Prepare a reader survey

[chriscool]

In #625 we consider creating a reader survey to get feedback and learn how we could improve Git Rev News as edition 100 is fast approaching. Let's further discuss this idea here.

We could use @jnareb 's Survs.com account (from the time of Git User's Surveys - latest in 2016)

We should come up with a list of questions.

[mjaix]

I have thought a while regarding possible changes to the Git Rev News. My personal opinion is that the story should remain - whether it's short or long depends on what happened, but what IMHO counts  is its large variety and the chance to get an idea what's cooking even if there is no time to follow the mailing list. In short: it keeps you hungry ... Second, I would opt for moving the list of releases to the end - Jakub's link collection is far better :-). Regarding the survey, we should ask some "open" questions which invite to brainstorming.

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On Mon, 2023-02-27 at 20:03 -0800, Christian Couder wrote: In #625 we consider creating a reader survey to get feedback and learn how we could improve Git Rev News as edition 100 is fast approaching. Let's further discuss this idea here. We could use @jnareb 's Survs.com account (from the time of Git User's Surveys - latest in 2016) We should come up with a list of questions. —

[sivaraam]

My personal opinion is that the story should remain - whether it's
short or long depends on what happened, but what IMHO counts
is its large variety and the chance to get an idea what's cooking even
if there is no time to follow the mailing list. In short: it keeps you
hungry ...

I concur. I've found it to be a crucial part of Rev News and have always enjiyed reading it. So, it would be great to have it as-is 🙂

[chriscool]

@mjaix and @sivaraam thanks for your opinion!

I agree with moving the list of releases to the end.

I also agree with asking open questions in the survey. What do you think about the following ones:

• What are the Git Rev News sections you enjoy the most and why?
• What are the Git Rev News sections you don't enjoy much and why?
• What kind of information is the most useful to the community? Is it already available through Git Rev News? If not how should it appear?
• Does Git Rev News help recruit contributors to Git? How could it do better?
• Which Git Rev News section(s) would you like to appear at the top and which one(s) at the bottom?
• Which section(s) could evolve in a good way and how?
• Do you have ideas for new sections?
• Would you be interested in contributing to a section (existing or not) and why?
• How could Git Rev News help people who would like, or are starting, to contribute to Git?
• How could we make it easier to contribute to Git Rev News?
• How could we recruit new contributors or helpers to Git Rev News?
• Do you have suggestions for the Git Developer Pages website (https://git.github.io/)?
• How could Git Rev News get more readers?

[sivaraam]

I have a few questions to add related to interviews to your wonderful list of questions. Do include the ones which seem relevant.

• If there were a way for you suggest contributors to be interviewed, would it be helpful ?
• Is there anyone we've missed to interview ? / Is there anyone who you wish should be interviewed?
• We request for a re-interview of certain contributors who've been interviewed long back. Do you have any suggestions on contributors who you wish to be re-interviewed ?
• Do you have any suggestions on the set of interview questions ?

On another note, I believe we might need to categorize the questions a bit to ensure the survey doesn't seem too long 🤔

[chriscool]

@sivaraam I like your great questions and I am Ok to add them as-is. Based on them I think we might want to add more questions related to each specific section we already have.

On the other hand, I am not sure categorizing is always a good idea. I would prefer to ask questions in a random order different for each reader, as I think answering a bunch of different questions first might give ideas for other answers to similar questions later.

[chriscool]

@jnareb do you have questions about the link sections?

@mjaix do you think more people reviewing for correctness would help? Could we add questions related to that to the above list?

[chriscool]

A few other questions we might want to ask:

• What is missing in the "Releases" section? Which tools could/should we add to this section?
• How could we get more help with the scripts to automate the "Release" section and the publication of Git Rev News?
• How could we get more and better feedback from readers and the community?

[mjaix]

Sorry for the late reply. IMHO we could extend the "helpers" question to * How could we recruit new contributors, helpers or internal reviewers to Git Rev News?

[chriscool]

@mjaix yeah, I am Ok with extending the "helpers" question. Thanks!

[chriscool]

@jnareb any question related to links or any other question we could extend to cover links too?

@mjaix @sivaraam happy about the above questions so far?

I think we are close to having a fairly complete question list. What should we do now? Ask for feedback about the question list? Just create the survey and prepare to announce it in edition 99?

[jnareb]

@jnareb any question related to links or any other question we could extend to cover links too?

Maybe a question about suggesting a blog to watch, or a good source of links (blog aggregator, newsletter, tech news site, not paywalled publishing service, etc.).

Also, what kind of links are preferred: tips and tricks, unusual use cases, new tools and workflows,...? Though I don't have good list of categories to ask about now - maybe make it open or semi open question?

[chriscool]

@jnareb great! I have added the following questions related to the "Links" section to the question list :

• Do you know blogs we should watch, or a good source of links (blog aggregator, newsletter, tech news site, not paywalled publishing service, etc.) we should take advantage of?
• What kind of links do you prefer: tips and tricks, unusual use cases, new tools and workflows, research publications, videos, podcasts? Are there some kinds of links we aren't paying enough attention to?
• Do you know good ways to classify links that we could use?

thanks!

I have also made some changes to some questions and added a few new questions related to the "Discussions" section and the long articles there.

So here is the current list of questions then:

• What are the Git Rev News sections you enjoy the most and why ("Discussions", "Developer Spotlight" aka "Interview", "Releases", "Other News" aka "Links", "Credits")?
• What are the Git Rev News sections you don't enjoy much and why?
• What kind of information is the most useful and/or enjoyable to the community? Is it already available through Git Rev News? If not how should it appear?
• Does Git Rev News help recruit contributors to Git? How could it do better?
• If there was a way for you to suggest contributors to be interviewed, would it be helpful? If yes, what kind of way?
• Which Git Rev News section(s) would you like to appear at the top and which one(s) at the bottom?
• Which section(s) could evolve in a good way and how?
• About the discussions or sometimes news we summarize in the "Discussions" section towards the top of Git Rev News, what could we improve? Are the articles too long or too technical?
• Is there anyone we've missed to interview ? / Is there anyone who you wish should be interviewed?
• Do you have ideas for new sections or sub-sections?
• Do you know blogs we should watch, or a good source of links (blog aggregator, newsletter, tech news site, not paywalled publishing service, etc.) we should take advantage of?
• Would you be interested in contributing to a section (existing or not) and why?
• How could Git Rev News help people who would like, or are starting, to contribute to Git?
• We request for a re-interview of certain contributors who've been interviewed long back. Do you have any suggestions on contributors who you wish to be re-interviewed ?
• How could we make it easier to contribute to Git Rev News?
• What kind of links do you prefer: tips and tricks, unusual use cases, new tools and workflows, research publications, videos, podcasts? Are there some kinds of links we aren't paying enough attention to?
• How could we recruit new contributors, helpers or internal reviewers to Git Rev News?
• Do you have suggestions for the Git Developer Pages website (https://git.github.io/), its Git Rev News pages, its Hacking Git page, or its GSoC and Outreachy pages?
• How could Git Rev News get more readers?
• In the "Discussions" section towards the top, is the classification of articles between "General", "Review" and "Support" relevant? How could we improve on that?
• Do you have any suggestions on the set of interview questions ?
• What is missing in the "Releases" section? Which tools could/should we add to this section?
• How could we get more help with the scripts (in https://github.com/chriscool/getreleases) we use to automate the "Release" section and the publication of Git Rev News?
• Do you know good ways to classify links that we could use?
• Do you have suggestions about the email version of Git Rev News we send?
• How could we get more and better feedback from readers and the community?

I think I have added every question that was suggested, but maybe we could still improve this list a bit. Otherwise should we already prepare the survey?

[jnareb]

Thanks @chriscool .

We should probably sort questions, and maybe divide them into sections, like "Spotlight" / "Interview", "Releases", etc.