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Survey of WPMU Admins (24 posts)

  1. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I am doing a survey of WPMU admins. My list of WPMU hosts is the one I maintain in the sidebar of:
    http://andwat.edublogs.org/
    I was able to find contact info for only about 50% of the sites. If you run one of those sites, and didn't get an email from me (andrew watson at yahoo dot com) about the survey, please email me if you'd be willing to take part in the survey.
    The survey is web-based, and will take about 15 minutes to complete. I will post summary statistics at the blog linked to above once the responses are in.
    I'll also be making posts relating to the survey. For example, how many WPMU sites seem to have been abandoned? I think that post is ready to go right now...

  2. quenting
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I would, but the email you've given returns an error from yahoo. Is there an underscore between name and first name ? A dot ?

  3. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Sorry, that should be:
    andrew.watson@yahoo.com
    Silly to try to avoid spam... I get so much of it, and yahoo does a decent job of filtering.
    Thanks for the offer... I'll look for your email.

  4. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    If you run a WPMU site, and would be willing to spend 10-15 minutes to complete it, please email me: andrew.watson@yahoo.com
    Some of you should have just received a reminder email from me.
    Some of you have already completed the survey - many thanks!
    Andrew

  5. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Thanks, data, and last call for participation. Perhaps I should expand on that :)
    - Thanks to the couple of dozen WPMU admins who have responded to the survey so far.
    - I will close the survey tomorrow at noon Eastern USA time, which is about 25 hours away now.
    - I hope to be able to make data available next week.
    - So, if you run a WPMU site, haven't yet taken this 10-minute web-based survey, and would like to do so, please email me soon: andrew.watson@yahoo.com

  6. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I've started to post results from the survey:
    http://andwat.edublogs.org/2006/06/27/wpmu-survey-results/
    http://andwat.edublogs.org/2006/06/27/wpmu-survey-likes-and-dislikes/
    The first of these posts is an intro to the results, and the second is based on WPMU admins' responses to the What Do You Like Most/Least About WPMU questions.
    More soon,
    Andrew

  7. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    It seems as though edublogs' server problems continue, so the above links aren't working well at the moment. (I should add that, until recently, edublogs seemed to have little or no downtime.
    You can see a somewhat detailed writeup of what WPMU admins like and dislike about WPMU at:
    http://www.writely.com/Doc.aspx?id=acxc5g47xnp_0dtzbjr

  8. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I've just gone through the responses to the demographics questions. You can see the writeup at:
    http://www.writely.com/Doc.aspx?id=acxc5g47xnp_4d7848d
    and a description of a "typical" WPMU admin at:
    http://andwat.edublogs.org/2006/07/05/wpmu-admin-demographics/

  9. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 17 years ago #

    I hope I didn't skew your demographics too much. ;) It's been interesting reading.

  10. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Andrea,
    It was actually the male respondents who skewed my data - you helped to balance it :)
    There should be another couple of blog posts on the data this week, and then I'll start on the paper.

  11. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    You can now read about responses to Why and How questions (e.g. why did you choose WPMU, how do you fund your WPMU site). I've blogged a summary at:
    http://andwat.edublogs.org/2006/07/07/survey-whys-and-hows/
    and you can see the thing I just wrote at:
    http://www.writely.com/Doc.aspx?id=acxc5g47xnp_6cjvhjj

  12. samchng
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Thanks for what u have done with this survey, AndWat. :)

  13. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Sam,
    Your're most welcome... I find the results interesting, and I'm glad that others do too!

  14. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    The median number of blogs at a WPMU host is 25, according to the survey of WPMU admins I did. You can read more at:
    http://andwat.edublogs.org/2006/07/10/survey-how-many-blogs-and-interview-with-a-wpmu-network-admin/
    and even more at:
    http://www.writely.com/Doc.aspx?id=acxc5g47xnp_7dkq88w
    I'll start to knock together a real paper about the survey later this month.
    Andrew

  15. drmike
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Are you still taking survey responses or are you finished?

    *checkle* Gotta admit that I was surprised to see 6 others with advanced degrees using MU. No offense but usually you see folks like us teaching or doing research, not running an open Source project and offering blogs. :)

  16. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Mike,
    I'm not taking any more responses to the survey per se. I have to stop at some point and say that I had so many replies, that what people most like is this, and so on. Otherwise it never stops!
    I am interested to see remarks on the data, such as the one you just posted. In fact, one of my reasons for "bumping" this post is to prompt discussion in the WPMU community.

  17. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 17 years ago #

    "No offense but usually you see folks like us teaching or doing research, not running an open Source project and offering blogs. "

    Yeah, but we have to have some sort of hobby. ;)

    FWIW, some of my survey results would have been different had I not been answering just for myself. I'm probably odd gal out as our install is run by two people not one. just one of us took the survey. In the grand scheme of things, one person won't squew or balance it too much though.

  18. AndWat
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    In response to Andrea's remark...
    I set up the survey so that each response was from one person, and about one WPMU install. I did this to keep things simple.
    As Andrea points out, things are actually more complicated than that. The relationship between admin and install is actually many-to-many. Some people run more than one install. (Actually, I gathered data on that too... quick look... 7 of the 30 who responded run > 1.) Some installs have more than one admin. (Again, 7... I posted that already.)
    I did think of trying to capture this many-to-manyness on the survey, but I wanted to be able to promise potential respondents that the survey was short, and to make sure that it was straightforward.

  19. kahless
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    drmike,

    I'm and Adjunct Professor of Mathematics and Instructional Technology Specialist. It is in my latter role which takes up 2/3 of my time that I came to be an admin for wpmu. In fact I think I was the only one who said my employer pays for everything.

  20. drmike
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    AndWat, thanks for the response. Just wanted to know if you needed any more. :)

    kahless, PhD in Theoritical Mathematics and an honorary D.Sc. in Theoritical Physics. Never really used my degrees since I can't get certified for teaching. That was a waste.

  21. kahless
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    drmike,

    So what do you do with those degrees?

  22. drmike
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Not much...

  23. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 17 years ago #

    Maybe they are theoretical degrees? :)

  24. drmike
    Member
    Posted 17 years ago #

    With a theoretical bill maybe? ;)

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