RE: Draft survey for gathering data about making W3C the place for new standards

I'd suggest stepping back and thinking hard about a couple of questions before going much further:
- What questions we're trying to answer with the survey?
- Who is the target audience we're trying to get answers from?

My sense is that the draft survey isn't going to get the answers we really need.  First, it's too long; I didn't count, but it looks like 75-100 questions.  Even people motivated to answer will get bored by  the end.  Second, a lot of the questions are too abstract, e.g. on the W3C Value Proposition.  While that's near and dear to our hearts, I don't think the target audience -- the people who would otherwise start a Google Group or a subsection in the WHATWG "HTML Next Generation" spec, IMHO -- knows or cares enough to think about how to answer these questions.

I suggest we start with the presupposition that the W3C value proposition is something we TELL the world about, not something we ASK the world about.  

I'd also axe the "barriers to participation" section.  Just tell them that we are trying to knock down the barriers we know about, and we'll learn as we go about other ones that become apparent.

On the "Incubator" section, that's interesting, but I think we have a good idea who those people are that have already created an incubator group.  Reach out to them separately.

That leaves the "Infrastructure" section, which I think could elicit some valuable information.  Again, don't be so abstract ... talk about what "services" W3C needs to provide to make it an attractive place for lightweight spec/test/document development.

Overall, I think the TF should have a bias for action rather than information gathering and analysis.  Let's do the simplest thing that could possibly work, learn from the experience, and continually improve.  

-----Original Message-----
From: public-vision-newstd-request@w3.org [mailto:public-vision-newstd-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Ian Jacobs
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 1:05 PM
To: public-vision-newstd@w3.org
Subject: Draft survey for gathering data about making W3C the place for new standards

Hello all,

I've started a survey to help us gather data from those who may be thinking about bringing work to W3C, who may have chosen not to, who have used the existing Incubator Activity, and others.

Comments welcome on:
  http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/1/newstd2010/



The survey is public and the results will be public; it's not open yet. You don't need a W3C account to view it but if you have one, but if you have one you can log in to view the survey. Some of you may even wish to complete the questionnaire once it's baked.

I expect to touch on this survey during tomorrow's agenda (which I'm still working on).

  _ Ian

--
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447

Received on Wednesday, 16 June 2010 15:27:44 UTC