[Bioperl-l] on BP documentation

[Brian Osborne]

Mark,

As you wish. As I said, the one who does the work calls the shots,  
this is not a democracy. The fundamental problem is, and I speak with  
some experience here, that detailed examination of documentation is of  
so little interest that participation in the survey will be limited  
("the usual suspects"), and the results will be skewed. You're not  
going to get reactions from "the public", the thousands of Bioperl  
users. But, if you feel comfortable with the notion that a survey will  
justify your actions, do it. But honestly, I know that you already  
know what to do.

Brian O.


On Aug 27, 2009, at 8:58 PM, Mark A. Jensen wrote:

> My thinking about a survey is twofold. Intermittent users may,  
> likely will, have different issues than the usual suspects here on  
> the list, or they will put those issues in a different way--likely  
> with more expression of affect, which I personally think is key. It  
> seems to me that documentation is the public face of this project,  
> and hearing visceral reactions from "the public" will help us (or  
> me) prioritize. The other fold is, this kind of data is better  
> acquired a) actively, rather than passively ("Please respond to this  
> thread") and b) anonymously. Obviously, it can't be active in the  
> sense of spamming, but we could reduce the energy barrier by  
> providing something clickable with a few textboxes to the list.