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Incubator Q&A is meant to be the same as it would be on the launched site -- ask real questions, write real answers, discuss scope questions on Meta.  When a community launches, it will take its incubated Q&A with it -- so that should be real, not proxies.

One of the effects of trying out a proposal like this is that yes, scope boundaries might change and some questions might get closed.  That's ok -- it's important to have the negative tests too, not just the positive tests.  (Those can be left behind at launch if the community prefers.)  Everything, including the Meta questions, shares the proposal-specific tag, to make it easy to see everything together.

Proposals are wikis because we want people who are interested in a proposal to be able to work together easily to refine it.  Comments and Meta are tools to ask questions and work out disagreements.

We don't have solid metrics for "enough activity" or "enough people"; we're feeling this out together with our proto-communities.  We have a fix coming that will allow us to add an "I will participate" reaction on the proposals, but showing is better than telling: a stable community has enough positively-received questions and enough people asking and answering them that it can stand on its own even if the most active member or two step back.

This approach is new and we're all learning together.  What we were doing before wasn't working; we think this will work better, and we'd like everyone's help in refining it as we go.

We'll look again at the on-site guidance we're giving (help, category descriptions, etc) to try to make this more clear.  Suggestions are welcome!