The 2022 Emacs User Survey is now open!

From **October 24th** to **November 30th**, the 2022 edition of the Emacs User survey will be collecting responses! ### 📋 https://emacssurvey.org/ ## About the Survey This time there are *no* non-free Javascript or user-tracking caveats as this features a bespoke survey framework written from scratch for the Emacs User Survey to support a pure HTML-forms + CSS approach with server-side rendering 🎉. See the [FAQ](https://emacssurvey.org/faq.html) for more information on the survey itself. ## Promoting the survey It would be fantastic for this to be shared as far and wide as possible, to get responses from a large swathe of the community. If you can share this with the non-Reddit Emacs communities you are a part of, as well as any friends or colleagues that use Emacs that would be greatly appreciated 😊. So far the Survey has been shared on: - Reddit - Hacker News - Lobste.rs

Thanks for the effort!

Just finished it!

Submitted! Great framework, good job!

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> To provide a smooth survey experience that satisfies the ethical and technical requirements of a survey on a free/libre and open source project, I ended up building my own survey framework This is insanely impressive. Hats off, you created a really smooth experience. It was snappy and stable for me, and I was thinking the whole time "damn, what survey software are they using?". Unsurprising that such a well-polished piece of software came from the org-mode maintainer. Thanks for everything <3

Please also add borg to the third-party package managers.

Submitted! Looks great, works smooth!

> This time there are no non-free Javascript or user-tracking caveats as this features a bespoke survey framework written from scratch for the Emacs User Survey to support a pure HTML-forms + CSS approach with server-side rendering 🎉. Very impressive work, thank you!

For the record, I answered most questions and notice a good portion is seemingly unanswered in the results (all three file options) after completion. I don't know if this is reflected in the results you receive, but I wanted to mention it. If you'd like my survey ID to look into it, do say.

Hmm, that does sound quite odd. Do let me know what your survey ID was and I'll give it a look.

I felt a bit of ennui filling this out - more than a decade of corporations asking me to fill out surveys for free, while tracking the responses and the environment I'm using to respond. It is really refreshing to be able to just honestly respond as part of a community without being subject to someone's profit motive.

In the first page there was a question about which programming languages you use in emacs. I believe this question should be optional, or that there should be a "none" alternative. I'm not a programmer and don't work in a tech related field. Still answered "elisp" as I do like to build my custom config, but otherwise I would need to select a random alternative, thus hindering the survey's precision

Hey, I just checked my answers via the `You can view your results as txt, org, or json.` option, and it looks like all of my answers after `-- Packages --` is missing. I went away half way through the survey and made a coffee. Could that be the issue?

I am willing to accept any lack of ui polish but not features, maybe that should be an option?

I believe there should be an option to ask whether this is the first time one uses Emacs, because otherwise my specific answers "Have you signed (or attempted to sign) the FSF copyright papers?" (Yes, 5-10 years ago) and " How many years you use Emacs?" (1 overall) look funny

Sent it to you by DM now. I know for a fact I answered plenty of the answers showing up as null/missing. In case any of my browser addons are messing up, these are the ones most likely to cause issues, though I don't believe they did in this case: **uMatrix** JS enabled for same-origin scripts only by default. Shows nothing has been blocked on the page. **uBlock Origin** Blocks by default, but shows nothing has been blocked. **Privacy Possum** Blocks by default, but shows nothing has been blocked.

Hi! Thank you for that survey. I am a bit worried, because there might be something wrong with the survey: No matter what format I choose at the end to view my result (txt, org, json), the result has "missing" for _all_ questions, even though I answered most of them. Hope it's just a glitch on the result generation, not in the receiving of answers.

The same happened to me

Please DM me your survey ID.

Please DM me your survey ID. There shouldn't be a timeout.

Please DM me your survey ID.

Update: looks like all your responses *did* make it into the database, but there is indeed a glitch that seems to be occurring in some cases with the exporting of results.

Update: looks like all your responses *did* make it into the database, but there is a glitch that seems to be occurring in some cases with the exporting of results.

No JS is needed for the survey. I checked your response and all your answers have been recorded in the data base, but there is a glitch that seems to be occurring in some cases with the exporting of results.

Update: in everybody's case so far who I've checked, their responses *did* make it into the database, but there is a glitch that seems to be occurring in some cases with the exporting of results.

I filled out the survey on mobile and closed the pop-up so I don't have my ID, but the results export definitely wasn't filled in.

That's a good suggestion - next year :)

That was a fantastic survey. Thank you. All of the answers about FOSS preference were a bit one sided. They all start with something like “I prefer foss but …” The question doesn’t really take into account that some folks might not be totally on board with FOSS philosophy but may still love emacs.

That position is intended to be represented by the last option: no preference for FOSS.

Yes, kind of. But to really understand the community better, fleshing that out a bit may have been helpful. It does a great deal to flesh out those who prefer foss, but not much to understand why those who do not still love emacs. After all, it is an emacs survey. Not a FOSS survey.

ah phew, good to hear -- hopefully it's a small fix. Thanks for chasing this up!

As has been mentioned earlier, this seems to be a glitch with the display not storing of the results, so your response won't have been lost :)

I think you slashdotted yourself OP, the server is giving me bad gateway errors when time comes to submit. What I've seen of the survey is nice though. I'd appreciate if someone could poke me again when it works, I'd like to actually fill it in. edit: Nvm, reloaded the previous page and tried to move forward again and it worked (if not on first try).

Yea, sorry about that. An issue where an option could not be selected was raised and the only way to apply the fix is restarting the web framework - which you were caught by.

Oh good.

The language section doesn’t have Common Lisp! Other than that, this looks slick.

*didn't have, it does now :)

I am opposed to tracking the user's environment, but isn't tracking the responses the entire purpose of a survey?

It didn't allow me to select Nationality, it closed up on me, BUT, it did let me resume (3 times, by the way). :)

Thanks for putting this together

Consider changing vim in the what text editor did you use before emacs to vim and vim like since it would include things like helix kakoune neovim etc

Filled it out in the in-app browser on phone in Apollo. Lost my page once but when I reopened it offered to continue from previous. Very slick.

There's the "other" option for that reason :)

I assumed they meant tracking which responses came from which respondents.

Slashdot as a verb… what year is this? I love it.

I think another interesting question for the future would be location, as many live and work away from the homeland.

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Good work, looks good!

1. I think that this survey unnecessarily excludes people who are trying to enter the Emacs ecosystem, but from some reason can't do it. 2. Also there's a typo: `Which operating system to you use Emacs on` -- `to` instead of `do`. 3. Which editor I was using -- a radio box? I'm currently having 3 different editors running on my OS (vscode, clion, vim). How am I supposed to pick one?

It would be more specific as some neovim user or similar might choose vim since neovim isn’t a option

1. This is targeted at people who currently use Emacs (hence Emacs User Survey) 2. Thanks 3. Mmmm, I think that will be changed to a multi-select in future

There's also older options like nvi (not to be confused with neovim), vi, ed.

COBOL

Was there a way to edit one's answers after completing the survey? I'd add that to my answers too.

Not yet, it might gain that capability in future though.

Hmm, currently down.

Gah! It is, not idea what happened with that, but thanks for letting me know. It should be back up now.

Thank you! I've been using emacs only a month. Org mode is addicting. I've never felt so thrilled to answer a survey. Hi to everyone glad this community exists. I feel so proud to be part of this.

Thanks for the positivity!