Re: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey

[Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>]

* Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com> [2020-10-12 11:56]:
> > Let us say you wish to ask if users are using MELPA or what else?
> > There is nothing else to compare.
> 
> At least we can get ratio between people using MELPA vs. not using
> MELPA. As I stated, it might be useful later, when we have nongnu ELPA.
> Or it might, for example, reveal that most of Emacs users are actually
> not using MELPA (though I don't believe that it is the case).

Take in consideration that there are many organizations using
GNU/Linux distributions internally on many many computers, with many
many users. From time to time those users may need to use some
editors. But in general, they will not be excited for any talk we have
here, for any usage of Internet beyond their work or study. That group
of users consider would think it is immature to speak of
configurations, etc.

Debian is collecting some information of organizations using it:
https://www.debian.org/users/

Example:
https://www.debian.org/users/edu/ethz_phys

>  Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Department of Physics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

> We have about 160 workstations which are automatically installed
> with additional science/math/astronomical software. We also have
> about 10 servers. All machines run stable.

Now those 160 workstations with some nice software, maybe they are
used by students, I do not know, but those people whoever use them are
still users of a system, among them there will be those using GNU
Emacs, but they may not be excited for the talk we have here.

One would need to find out with them how many would be using Emacs,
and I doubt anybody would be using MELPA.

Hypothetically, university could have 160 workstations and 2000 users,
maybe some use Emacs, some not, among those who use maybe nobody use
MELPA, while for usage of ELPA, one could say "YES" because it is
embedded, but practically, maybe nobody used neither ELPA or
MELPA. And you would never find out about those 2000 users. In
addition, those 2000 users are growing each year, as there is new
number of students coming to university, those among them using Emacs
would become users of Emacs and would later probably not be using
Emacs, maybe after they finish university there are other things to
do. Yet such case would be very significant case of users of Emacs.

GNU/Linux systems are multi-user systems, one computer could have
large number of users, many would never be involved with any
development, or being proud of using Emacs, so what, it is just editor
for them or just computing environment, but they would not need to
communicate online about that.

Basically, the point of that survey is useless, as it will not reach
the true user base.

It will reach us, people who like polishing their cheap "cars", ricers
by definition, how they call computer users who polish their Window
Manager themes, icons, colors, and now Emacs. Ricers. Jargon file has
to be updated.

Rice

"Rice" is a word that is commonly used to refer to making visual
improvements and customizations on one's desktop. It was inherited
from the practice of customizing cheap Asian import cars to make them
appear to be faster than they actually were - which was also known as
"ricing". Here on /r/unixporn , the word is accepted by the majority
of the community and is used sparingly to refer to a visually
attractive desktop upgraded beyond the default.

From:
https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/wiki/themeing/dictionary#wiki_rice

I hope you get my point.

The survey would not be really directed to Emacs users, as the true
user base is hard to reach.

It would be directed to Emacs Ricers, people who like polishing their
Emacs.

> Note that I am not arguing that we have to include this question in this
> specific poll (there will be many other valuable inputs regardless of
> this question).

Those polls are best to be placed on Emacs website.

Or just make a package in Emacs that is similar to Debian's popularity
contest package, see statistics here:
https://popcon.debian.org/

and here is statistics for Emacs:
https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=emacs

I see there about 50000 users, there could be hundreds of thousands of
users, as not everybody is using the package "popularity-contest" to
submit reports about their usage.

Vim is leading before Emacs:
https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=vim

Now those statistics are indication, but not the real information, as
one has to know dynamics and definitions. Popularity contest does not
mean it is popular by use, but by number of installation.

To be popular by use is not same as to be popular by number of
installations.

One can see that on each statistics page that most popular package in
Debian is dpkg, but I really doubt that it is "most popular software
used by users" in Debian. libc6 is also most popular software, but who
knows about that? Do you see that statistics can be doubtful?

Which computer user is going around and telling how he is using libc6
on his computer, being proud, or liking to configure it for his
pleasure?! Yet the package is "popular" as number one.

Example how such popularity is blown up is that Debian package
'education-common' recommends 'vim' or other version of vim. Let us
say somebody wish to install some educational package in Debian, such
could pull 'education-common' which in turn could pull 'vim' as
recommended package, but user would not be really using 'vim', one
would be using what one wants (some other software).

Such popularity contest would counte number of installations of
packages, and so it does it automatically.

> Just wanted to point out that MELPA statistics will not answer the
> question what fraction of users are _not_ using MELPA. If that
> fraction is significant (unlikely), taking only MELPA statistics
> might be not representative.

Nothing can answer that question, as real number of Emacs users cannot
be obtained.

But hey, we can reach those who are online. Emacs Ricers.