Below are the overall results from the survey regarding how we did in 2014. There's a tl;dr version at the bottom, so you can skip the ginormous wall of text. I'm gonna try to keep the positive stuff a bit shorter, so as to reduce the length of the post, and to allow us to focus on what needs to be changed. If you feel anything was left out, either point it out, edit it in, or contact a mod (we can create a private room to discuss, if you prefer). Also, feel free to comment on this answer, and open any individual meta posts on the topics mentioned here.
We received 12 answers to our survey, with an average score of 7.(45) (leaving out one user that did not answer), with scores ranging from 4 to 9.
Overall, we have been growing, both in content quality and number of users/visitors. The implementation of guidelines for id-requests was mentioned, also pointing out that they are flawed and may not work well for new users.
We have been gathering some more visibility from search engines, and have a good group of "engaged, knowledgeable, respectful and helpful users."
Also mentioned were: our chat rooms are fun; the mod/edit tools are good; a greater "interaction with community via events/question pushes"; and, of course, our first ever gift exchange.
Despite the fact that in the previous section most of the users saw improvements on the general quality of our posts, low-quality of posts was also mentioned in this section. With particular emphasis on the id-requests. Their overall quality is bad (despite our guidelines), and most of them are asked by hit-and-run users. That means we need to "attract and keep good users". It was also suggested that we should try to make some sort of event for recommendations, thus possibly attracting some new users, whose tastes go "beyond Naruto, One Piece, and Death Note."
The overall visibility and clarity of how we work were brought up, with special attention to little attention toward meta posts, the fact that most people seem uneducated about voting and closing (and how they're not necessarily connected), how we seem to have some friction toward changing already implemented policies/guidelines, and how many of those guidelines are based on "well, we once allowed this..." kind of decisions.
Users think we basically rather down-vote the bad stuff than up-vote the good stuff, sometimes take down-votes as a synonym for "should be closed", and many times don't close question that should be closed because of their number of up-votes.
Of the 12 answers, one user did not rate us, the rest averaged 9.(09), ranging from 7 to 10. Looks like we did good ;) thank you
Better engagement with the community, make decision confirmations clearer, and try to get our schedules to better complement each other.
Good: We got a score of 7.(45)/10; the quality of posts improved, visitors/users number rose, greater overall visibility of the site; mods rated 9.(09)/10, need to improve on engagement with the community, making decision confirmations clearer, and try to get our schedules to better complement each other.
Bad: Hit-and-run users, overall quality of content (special focus on id-reqs), improve and enforce guidelines
With the above, the general opinions of users regarding the past year have been covered.
Below, will be the results of the topics we presented as up to discussion in the next chat casts.
Most of the users seem to agree that it is an important matter, but not a pressing one. The general opinion is that we should focus more on improving the content of the site (reduce drastically number of id-req questions), and that the community will grow naturally because of that. Some activities could also be of use, but generally waiting for "the internet to take effect" seemed to be the most suggested feedback (getting more visibility in certain sites may boost user base and visit count).
Other users suggested that we try to organise some activities in meta and chat, since participating in those requires a certain amount of reputation, which would be gathered by contributing to the site. Reaching out to existing anime communities and Japanese users was also mentioned.
Despite some minor positive feedback on this matter, the general consensus was that they should not be allowed. The few positive aspects that were brought up were the fact that there's a big and knowledgeable untapped community out there, which as access to resources different from the English speaking community's; they could be particularly helpful regarding the [tag:anime-production] and [tag:manga-production] questions.
However, the main con presented was the fact that most of the present community would not be able to understand the questions. This could lead to a several number of negative aspects, such as harder implementation of general guidelines (marking a question as duplicate, for one), the difficulty of assessing whether an answer in Japanese was helpful or not due to lack of understanding, and ultimately the fragmentation of the community according to spoken language. Some users propose that it is fine, as long as they are also translated into English. But this would also bring about the problem that we'd have to have users willing/available to translate the questions/answers at any given time.
It was also suggested twice that these should have their own SE site.
Mixed consensus on this subject. Some of the users suggested it should be disallowed altogether.
General suggestions by users who weren't against it were: no explicit material (be it language, pictorial, or otherwise); purpose not pornographic; just keeping out the images; no profanities; no links; censoring and proper warning. The main arguments for allowing H questions were the fact that some well known series (Fate/Stay Night) would have to be banned if we were to disallow these. The users who think these should be allowed, basically stated we should go with the "scientific approach" regarding these topics.
Aside from mentions of "more moe" or "mascot!", the only other thing mentioned (and only twice) was that we need to settle the [tag:identification-request] matter once and for all. Specifically, the fact that we need to finally have a clear and official meta post on this.