Re: A survey for Emacs users

From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
To: Corwin Brust <corwin@bru.st>
Cc: Help Gnu Emacs mailing list <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: A survey for Emacs users
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2020 22:37:50 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <X529DhoQOam1KWme@protected.rcdrun.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAJf-WoTpBwxwvjYhBqjM8V5WBU0=4fuwmo=CtN=zCzXpBbtdVQ@mail.gmail.com>

* Corwin Brust <corwin@bru.st> [2020-10-31 21:10]:
> I'm not involved with this survey either (other than having completed
> it); however, FWIW: I think this person will probably continue their
> efforts until something else services users who don't engage with the
> mailing lists.  That seems pretty reasonable to me, however small a
> fraction of Emacs users that may be (or may eventually become) I
> assume we should continue to be interested in why those remaining
> don't raise their questions, etc., discuss here, on emacs-devel, etc.

I think people simply don't know it despite the existing pointers to
it. It is in the manual, but how many actually read the manual? Survey
for example does not even make that question.

That there is pointer in the manual, myself I did not know. I use
manual in browsing mode myself. And discover always something new.

I think that number of people discovering to be able to send bug
report is about same number of people discovering mailing lists.

Let's face it, it is 2020. People are more passive today in computing
than 20 years ago.

We get more and more Emacs users but that is due to number of devices
being cheaper or more accessible. Users are many and interactions with
communities out there are growing. But not that they are discoverable
same as before. At some years number of websites go down. Maybe due to
social media influences. Who knows.

Reference: https://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/ 

Before 20 years it was quite common to find businesses having their
own domains and emails, they were competing to get it. Today many
businesses rely on free email providers. Personal websites
exponentially disappearing from Internet, at least from search
engines. Even definiton of Internet is slowly changing.

I don't get less fascinated and occupied by time, it is never
boring. Yet majority is doing something else. Population is guided by
corporations. "Do what others are doing." is pretty much the motto.

53 Contributing to Emacs Development
************************************

Emacs is a collaborative project and we encourage contributions from
anyone and everyone.

   There are many ways to contribute to Emacs:

   • find and report bugs; *Note Bugs::.

   • answer questions on the Emacs user mailing list
     <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs>.

   • write documentation, either on the wiki
     (https://www.emacswiki.org/), or in the Emacs source repository
     (*note Sending Patches::).

   • check if existing bug reports are fixed in newer versions of Emacs
     <https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/pkgreport.cgi?which=pkg&data=emacs>.