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Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:27:41 +0200
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To: Paul Reinheimer <preinheimer@gmail.com>
Cc: "internals@lists.php.net" <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP User Survey
From: florinpatan@gmail.com (Florin Razvan Patan)

Hi Paul,

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 10:00 PM, Paul Reinheimer <preinheimer@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> My apologies for the intrusion, I'll keep this brief.
>
> In many discussions over the past few months there has been talk about what
> the community at large needs. Pierre said just earlier today:
>
> "I would also say it us time for us to get back in sync with the
> communities needs. I am not talking about the last days RFCs but in
> general."
>
> The other point that comes up is the difficulty in reaching a large portion
> of the community. They don't come to conferences, they don't sit on this
> list, they don't go to user groups. They work with PHP for months or years,
> but the rest of the "community" doesn't even know who they are. I believe
> Rasmus has mentioned this on a few occasions.
>
> So my suggestion is simple, let's ask them: What they want, What they need,
> how they installed PHP (source, rpm, deb, provided by hosting provider,
> Zend Server), etc. Let's create a survey, and link to it prominently on
> php.net. I considered just writing a survey myself, but even if everyone I
> knew tweeted it I'd still lack the reach to hit those outside the
> traditional community.
>
>
> While this is clearly not a suggestion to change PHP, i'll write this up in
> RFC format if there's interest. Should give people an opportunity to
> discuss questions and such.
>
>
> thanks for your time
> paul
>
>
> --
> Paul Reinheimer

Thank you for championing this. I've been promoting this kind of
feedback for a while now.

Just like the discussion I've had earlier on the IRC channel, I do
believe that when proposals are made/are at a point where the
internals don't agree with which solution is better and it should
affect the community at large, it would be better to just ask the
community and see what they want/agree on. The issue would
be that in some cases one side would lose but the same thing
happens when the debate is done here, on the mailing list, and
a solution doesn't satisfy some people and ends up being the
standard for the whole community.

These votes shouldn't be seen as a must but should serve more
as a guideline.

As for the problems raised by Kris, I think that a simple system
based on the e-mail address of the voter with some prior
confirmation / pending approval, like for the mailing lists, should
be enough to grant the right to vote or not. Even if some people
were to have multiple accounts, I don't think they'd go to the
trouble of spawning a very large number of e-mail addresses just
to see their favorite option accepted.

I'd be more that happy to provide any help possible for the RFC
as well as the survey / surveys themselves.



Best regards.
----
Florin Patan
https://github.com/dlsniper