The Most Glaringly Obvious Results from Norbert’s WCEU 2025 (WordCamp in Basel, Switzerland) Survey

First and Foremost: Please keep in mind that I (Norbert) am the entire reason this survey exists. I wanted to do it in order to get to know the “real people” in the WordPress Community better (or rather more widely, since I already knew a few — relatively speaking). To make a long story short, everything about this survey is biased and the bias is 100% Norbert.

Perhaps the result that surprised me the most was the fact that the vast majority (over 77%) of attendees asked declared that they have been using WordPress for over five years and the rest were evenly split between less than one year and up to five years using WordPress. I don’t know why, but I guess my gut feeling had been that more “newbies” might be in attendance.

Please note also that most of the attendees I approached (for the purpose of performing the survey) were met in the sponsors / exhibit area, plus a smaller number in the upstairs coffee area.

A second somewhat surprising result was the generally high degree of satisfaction with the “search” capabilities included in WordPress core — and some even seemed to be fully satisfied with the “FrontEnd” search available via the front end of any WordPress blog. Nonetheless, when asked what could be improved, there were ample suggestions, and I think I will devote another blog post towards going over these in more detail.

Overall, attendees seemed happy with the WordPress community. There were several who mentioned problems concerning Gutenberg (mainly that it seemed to be a distraction from more pressing issues). And one response stands out in particular — namely the one given by Frans Pronk, who allowed me to mention him by name: he said that he has noticed that the WordPress community is becoming (too) money-focused. I do admit that I can at least follow this line of thinking as a valid concern.

Asking for feedback is about getting information you can put into action

Keywords: feedback

You’ll become better at your job, build relationships and trust with your peers, and get a clearer sense of how to advance your career. Don’t be afraid to take that first step: you never know what you might learn or what doors you’ll open by taking this small risk.
https://www.small-improvements.com/blog/make-feedback-work

Strengths and limitations of technological solutions to data collection / gathering from a data quality (in particular: validity + credibility) standpoint

Keywords: Credibility, Data Gathering, Online Research, Qualitative Research, Quality Standards, Research Design & Methods, Technological Solutions, Total Quality Framework and tagged Credibility, online research, qualitative research design, Total Quality Framework, validity

Potential drawbacks to any technological solution, including those associated with:

Difficulty managing analysis due to lots and lots of data (in volume & formats);

Fraud, misrepresentation – “Identity is fluid and potentially multiple on the Internet” (James and Bushner, 2009, p. 35) and people may not share certain images or video that reveal something “embarrassing” about themselves**; and

Security, confidentiality, anonymity (e.g., data storage, de-identification).
https://researchdesignreview.com/2020/03/31/tech-solutions-qualitative-research

Do you have any suggestions for ways people can promote the WordPress User/Developer Survey?

We’ve always promoted the survey through a banner on WordPress.org, plus an article on WordPress News and through word of mouth. This has been successful in the past, but less so in recent years. In 2015*, 45,997 people filled out the survey, but in 2016 and 2017, less than 10,000 responses came in. We won’t have time to add a notice to everyone’s dashboard (even if everyone agreed that would be wise), so this year I’d like to ask everyone to help promote the survey through as many channels as they have available to them.
https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2019/08/13/wordpress-user-developer-survey-clarifying-goals/