[Meta] Launch of the 2020 ASF Community Survey

[Matt Sicker <bo...@gmail.com>]

This week, we are excited to launch the 2020 ASF Community Survey,
with which we will gather scientific data that allows us to understand
our community better, both in its demographic composition, and also in
collaboration styles and preferences. We want to find areas where we
can continue to do great work and others where we need to provide more
support so that our projects can keep growing healthy and diverse.
This joint effort was long overdue: our last survey of this kind was
implemented in 2016 [1], which means that all the information we
currently have about our communities is outdated.

For this new version of the survey, we have hired Bitergia to design
it, a company expert in analysing open source communities and other
types of software development teams. They have experience in this type
of surveys and research in open source communities. Among other
studies, their previous work includes an analysis in gender diversity
in technical contributions for OpenStack [2]. The 2020 ASF Community
Survey is the first part of a two-stage research. The second part
consists of interviews with people who have contributed to the ASF, in
order to assess their experience. We'll share more on this second part
of the project soon.

This survey and research are part of the ASF efforts to build a more
equitable, inclusive and diverse community. They are run by the Vice
Presidency of Diversity and Inclusion, a team formed last May. We'll
share a broader update about this group in January.

If you have an apache.org email address you will receive an email by
Thursday, Dec 5 at 3PM PST, with a link to the survey. Please take 15
minutes to complete it. If you didn't receive the email or you do not
have an apache.org email address, please use this link to complete the
survey:

https://communitysurvey.limequery.org/454363

We are looking to hear from everyone in our community: from users and
contributors, to committers and PMCs. Everyone's voice matters.

Find more information about the 2020 ASF Community Survey on its page
on Confluence [3], including the privacy policy governing this
initiative. If you are part of our community, either as a user,
contributor, or both, your participation is paramount to the success
of this project! Please consider filling out the survey, and share
this blog on social media, send it to your fellow Apache contributors.
As individuals form the Apache community, your opinion matters: we
need to hear your voice.

Links

[1] https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/COMDEV/ASF+Committer+Diversity+Survey+-+2016
[2] https://blog.bitergia.com/tag/openstack/
[3] https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/EDI/Launch+Plan+-+The+2020+ASF+Community+Survey