# How does the Discourse project work?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-the-discourse-project-work/19059
**Category:** Site feedback
**Created:** [August 19, 2014, 6:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-the-discourse-project-work/19059 "2014-08-19T18:51:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 49

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-the-discourse-project-work/19059/49 "2014-09-20T14:52:03Z")

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> [@boomzilla](#):
>
> The problem with the way this is done is that it’s implemented in the main branch (i.e., goes through the normal flow so that it’s everywhere)

Incorrect. Change is implemented only in tests-passed.. be on Stable or Beta if you don’t want experimental changes. What you’re asking for already exists.

> [@cpradio](#):
>
> Having data is an absolute necessity. Without it, people make their own assumptions as to what the underlying issues/data are and build their arguments for/against based on that.

I’d say you need to be active on at least 5 different reasonably sized Discourse instances to have enough data. (Not including meta, since meta is kind of a dodo bird in terms of feedback, it’s not really representative.) The team is unique in that we sit at the confluence of probably 100+ Discourse instances, of which I touch at least 10 per day, and probably see up to ~20 on any given day, including weekends.

There’s a serious “sample size of one” problem that you want to avoid. Your particular community may have certain.. predilections and quirks.. that perhaps may not be shared by many other communities. But from this vantage point, we see everything – we’ve read literally _every single_ meta post since Feb 2013, most meta discussion that occurs on other active Discourse instances, and we sample ~10-20 Discourse instances every day, Monday through Sunday, every week, for the last year and a half.

> [@erlend\_sh](#):
>
> I’m not seeing the kind of developer adoption you ought to be seeing for v1.0 software.

Inevitable with this highly complex stack – show me another all-JavaScript project running Ember.JS and Rails that has any kind of open source traction.

And to be honest right now I do not care _at all_ about developer adoption, we need customer adoption over the next 12 months if we want the project to survive. Period.

Trends look reasonably good, don’t get me wrong, but the priority is on project survival via customer happiness, not any abstract metrics of developer happiness.

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