10mo ago

Linux user survey!

pad.tchncs.de

Encrypted Form

To get an idea of this community, and to try the cool CryptPad Survey feature, I created a pretty big Linux usage survey!

The data is anonymized and the content encrypted on the server. I plan on publishing the results.

Have fun!

It works on hardened Firefox on a phone, but the experience is better on a PC.

live results

Notes

I am very sorry but the question "it is okay that my above message gets published" cannot reasonably be respected, as the text is just dumped into a single block
Lag caused some empty questions to appear, removed
A question about disk encryption and "why do you use other OS" got mixed up
i changed the wording of some questions or added more options, so there may be duplicate old answers or too little new ones. You can edit your submission and update your answers.

Linux @lemmy.world

boredsquirrel @slrpnk.net

10mo ago

Linux user survey! 🐧

pad.tchncs.de /form/

Linux @lemmy.ml

boredsquirrel @slrpnk.net

10mo ago

Linux users survey!

pad.tchncs.de /form/

56 comments

Why can not all those be true?
- Some answers are phrased so that they all make sense, I am more interested in the most important reasons.
  Just everyone selecting everything is not that useful.
  
  Does CryptoPad not support a ranked-choice voting? You get better information than with approval voting.
  Also, are you keeping the results from each iteration, or will there be a final version that us early repliers should return to?
  
  Assumed that much, maybe phrase as the 3 most relevant to one?

I can't complete the survey because of the questions.
Some questions are single choice but should allow for multiple, like 29.
Some questions are too broad, like question 17, "why?".
- I believe 17 is why you use disk encryption, as that was the question above for me
  
  Sorry, wrong formatting. Will edit that.
- Fixed it
- Fixed

I feel that the questions around community and integration should not depend on the gender selection in question 2, imo.
- The sad reality as that tech is still not terribly diverse. It is better than it was but still lacking.
  
  I'm not disagreeing, but the poll prevents reporting a bad community experience of you select "male" as gender.

Duo to the way Crytopad works please remember to add a "Don't want to say" answer to questions with radio buttons, since you cannot deselect them meaning you can't back out of questions you don't want to answer. Hit me up if you wanna do that survey again. I'll gladly help you with structuring and formatting
- Added them

Longer than expected, but it reminded me of some things I haven't thought of in a while.

What is your gender?
What is your / your families income?
Do you have a special brain?
Yeah this survey is super inappropriate and offensive. Please do not ask such personal questions.
- I think these questions may be, depending on the context, but I'm willing to assume that these are not intended to be. If they come from a legitimate wish to better understand the community without prejudice, then these questions are acceptable to me. It's also a standalone poll, self reported and with no tie to any identity.
  But maybe I'm unique in thinking that these questions may have circumstances in which they are acceptable?
  
  Maybe it is a cultural thing. For me personally these questions are offensive.
- The way I thought of that, as someone with a special brain (autism) is that rather than just knowing things like experience and what they use/like/dislike/etcetera, it's also good to know a breakdown of what groups of people are using Linux/answered the survey. At least there was an "I'd rather not say" kind of option in case you don't wanna give up that information.
- Every of these questions is optional and has a "not saying anything" answer.
  
  That doesn't make it any less insulting and hurtful. You are asking for deeply personal data.
- The last one is just stupid, to be honest. But the rest are relevant for statistics sake.
  
  No I am honestly curious as I have the feeling there are tons of people with ADHD and Autism in the Linux community, myself included.
- Yeah this survey is super inappropriate and offensive. Please do not ask such personal questions.
  Did you notice that more inappropriate questions appear and disappear based on your previous answers?
  
  I didn't. Thanks for bring that to my attention

62 questions. I guess I am lazy.
- I kinda escalated but that form feature is supercool, those are not really 62, they expand depending on what you select.
  For example if you use GNOME and used KDE before, it asks for reasons.
  Thats probably a bug

Completed

Done

when we can we expect to get results?
- This is a first run, doing an overhaul currently (no idea if this breaks things).
  Then will post to other lemmy forums and general matrix discussions.
  Then in 2 weeks or so the results

Very biased survey in general. Should have more open-ended questions and less tailoring of questions based on previous answers.
- I experimented with the platform.
  The "anonymous" feature means I cannot do a lot of things one would normally do. For example I have no idea "users that use ubuntu and stayed with Ubuntu will likely dont care about xyz". Because there is no correlation.
  Having questions depend on the previous answers makes it possible to filter out groups of people to get more interesting data.
  And for sure the questions are biased, try to do an unbiased survey that is still interesting or funny. But I tried my best.

Why does "Why did you switch from*" have different options for each distro? Thought it was funny only NixOS had "toxic people" option. Guessing due to recent drama.
- I see someone trying out the options ;)
  Yes for sure not the perfectly scientific method, but I used things that are known. Like Snaps and Ads for Ubuntu, too old packages for Debian, and "I dont know really why to use it" for OpenSUSE lol
  And yes, NixOS to my knowledge has a huge governance issue.
  I will do another survey about exact distros, and could have used specific ones here too but didnt want to for now.

What is the difference between "Versioned" and "Stable"? And which one is NixOS?
- I am not sure haha, I think versioned means there is a certain amount of stability but closer to upstream, while stable is like "I run Kernel 5.14 and do my patches myself".
  It is the same but with a slight difference in how extreme it is.

So I am going to try and give some feedback. I think I was a little harsh at first but that was because I found this to be upsetting.
I think it is inappropriate to ask about income. I know that might be a useful metric but I think it is touchy subject. Next, do not ask if someone feels represented. That is a vague question and needs to be rethought.
For the survey itself I think it is way to long. Try breaking it into smaller pieces that are spread apart. Surveys should be around 4 simple well worded questions. With the smaller surveys there is less data combined so it would be much harder to single out individuals. It also is a time saver.
For the "special brain" question you should instead ask about disabilities. This is a dangerous question as if a person hits do not answer that is a data metric. This question should also probably be in its own survey.
For gender I think that isn't all that big of an issue. However, the fact that only non males matter is problematic. You are singling out people who may not want to be singled out. This also applies to disabilities or any trait that could put them be used against them.
I really think you should break these surveys down. Also I would have a look at the surveys by the Linux Experiment. He did a good job of doing them in a way that isn't discriminatory. He also didn't ask for information such as disabilities.
Lastly, you should offer a other button with a custom response. Sometimes we do not fit in boxes.
- Thanks, I will read your reply.
  it would be much harder to single out individuals.
  It is all anonymous, I dont get any individually sent data. Which is pretty problematic as it would be interesting to combine certain types of people, traits, behaviors etc.
  For example "people using Ubuntu back then and staying with it tend to use X11" or whatever.
  This question should also probably be in its own survey.
  Yes probably, multiple smaller ones make way more sense.
  This also applies to disabilities or any trait that could put them be used against them.
  As the ratio is so extreme, I disagree that focussing on just non-male people is wrong.
  It is a scope though, and you cannot make a fair and representative survey.
  But I agree that other disabilities could have been added.
  You are welcome to join, I and maybe a few more people plan on doing more, smaller surveys in the future.
  have a look at the surveys by the Linux Experiment.
  Yes but I didnt find it that interesting. We can argue about discrimination, but in an anonymous survey it is not problematic to ask for "sensitive" info and tons of people gave their answer there.
  These just interested me, and they are more personal than Nicks for sure.
  Lastly, you should offer a other button with a custom response.
  Yeah for sure. I want to make a followup especially on the "other" boxes that got tons of checks.
  But CryptPad seems to not have that feature.
  As a test of this feature I think it is interesting. I will try Limesurvey and Nextcloud forms the next time.

56 comments