Dear Stack Exchange people, could you tell us our "weekend slump" time window?

Question

Hi there to the people who run Stack Exchange.

I know us humble contributors don't get access to the traffic data but I'd like to file an official request for one bit of that data.

We're trying to form a weekly event to ask a traffic-generating question each weekend to stave off the weekend lull.

But we can only take a guess at when would be the best time whereas you have access to the data.

Could you tell us when the lull really kicks in and when it eases off so we can build a stimulus event around it?

Answer 1

The lowest time of day would be around midnight over the weekend (Eastern US timezone).

Answer 2

You can look around on the Data Explorer to see such statistics for launched sites. For example:

• posts by hour of the week
• number of questions and answers by hour of the week
• answers by 15-minute period of the week
• question score by hour of the day
• posts by day of the week
• question score by hour of the day

There is some variation from site to site. For example, the weekend lull is significantly more marked on Server Fault (which caters to professionals) than on Super User (which caters to amateurs).

Generally speaking, the least busy times of the day are around early morning UTC, when the US is going to bed and Europe hasn't woken up yet. The least busy days of the week are Saturday and Sunday.