Although nobody can be sure about the exact start date, I stand by my prediction here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/4p9fs5/se_private_beta/

Private beta generally begins on a Tuesday or Wednesday and will depend on when we reach 100% on all 3 commitment benchmark measurements (and possible influenced by the July 4th holiday).

If you have already reached your reputation goal and told everyone you know about Monero and Stack Exchange, thank you.

Monero is complex and much newer than Bitcoin. Our goal will not be to match the Bitcoin Stack Exchange activity levels: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/30763/bitcoin

Many more common Bitcoin questions have already been answered than will be the case with Monero. Ethereum statistics (with the exception of visitors per day early on) provide a better target for us: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/89704/ethereum

In order to do this, we need thousands of high quality questions and answers over the coming months. If activity is too low, Stack Exchange will close our site and we will never reach public beta.

We can be successful if:

We have community members and moderators willing to enforce quality standards for questions and answers. This includes the removal of questions that can only be answered with speculation and editing questions and answers for grammar and clarity. New users and developers are frequently referred to Stack Exchange. Everyone in the community takes responsibility to build a reservoir of common questions and answers that can be relied upon to add useful Stack Exchange content on days with relatively low activity. Asking a common question is not an admission of ignorance, it is a means of helping others. Ample common questions can be culled from Bitcointalk, Reddit and IRC logs. We tell everyone we know about the Monero private beta. Advertise it to all potential users and developers that can be identified both online and offline.

As we move from private beta to public beta, there will be need to select provisional moderators. Please read the links below to understand the process and importance of this: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/07/moderator-pro-tempore/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/07/the-7-essential-meta-questions-of-every-beta/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/a-theory-of-moderation/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/12/stack-exchange-moderator-elections-begin/

I would like to make a few suggestions:

One or more of our moderators should have a solid understanding of how Monero works. Although a core developer would be ideal, they should only agree to become a moderator if they believe they can dedicate enough time to do a good job. There is no need for a moderator to be able to answer every question, but we need one or more moderators that understand whether a question CAN be answered on a technical level. Answers that cannot be answered without heavy reliance on speculation do not belong on Stack Exchange. We need moderators who believe that a Monero Stack Exchange site can succeed on its own and work hard to make that happen. If you think that Monero cannot succeed on its own and will eventually by rolled into a cryptocurrency Stack Exchange site, then please do not apply to become a moderator. We need moderators in vastly different time zones who have the ability to dedicate many hours to making our site a success.

Our community values privacy. While trust is important, people should not have to reveal their identity to become a moderator unless they choose to do so. Moderators are identified by their Stack Exchange (public) profiles. The decision to link that profile to an identity outside of Stack Exchange should be up to each individual (although that decision clearly may have an impact on community support for the appointment of that moderator).

Some of us have referred quite a few people to the Stack Exchange proposal. As such we will likely carry a lot of weight (at least by numbers) in the meta topic where moderator nominations and discussions will take place. In order for the community to unite behind the eventual moderator selections I hope we can begin discussing the matter soon and receive input from as many people as possible.

Are there any Monero core developers who are willing to dedicate time to moderating the Stack Exchange site?

Are there any community members who have a strong desire to accept this responsibility?

I know people who can meet criteria 1, 2 and 3 above but I am hoping that others will also volunteer to moderate. It would be ideal if at least one core developer and one person with a long history on Stack Exchange (big plus for a background in Stack Exchange moderation) would volunteer.

Please help make this Stack Exchange effort reach its potential. This summer I and several friends each plan to spend 100s of hours working on Monero related efforts. The more community effort that gets behind this Stack Exchange effort, the more time we will have to focus on other things. I have one year left of school but am now considering a gap year before college to work on Monero full time if things proceed as I hope over the coming year.