduated I feel like this: i.imgur.com/gtmaq2Q.jpg $\endgroup$
    – LordStryker
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 17:10

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