331
votes

This year's survey is officially open! We've added a few new questions based on your feedback from last year and we are really looking forward to publishing the results in January.

Once you've taken the survey, we will send you (US or Canada) a limited edition sticker as a small, yet terrific, token of our appreciation.

To participate, click here.

111
  • 296
    I want stickers in Europe too. =( (Yeah, shipping costs, I know.)
    – J. Steen
    Dec 12, 2012 at 16:13
  • 28
    Seriously? You write jQuery but not javascript?!
    – Naftali
    Dec 12, 2012 at 16:26
  • 188
    You have offices in the UK/Europe. You should be able to organise a bulk delivery to there and then post the stickers locally.
    – ChrisF Mod
    Dec 12, 2012 at 16:31
  • 60
    Is there a difference between jQuery and JQuery?
    – CoffeeRain
    Dec 12, 2012 at 17:40
  • 22
    Perhaps its obvious, but what is the privacy policy for this survey?
    – Jack
    Dec 12, 2012 at 17:55
  • 26
    When can we expect something in Asia? :)
    – Subhrajyoti Majumder
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:12
  • 17
    @Austin it's a trap, if you select JQuery you don't know what are you talking about... it is jQuery, of course. :)
    – jachguate
    Dec 12, 2012 at 20:37
  • 34
    I want stickers in India too...
    – Abdul Rahman
    Dec 13, 2012 at 2:10
  • 71
    Why only US/Canada?? Stackoverflow is also highly used by Indian users.
    – Paresh Mayani
    Dec 13, 2012 at 5:18
  • 34
    Please make those to India too :)
    – arun
    Dec 13, 2012 at 7:05
  • 33
    Users from india also love SO as much as US/Canada users... so plzz include india also.......
    – Jeegar Patel
    Dec 13, 2012 at 7:36
  • 33
    I'm in the UK. I don't mind going to your London office to get the stickers, but... I want my sticker!
    – finitud
    Dec 13, 2012 at 12:19
  • 43
    Oh come on.. We dutchies founded the united states and we don't get stickers? I DEMAND YOU RETURN NEW AMSTERDAM (New York) TO US!
    – Damien Overeem ツ
    Dec 13, 2012 at 15:27
  • 39
    I want a pony..
    – OpenSorceress
    Dec 14, 2012 at 10:09
  • 18
    Stickers for India!!
    – yati sagade
    Dec 14, 2012 at 12:09

38 Answers 38

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115
votes

The last page with questions about advertisements.. option "I use adblocker" should make the rest of the questions in this block non-mandatory. I can't say anything about the adverts if I never seen them.

26
  • 14
    I don't block them, but I also have no opinion because I don't look over there at them. I marked the questions "Neutral"
    – Wooble
    Dec 12, 2012 at 18:04
  • 7
    Neutral/Agree/Disagree doesn't even make sense with all questions, even if you fill don't use adblocker. "I have purchased a product from the ads". That's a yes/no questions. Not Agree/Disagree
    – Kibbee
    Dec 12, 2012 at 18:09
  • 7
    Blocking ads is like theft of services. Thanks for making it harder for Stack Overflow to keep running!
    – dash-tom-bang
    Dec 12, 2012 at 18:35
  • 37
    @dash-tom-bang: I assume that is a joke, right? Otherwise the blind and visually impaired are outright crooks by your standards.
    – user7116
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:20
  • 11
    @sixlettervariables That's kind of an absurd comparison, isn't it? Intentionally blocking something vs being physiologically unable to see something are two very different things. And I'm sure the ads can be processed by screen readers just like everything else (via alt-text and whatnot). (Not that I necessarily agree that blocking ads is theft)
    – Josh Darnell
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:50
  • 3
    @sixlettervariables ok, so how do you pay for your consumption of the resources that SO requires for operation? Presumably you understand that it requires money to operate and provide the site? Where does that money come from?
    – dash-tom-bang
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:57
  • 11
    @dash-tom-bang If someone is going to block ads, they certainly weren't going to click on them (which I imagine is how value / cost of ads is determined - number of clicks / purchases).
    – Josh Darnell
    Dec 12, 2012 at 20:03
  • 2
    @jadarnel27 Sure, if you're not going to buy that software/book/CD anyway you may as well steal it right off the store shelf.
    – dash-tom-bang
    Dec 12, 2012 at 20:08
  • 19
    You're contributing whenever you use a site because you raise its all-important click/page view count, which allows them to get more money from advertisers.
    – Lance Roberts
    Dec 12, 2012 at 20:24
  • @Lance, but you don't get impressions recorded (since the images don't download) which is also an important metric.
    – Kirk Woll
    Dec 12, 2012 at 20:37
  • 19
    @dash-tom-bang: unless I retransmit an ad-free version of SE, I'm not stealing anything. Besides, I use the network to generate content for the network.
    – user7116
    Dec 12, 2012 at 22:18
  • 1
    @jadarnel27: not really. If you can't physically see an ad that somebody paid to put in front of you, how is that different than not seeing it because you block it? Money was spent on a wasted impression. I'd imagine the blind would be even more prone to ad blocking to remove extraneous text from their browser! Buncha felons if you ask me.
    – user7116
    Dec 12, 2012 at 22:20
  • 11
    "unless I retransmit an ad-free version of SE, I'm not stealing anything" - even if you did that, you wouldn't be stealing anything; the content is specifically licensed to allow sharing (with fair attribution).
    – Peter Boughton
    Dec 12, 2012 at 23:32
  • 7
    @jadarnel27: I'm not sure intent matters as motive is not required to commit a crime. Besides, the T&S state that we're responsible for our own hardware and software to browse the site and make no reference to what they are required to do. SE entered into the agreement with ad companies, not their users.
    – user7116
    Dec 13, 2012 at 5:53
  • 4
    @dash-tom-bang: There are many more ways to contribute to the site than by seeing ads. Helping to make the site valuable draws users, some of whom, one might presume, do see the ads.
    – Wayne Conrad
    Dec 18, 2012 at 14:15
72
votes

First, a bug report. The "Which of the following languages or technologies have you used significantly in the past year?" question lists both jQuery and jQuery. I suspect that's an oversight and only jQuery should remain.

Second, I don't understand how you define "company" for very large organizations that are broken down. For someone like me, there's a massive conglomerate on top with different businesses inside of it, which are often broken down into SBUs and then sites. The number grows from 500 to a site to 10k for the business. More clarity should be provided.

4
  • 75
    -1 you can never have enough jQuery.
    – yannis
    Dec 12, 2012 at 18:36
  • 9
    @Yannis But you can have too much JQuery. jQuery > JQuery and I don't even do this new fangled web stuff.
    – Thomas Owens
    Dec 12, 2012 at 18:37
  • 40
    I made sure to enter jQuery under "Other" along with these to make sure it gets noted.
    – asawyer
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:08
  • 1
    +1 jQuery vs JQuery. Get it right its jayQuery, imagine if that was a control question! jay is John Resig's pet hamster.
    – Jeremy Thompson
    Dec 13, 2012 at 1:27
65
votes

I notice one of the questions asks "If you make a software product, how does your company make money?". There's no answer provided to that for "it doesn't".

This also implies that my making a software product has some direct connection to my company making money (once again assuming that the company does, in fact, make money).

4
  • 20
    Yep. Also, how much money does the University that I work for make? Is it really relevant...
    – Austin Henley
    Dec 12, 2012 at 21:37
  • After this question I exited survey got me paranoid, didn't want to go against my company policy by mistake.
    – Mowgli
    Dec 17, 2012 at 22:06
  • 3
    And what about internal software that doesn't make money but helps other software make money...?
    – redhotspike
    Dec 18, 2012 at 16:52
  • 2
    Yea, lots of folks make sofware that the company uses, to make money, not to sell.
    – nycynik
    Dec 19, 2012 at 22:50
54
votes

The survey is pretty much geared towards those who have a job in IT. Quite a few of us code for fun and/or are students. Most of the questions make no sense from these perspectives. Maybe a few more options could be added to certain questions so that it makes sense for these two groups to answer them?

6
  • 21
    They don't want to know about you, because you make the statistics worse for advertisers :)
    – Benjol
    Dec 14, 2012 at 6:18
  • Yeah, this was my objection as well. I figured they probably don't care too much about getting responses from outside the tech industry, since SO is after all a tech-oriented site. (also see meta.stackexchange.com/a/158497 and meta.stackexchange.com/a/158523 and meta.stackexchange.com/a/158668)
    – David Z
    Dec 15, 2012 at 23:08
  • 4
    It sounded to me like the survey was to improve Careers 2.0, which to me seems perfectly suited to students, especially the ones that want to get jobs someday.
    – asmeurer
    Dec 16, 2012 at 3:37
  • @asmeurer: The questions still aren't tailopred towards students, most ask for stuff that only makes sense if you have a job. (no. of coworkers, salary, etc)
    – Manishearth
    Dec 16, 2012 at 4:10
  • Yea, maybe they need a branch, that would improve the data a bunch.
    – nycynik
    Dec 19, 2012 at 22:51
  • 4
    I gave up on the survey because of the same problem as students from the opposite point of view. I'm retired.
    – Patricia Shanahan
    Dec 21, 2012 at 9:09
50
votes

What are the privacy considerations of this? If one wants the swag, one has to link one's name, salary with an address. Is that being sold?

Did I miss a privacy blurb stating SO will not sell your information related to this questionaire?

5
  • 6
    Not enough people asking this. For a sticker, nah not worth it. Give me the image online and I will print out the sticker
    – demongolem
    Dec 14, 2012 at 21:31
  • I asked that in a comment soon after the post came out, I still haven't seen anything about it...
    – Jack
    Dec 17, 2012 at 14:19
  • @Jack Found your comment and upvoted it.
    – ΩmegaMan
    Dec 18, 2012 at 14:48
  • 3
    How is this so far down! Upvote.
    – nycynik
    Dec 19, 2012 at 22:53
  • 2
    I'm kind of concerned no SO employee or mod has addressed this...
    – djechlin
    May 9, 2013 at 15:58
45
votes

I completed the survey and just want to add two things about the last part. In Canada we don't have:

  • A state
  • A zipcode

The equivalent would be:

  • Province
  • Postal Code

To some of you this may seem irrelevant, but too many sites forget about this detail and most of the time formats do not match. (Zip Format: xxxxx / PostalCode: format xxx - xxx).

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  • 19
    If there was a site where I would expect these things to be (for once) handled correctly, this would be the one. Maybe this is why you can't ship stickers to Europe?
    – tripleee
    Dec 13, 2012 at 9:05
  • 20
    ...Or maybe it's because the format is handled by SurveyMonkey, and not Stack Overflow.
    – Jezen Thomas
    Dec 13, 2012 at 9:27
  • @JezenThomas you're right. Just felt like pointing it out though
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Dec 13, 2012 at 14:13
  • @PhaDaPhunk I made this edit, thanks!
    – Alison S
    Dec 13, 2012 at 18:46
  • 2
    @AlisonS No problem. Will I still get my sticker if I entered my infos as Zip and State? :P
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Dec 13, 2012 at 18:53
  • @PhaDaPhunk Absolutely!
    – Alison S
    Dec 13, 2012 at 19:38
  • 5
    Canada? It exists? I thought that was just an urban legend. :-D
    – Tom Collins
    Dec 16, 2012 at 16:22
  • 2
    @TomCollins Yeah we just got electricity a few weeks ago.
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Dec 17, 2012 at 14:17
  • try living outside northern america and it's even worse
    – Rune FS
    Dec 18, 2012 at 12:18
  • @Runefs I guess so ! The only thing is it was clearly stated U.S and Canada so I was wondering why one of the two wasn't listed
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Dec 19, 2012 at 0:58
  • I love those forms that, even though they do seem to recognize German postal differences, still require a "State/Province" field. There are "States" (called Länder), but they don't feature in the postal address at all. But that's just a personal off-topic rant/peeve :D
    – Jürgen A. Erhard
    Dec 28, 2012 at 22:49
39
votes

Thank you! You love Kiwis after all :)
Here're the current options for keepsake (note "Australasia") enter image description here

I got stuck on the first question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_countries_by_GDP
https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/asia.htm

No "New Zealand" to be seen. Australia is both a country and continent, but New Zealand is not part of it.

I guess you didn't want responses from New Zealand then?

6
  • There's also "Australasia" (now) which I suppose includes NZ.
    – Blorgbeard
    Dec 12, 2012 at 20:12
  • What option is present there now? I've already completed survey so I don't know
    – Andrei Botalov
    Dec 12, 2012 at 21:04
  • 4
    @Andrey - You can remove cookies.. shhh
    – RichardTheKiwi
    Dec 12, 2012 at 21:23
  • 2
    Where's Oceania? Not all islands belong to Australasia. Here's proper divisions.
    – Andrei Botalov
    Dec 12, 2012 at 21:26
  • 3
    Maybe there should be just "OTHER"?
    – RichardTheKiwi
    Dec 12, 2012 at 21:29
  • 2
    And what about the Caribbean?
    – Vincent Ramdhanie
    Dec 15, 2012 at 16:38
37
votes

It appears you have completely omitted anything related to the world of academia. "Education" does not work because I am a researcher, not an instructor.

And all the questions about your company don't fit well for asking about a university/department. How should I know how much my "company" makes? The department gets funding from many people/organizations and professors have their own funding on top of that.

27
votes

I would think that a large percentage of users on SO as well as on a lot of SE sites are students. SO, how are you expecting this group of users to fill the survey? In its current form, it's rather obviously not considering students to be a major part of the site.

3
  • This reply is similar to meta.stackexchange.com/a/158502/169101
    – Rob W
    Dec 14, 2012 at 15:46
  • 2
    @RobW Nothing wrong in making ourselves be heard as this is a discussion ..
    – asheeshr
    Dec 14, 2012 at 17:18
  • No problem. Since this is meta, I upvoted both answers :p
    – Rob W
    Dec 14, 2012 at 17:19
23
votes

This survey is for employed people only?

Image (click on image to zoom)

I don't work in ANY industry – I am a student.

3
  • 2
    I recall that at another question, you were able to answer that you're a student.
    – Rob W
    Dec 14, 2012 at 15:47
  • 1
    Yeah but why radio button when they can put checkbox ? In this way, user1774214 could check 0 checkbox and then, later, precise he is student !
    – 4wk_
    Dec 17, 2012 at 8:18
  • Unemployed people are not interesting, as they have no money and can't be sold to business customers.
    – Jürgen A. Erhard
    Dec 28, 2012 at 22:45
21
votes

Under "What other departments / roles do you interact with regularly?" it would be best to include:

  • Engineers / Technologists (e.g. mechanical, electrical, or nuclear)
  • Research Staff

...as I have nothing to call the engineering folks.

8
  • I think engineer is too broad term. Maybe, developer or programmer would be better
    – Andrei Botalov
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:21
  • 14
    @AndreyBotalov I don't think the mechanical and electrical engineers I work with would like to be called "developer" or "programmer"...
    – Thomas Owens
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:23
  • Yet I think job title should be another as developers are also called engineers. Developers were the first I thought about when I saw "engineer"
    – Andrei Botalov
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:28
  • 1
    I don't recall art or other content creation being available as an option either, for that matter.
    – dash-tom-bang
    Dec 12, 2012 at 20:03
  • 1
    @dash-tom-bang: I think they lumped them in with "Design".
    – user7116
    Dec 12, 2012 at 22:23
  • was interested in what you did for work and judging by your profile your a champion!
    – Jeremy Thompson
    Dec 13, 2012 at 1:19
  • In my organization, the engineering folks are typically called "developers" ^_^
    – OpenSorceress
    Dec 14, 2012 at 10:08
  • @sixlettervariables - ah, perhaps. In my industry that is a distinct job from design, and our use of the terms "design" and "designer" imply something completely different from what most of the industry means. We hire people who actually (physically) paint and sculpt to build our UIs.
    – dash-tom-bang
    Dec 19, 2012 at 18:59
20
votes

"Tester/QA Engineer" isn't available as a choice in the occupation selector. It should be available. I think the number of SO users with such a job is large enough to be taken into account.

Similarly, the option "Developers" is absent in "What other departments/roles do you interact with regularly?"

19
votes

Why don't you simply list all countries of the world in the "Country or Region" selection box? Your choices are almost random it seems. For example in Europe you're listing Russia, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Ok, you got the first 5 countries by population, but the Netherlands is the 10th by population, you skipped Spain, Ukraine, Poland and Romania.

Why suffer all this criticism when you could simply list all countries. It seems like half the "Answers" to this "Question" are related to missing or ambiguous countries or regions. Not to mention it's a "delicate" subject. I mean, I'm from Romania, why are Germans listed and not us? Sure there are many countries, but if you know they're all, you'll immediately find your country in an alphabetical listing. In my case there are only 3 countries that start with the letter "R". You'll then be able to aggregate the data as you wish: by continent, by spoken language, by average temperature in January.

18
votes

Where's the generic "Programmer" option for "Which of the following best describes your occupation?"

I basically do anything they need that's programming related, including but not limited to:

  • Building/Maintaining websites and web applications
  • Building/Maintaining custom desktop applications
  • Building/Maintaining add-ons for existing 3rd party software
  • Building/Maintaining reports
  • Database administration
  • IT/Tech Support
2
  • +1 Same here. I missed the generic option as well, I selected "other".
    – Christian Specht
    Dec 14, 2012 at 22:46
  • 5
    I would venture to say that most professional programmers are working on business applications. A large percentage of them run on what they are calling "back-end" servers, and may not have anything to do with http but what the people here might call "legacy" platforms, but this is where business runs, and anyone with less than "11+" years of experience is probably a junior member of the team.
    – WarrenT
    Dec 16, 2012 at 18:47
16
votes

Under "Which technology products do you own?", I believe you forgot one important one:

Computer

8
  • 10
    I think it's assumed that more 99% of SO users own it.
    – Andrei Botalov
    Dec 15, 2012 at 9:27
  • 2
    @AndreyBotalov I would think 99.99%
    – Veger
    Dec 15, 2012 at 22:42
  • 3
    @AndreyBotalov I think that is a rash assumption. Times change, and if a student has access to a desktop PC at school, and owns an iPad or Android tablet, they might be tempted to try and avoid the cost of maintaining their own desktop PC. The bottom line though is that if you don't ask, you'll never find out different..
    – Andrew Thompson
    Dec 16, 2012 at 1:55
  • @AndrewThompson iPad or Android tablets can be also called computers
    – Andrei Botalov
    Dec 16, 2012 at 7:48
  • 3
    Yeah I was a bit puzzled by this one too. I answered on the assumption that there was an implied "not counting desktop/laptop computers" qualification.
    – Ross Smith
    Dec 18, 2012 at 1:46
  • @AndreyBotalov they are both available options
    – Rune FS
    Dec 19, 2012 at 9:12
  • 4
    Perhaps some people code directly on their Wii...
    – PhiLho
    Dec 21, 2012 at 14:04
  • 1
    my nook runs CM10; do I check nook, android, and android tablet? :)
    – ysth
    Dec 25, 2012 at 21:49
15
votes

"In an average week, how do you spend your time?"

Is this just at work, or in total? I assumed at work at first, but then saw commuting on the list.

2
  • 1
    Yeah, are we talking about the amount of internet surfing at work, or in total? Because that then brings in the "surfing while commuting" option.
    – HaemEternal
    Dec 17, 2012 at 9:54
  • Once I saw commuting I realised I could put in more that zero for the learning/study aspect... But I forgot to fix up the bit about surfing the internet.
    – Colin Mackay
    Dec 23, 2012 at 11:01
14
votes

Please rate the Advertising you've seen on Stack Overflow

The way that question is presented is a bit out-of-whack, in my opinion. It provides a ratings scale on a question that would be better answered with yes or no.

How can I strongly disagree that "I click on ads that inerest me"?

That doesn't make much sense.

Or, how can I strongly disagree about the fact that I use an ad-blocker? Either I use one or I don't.

These are YES/NO questions. How can you rate a yes or no answer?

Perhaps a better way would be to ask, "How often do you use an ad-blocker" and allow the user to say, "Very Often", "Often", "Sometimes", "Never", etc.

Or, maybe the question would be better split into parts in order to provide better information:

  • Do you use an ad-blocker?
  • How often do you use an ad-blocker?
  • How often do you click on ads that interest you?
  • Do you appreciate the advertising on SE?

What types of purchases are you involved in?

Ah, this is another one! You are given a checklist of things to choose from, such as "hardware", "servers", etc. and then, and THEN there is consultant - honestly, I've never seen a consultant for sale in Best Buy! Ha ha!

I think that is a bit strange, no?

Which of the following best describes your occupation?

I think this question should allow you to choose multiples. What if I am the "back-end developer" AND the "front-end developer" AND the "customer support" AND the "web-developer".... The question asks what best describes you, but all of those best describe me. Sometimes we IT guys just plain do everything, especially in the smaller operations.

All that being said, I actually kind of enjoyed taking the survey! If, whilst using my ad-blocker, that is a way I can give back to Stack Overflow, then I'll fill out the survey next year too.

7
  • I don't think they are yes/no at all. You would strongly disagree if you never ever ever not even once did it, and disagree less strongly if you rarely did it, neutral if you did it sometimes but not all the time, up to strongly agree if you do it every chance you get. No problem. (And yes that applies to ad blockers too, since you might use multiple browsers and devices.)
    – Kate Gregory
    Dec 15, 2012 at 22:16
  • 1
    The columns would then be called "Very Often", "Often","Sometimes", etc. You can't "disagree" about the frequency of an action. A frequency is a fact, not an opinion. "I agree" or "I disagree" or "I strongly agree" expresses an opinion. The column headers don't make sense. However, "yes" and "no" can at least express the frequency of whether the fact happens or not.
    – bgmCoder
    Dec 15, 2012 at 23:59
  • 3
    Maybe you use an ad blocker, but you feel kinda bad about it :)
    – asmeurer
    Dec 16, 2012 at 3:53
  • 2
    Why would you feel bad about it? It seems to me that if you use an ad-blocker it is because you either 1. don't have any money (like me), 2. want a clean environment (like me) 3. are not interested in shopping whilst solving problems (like me), 4. don't want the distractions (like me). But don't get me wrong - ads support SE, I completely understand that. If I were in a different situation, I might not use an ad-blocker.
    – bgmCoder
    Dec 16, 2012 at 22:49
  • In my case, I can't feel bad about it - even though I believe in supporting SE. So my way of supporting SE is to be an HONEST and CONSCIENTIOUS user. I don't cheat, I make honest votes that I really believe, I try to answer questions and try to make valuable comments. I also try to not make comments that are rude or sarcastic (you forget sometimes; I went back and cleaned up this very post!).
    – bgmCoder
    Dec 16, 2012 at 22:51
  • I hire consultants all the time.
    – Theodore R. Smith
    Dec 23, 2012 at 23:36
  • Perhaps, but a "consultant" is out of place amoungst the inanimate objects, and represents a different scope. Besides you don't purchase a consultant, you hire them, as you said.
    – bgmCoder
    Dec 24, 2012 at 3:22
10
votes

I find it not very surprising but none theless absurd that the survey is so biased to northern america. I'd guess from the lack of english skills and the shear number of users on SO that quite a lot of the community lives in "the rest of the world" I as quite a few others couldn't pick my country (Denmark) and some of the questions are just fun. "How important is a 40 hour work week to you" Well I wouldn't take the job because that's above a standard work week. The salary is immensely funny as well seeing that the wages are a factor of magnitude higher in northern europe than in the states (and so is the taxes) which severly skews the picture you won't find a programmer with an academic background with less than $100000 a year and $150000 is common which is above the top option, similar can be said about most of the questions regarding what's important when choosing a job

8
  • Well, see for yourself. 26% from USA alone and if you sum all the "Western" countries I believe you'll cross 50%.
    – Shadow Wizard Love Zelda
    Dec 19, 2012 at 9:12
  • @ShaWizDowArd being from "all the western countries excluding northern american" I can also tell you that there are (as stated) huge differences between northern american and say Scandinavia.
    – Rune FS
    Dec 19, 2012 at 9:16
  • Agree about salary, but what you expect them to do? Can't see any way to improve the user interface.
    – Shadow Wizard Love Zelda
    Dec 19, 2012 at 9:18
  • @ShaWizDowArd Simply use percentiles instead of monetary values. THat's the standard way of handling comparisons accross regions any way
    – Rune FS
    Dec 19, 2012 at 9:20
  • People doesn't always know how much they earn compared to others in their country; it's much easier to tell the amount you earn.
    – Shadow Wizard Love Zelda
    Dec 19, 2012 at 9:32
  • Couldn't agree more with the "40 hour work week" - it is just too much. Life quality you gain by working less is worth every euro you don't gain.
    – JB.
    Dec 19, 2012 at 9:32
  • "you won't find a programmer with an academic background with less than $100000 a year and $150000" Uh? I work in the wrong company, or, more likely, the wrong country (France!). Here, experienced programmers rarely get paid more than € 50,000 / year.
    – PhiLho
    Dec 21, 2012 at 14:09
  • @PhilLho that depends! as I also comment the income taxes are a lot higher (as in 60%)
    – Rune FS
    Dec 22, 2012 at 9:25
9
votes

I got stuck at 2nd page of survey having below question:

How would you best describe the industry you currently work in?

I mean to say what if i work for multiple domains so user must be able to check multiple answers.

And after filling out some of the questions, questions are being arised in my mind. Why questions are arised? Because there are some of the questions i doubt, why stackoveflow is asking such questions:

  1. If you make a software product, how does your company make money? (You can choose more than one) => How this is going to be useful to stackoverflow community?
  2. What is your involvement in purchasing products or services for the company you work for? (You can choose more than one)
  3. What types of purchases are you involved in? => Why stackoverflow is asking purchase related question?
  4. What is your budget for outside expenditures (hardware, software, consulting, etc) for 2013? => Again why stackoverflow is asking such questions? Is stackoverflow planning anything to sell out or opening online stores?
  5. What types of purchases are you involved in?
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  • 1
    Those questions are relevant to StackOverflow's advertisers; it will hopefully allow SE to charge more.
    – SLaks
    Dec 13, 2012 at 14:41
  • @SLaks yes you are right but then there must be title at every page that this is for Advertiser, this is for users or anybody else. What you say? So that particular section will be filled up by only targeted audience.
    – Paresh Mayani
    Dec 14, 2012 at 4:13
  • 2
    Questions like these are normal. They then show advertisers, "These are the type of people we have, you should target your ads to these types as they have purchasing power or make these products".
    – random
    Dec 14, 2012 at 4:24
9
votes

This question caused my a high level of anxiety because I believe it is highly ambiguous enter image description here

Although I believe I make a software product it isn't something that we sell. You see at our company we have a large group of oompa loompa's, the leaders of these oompa loompa's come to us and tell us to "Build this awesome thing we need" and we do. They then attempt to use it, with varying degrees of success. Once this takes place the head oompa loompas return and make demands for further changes which we oblige this is a cycle that repeats here at my place of employment.

Given this scenario I wasn't sure what to answer, I clicked other but it has since caused me a great deal of anxiety. Are my efforts not to be considered a software product? If not then I could not truthfully answer the question at all yet I was forced to choose "Other"

Again, I find the entire question highly ambiguous.

2
  • 9
    I make a software product which is part of a physical product, and isn't sold separately. I guess you could say it's a 'mobile' app - except the mobile is a 60-tonne machine...
    – Benjol
    Dec 14, 2012 at 6:20
  • I understood the question as "If your company makes a software product, how does your company make money?". My company isn't IT-related at all (manufacturing) and I make internal software, so I just skipped that question.
    – Christian Specht
    Dec 14, 2012 at 22:44
9
votes

I wonder if in 'Types of purchase' you shouldn't include books?

1
  • 1
    Yes, I worried about this one, too. Some people still read technical books!
    – PhiLho
    Dec 21, 2012 at 14:05
9
votes

There should be another option for the last page of ads I don't see any ads because of my rep. Because I wasn't sure I just mainly did neutral. But I think doing neutral could affect the results.

If by ads you mean the Careers image that never changes. I wouldn't consider that an ad as it never changes and is still a SE product.

9
votes

"How would you best describe the industry you currently work in?" is missing an option for government (at least 15% of the US workforce).

9
votes

"Including bonus, what is your annual compensation in USD?" -> is this before or after taxes? You know, in the EU is 50% off (no kidding, taxes eat more or less half your wage in many EU countries)

8
votes

I miss Caribbean in the list of regions.

Which should I choose? Central America? South America? The Greater Antilles like Cuba can be considered part of Central America and the Lesser Antilles like Curaçao can be considered part of South America. Although technically completely wrong, is it okay to consider my region like that for this survey?

In terms of "regions of the world", Wikipedia considers it to be part of North America, which is IMO incorrect. The site as Richard the Kiwi is referring to in his New Zealand defense, Caribbean is mentioned as in "The Americas and the Caribbean", indicating it to be a separate territory. In terms of area and population, the Caribbean is however calculated together with Central America.

To avoid this confusion, it'd make sense if Caribbean becomes a separate entry in the list of regions.

2
7
votes

Why do you ask what my reputation is? Can't you get that information automatically?

4
  • 2
    The survey is hosted on a third-party platform, which doesn't integrate with Stack Exchange.
    – jmort253
    Dec 16, 2012 at 3:44
  • Maybe just ask for our username then?
    – asmeurer
    Dec 16, 2012 at 3:45
  • Something tells me the devs have a lot on their plate, like working on the new Area 51, fixing bugs on the Q&A platform, and doing things to make the Q&A better. The survey seems to be something the marketing department is pioneering, which Alison S is part of, so they likely don't have a lot of developer support to do the integration. Besides, most of us probably know our reputation anyhow. ;)
    – jmort253
    Dec 16, 2012 at 3:49
  • 12
    The survey is designed to be at least potentially anonymous. Asking for the username would break that. Plus, there are a lot of duplicate usernames. We'd have to ask for userids or profile links, and I bet more people know their rep than their userid without having to look it up.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 16, 2012 at 4:23
6
votes

Where you ask how much one plans to spend next year, the $5,001-10,000 range is missing.

4
votes

"Gaming" implies gambling and casino machines. Is that what was intended?

I make video games. Broadly that's "entertainment media" (which isn't represented at all) and the specific "video games" (quite different from "gaming") would be a fine entry as well as I know a lot of my peers frequent SO.

My company makes consumer software but we don't sell direct to consumers, we go through retail. We don't do direct sales to anyone, our products magically appear in retail stores and sales are handled by other companies. (IOW, there should be a separate spot for "retail packaged software".)

6
  • 11
    I think "gaming" is used very, very commonly to refer to consumer video games (PC, console, mobile, etc).
    – Josh Darnell
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:10
  • 16
    I also abhor the term "gamer". If you could please address me as an "entertainment mediaer" I would appreciate it.
    – mookamafoob
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:20
  • If "gaming" really implied gambling & casino games, you wouldn't have checked the box. Did you?
    – John Dibling
    Dec 12, 2012 at 19:22
  • 4
    "Gaming" in a development context refers to the gaming industry, which means casino games. Why would I have checked that box if I believe this to be the case? E.g. The American Gaming Industry's list of careers. (Strange to get downvoted for statements of fact but it's not the first time...)
    – dash-tom-bang
    Dec 12, 2012 at 20:01
  • 3
    Lots of various industries use the same word for different meanings. I am aware of and use both meanings of 'gaming'.
    – Andrew Barber
    Dec 14, 2012 at 4:15
  • 1
    I literally had to read the first sentence a few times to make any sense of it. I was locked in the context of software development. In different contexts words mean different things. E.g. being a vet you can and have to use the word bitch on and off and it's not swearing it's accurate. gaming in a software development context does not imply gambling or can any one tell how to place $20 on red using Visual studio? :)
    – Rune FS
    Dec 19, 2012 at 9:10
4
votes

Mozambique is not on the locations list :-(...

3
votes

I got my sticker for participating in the survey!! :D

Sticker

2
  • I was severely disappointed in the sticker design/quality/all-of-the-above. It was free, but had they told us what they were sending ahead of time I could have saved them an envelope and postage...
    – Brendan
    Jan 22, 2013 at 20:48
  • Yeah, I'm pretty disappointed too
    – jackcogdill
    Jan 22, 2013 at 20:50
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