Re: Hello and polling users

Hi

I agree with Thomas, but I've added a few extra comments in your original 
email below...

On Friday 24 September 2010 09:01:50 Thomas Thym wrote:
> Hi Ron,
> 
> thanks for sharing your ideas with us. Since promotion is about the
> bridge between users and the community it is not the worst place to
> send your message here :-)
> 
> I like your idea. Surveys could keep us in touch with our users even
> better and it would make it easier to get a picture of the whole group
> than counting single statements in the Forum or on BKO or IRC or
> something. I am not sure if our forum offers the possibility to do
> simple surveys as well. We had some usability surveys done a couple of
> months ago.
> 
> The main lack from my perspective is time. Limited time of the
> contributors. There are always so many projects and tasks that should
> be done.
> 
> Ron, you wrote that you have two weeks until the start of your
> studies. Take that chance an experience KDE (the community) and KDE
> Software. Get involved into your fascinating community. You can find
> some information how to start [1] and [2]. Or just reply to that
> group. *We would be glad to guide you.*
> 
> If you want to work on a possibility to make it easy for us to do
> polls: Perfect! Just find a tasks that is relevant to you and start.

Yep - if you have a good idea and want it to happen then the thing to do is to 
make it happen. Say you put together some survey questions, we can provide 
feedback and add some of our own. Then we can work out how to host it and give 
it a publicity push (dot story, Planet KDE, both of which other sites such as 
LWN, Tuxmachines etc often pick up)

> We hope to hear from you.
> 
> Cheers,
> Thomas
> 
> [1] KDE in general: http://www.kde.org/community/getinvolved/
> [2] KDE Promotion: http://www.kde.org/community/getinvolved/promotion/

In relation to these, you write clearly and seem good at getting ideas across, 
so one thing you might think about in the future is writing articles - if you 
fancy it.

> 2010/9/24 Ron Katzir <[email protected]>:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > My name is Ron Katzir, and I'm a student starting MA in Math in about 2
> > weeks' time. I've been following KDE since 4, for the last 2.5 years or
> > so. I've tried to port myself to Linux, trying different distributions
> > over time, but found myself always sticking to MS Windows.

Why? To turn the survey around on you for a moment ;-) (I'm always fascinated 
to find the problem for someone who wants to use free software but is being 
stopped by something)

> > Still I have
> > a special place in my heart for F/OSS and KDE especially.

You're in the right place then :-)

> > I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but it seems the
> > fittest. If not, I apologize for spamming and would gladly deliver it
> > where it belongs.
> > 
> > One of the strong points I find in Google's on-line free services is the
> > connection with users. Satisfaction polls (surveys) are quite regularly
> > conducted and feature requests are easily submitted. While KDE has
> > Brainstorm to account for easy feature request, I believe surveys are as
> > important.
> > 
> > To shorten things, since this can be discussed a lot and I have quite a
> > solid philosophy for my opinions on this matter :) I think that KDE
> > should start conducting surveys to measure the satisfaction and
> > discontent of its users, and identify the key elements of want.
> > 
> > Since identity.kde.org is open for registration for everyone, I think
> > this would be the ideal place to conduct such surveys regularly.

Maybe, though do we need registration? It might restrict us to more serious 
users of KDE software (which could be a good and a bad thing). There are 
plenty of free (as in beer) survey sites where we could set this up. Of 
course, there are probably also some free software solutions that we could 
host ourselves. For the longer term that might make sense. Someone has to do 
it though ;-)

> > This post has already become longer than I had intended. I'll just
> > mention that the reason I saw it fit to post the idea here is that
> > there's some relation between promotion and communications with users
> > (developers/project and users). In a sense, surveys can be used to
> > promote as well.

Yes, we can talk about the survey and then talk about the results too...

> > For example, a survey of people who switched from KDE
> > to GNOME or Mac or Windows can help identify issues for desertion and
> > address them.

How do we reach those people? They might have stopped visiting KDE websites?

> > Some questions for example:
> > 1) Which part are you most (least) satisfied with in KDE: performance,
> > stability, look, responsiveness, power management, power consumption,
> > etc. 2) What is your computer configurations (Distribution, KDE SC
> > version, processor, GPU, size of RAM)
> > 3) What applications are you using most: Dolphin, PIM, Gwenview, Konsole,
> > amaroK, etc.
> > 
> > Anxious to have feedback

These could be interesting questions. Some info on hardware might be quite 
useful for e.g. the KWin devs

Cheers,
Stu
 
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