[Scribus] Please participate in a study of online conversation

[Ka-Ping Yee]

(Unless otherwise invited, this is the last message I will send to
this mailing list on this topic.  The purpose of this message is to
make a public apology and clarification in response to Greg's message.)

On Sat, 16 Apr 2005, Gregory Pittman wrote:
> Perhaps we're all jaded a bit (or maybe it's just me), but it would be
> nice for those with academic/commercial/(academic + commercial?)
> interests like this to take the time to find out what the initiators or
> members of a list think about this concept before just barging in.

I apologize to you and to everyone on this list for the intrusion.

Would you have preferred for me to send a message to test the waters
and discuss the idea before providing the URL to the survey itself?
I was afraid that would only generate more off-topic messages.

One unfortunate constraint is that I cannot establish a prior personal
relationship with the list members because that will bias the results
of the survey.  If you have any ideas about better ways to get around
this, I would welcome them (off-list).

> Perhaps we're all jaded a bit (or maybe it's just me), but it would be
> nice for those with academic/commercial/(academic + commercial?)
[...]
> A brief scan of the CGI form suggests that this has something to do with
> marketing research for thread-tracking software.

Let me make it very clear that the survey is not commercial.  The
e-mail message describes this as university research and the survey
also begins with a statement that this is a university research project.
I don't understand why you thought this was commercial or related to
marketing, and I would appreciate learning from you how I could have
made that clearer.

> But, academic credentials or none, why does he think this is acceptable
> to use the list as a research vehicle?

Because it is full of smart people who use mailing lists every day.

> What if every few days, we have yet another kind request for filling
> out surveys?  Who wants to screen/evaluate them for validity/honesty?

You can just write to me and tell me you don't want to see any more
surveys.  I am a real person, you know -- I provided my full name and
contact information.

I guess I don't see why such a message would need to be screened, since
I'm not selling you anything, I am not making promises that could be
broken, and I'm not asking for money or personal information.  I sent
one message, and its purpose was to learn how to design a better open
source tool to benefit you and other people who use mailing lists.
Again, if you have better ideas on how to do this, I'm all ears.

Thank you for your understanding, and once more I apologize for taking
your time.  Thanks also for all your hard work on Scribus.


-- ?!ng