[Webcom] Survey and polling tools

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

Good question Jason, thanks for the comments... more below...

On 2-Jun-08, at 10:06 PM, Jason Birch wrote:

> Depends on what the polls are going to be used for.
> ...
> If they're just to be used to guide marketing efforts or give us a  
> better sense of how we're doing, then that's fine.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too.

> Personal opinion on web polls aside (sort-of), there are some  
> practical questions that need to be answered.
>
> Do you have a maintenance plan for this software?  Is it just a  
> Drupal plugin, or is it another application that someone in SAC has  
> to take responsibility for?  Is there someone willing to do so?

I'd only aim for Drupal-based stuff since several of us know it now  
and it's simple to maintain.  Keep in mind that I don't feel SAC  
hasn't had much maintenance work to do around the main Drupal  
instance too - apart from Wolf recently and Kanhaiya earlier on.

I didn't intentionally separate this discussion from the earlier one  
I started about building a community site, but the polling question  
came up and got me thinking about it again.  So, I'm wondering if  
someone might be willing or interested to help see such a site  
happen.  I know a couple people that are - I'm not sure if they are  
on this list, so I will follow up.  I'm certainly not interested in  
making this a personal mission - though I personally see the value.

> I'm not in favour of turning anything officially up on  
> community.osgeo.net without:
>
> - clear support from some SAC members for this site
> - clear guidance / plan from Marketing on the site's role
> - people that have time to make it a true community site and not  
> just another fragmentation of OSGeo's web presense.

I can agree with this and started a braindump including pros and cons  
at:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Community_Site