Complete The Hack A Day Survey, Win A Shirt

Take our reader survey. Do it. Do it right now.  Do you think we should run more articles on the dietary needs of Llamas? Here is your chance to let us know.  We got a lot of great feedback from [Jason]’s post, and now we’re ready for more. We’ve put together 10 quick questions that will help us get a feeling for what you want. We will be choosing 5 participants at random to give free t-shirts (the basic logo one).

Update: While we wait for our survey slave to get the changes made, please just put something in the fields that are mandatory(questions 7-9). Even if you put “no opinion”, we’ll get good info from the rest of the survey.

77 thoughts on “Complete The Hack A Day Survey, Win A Shirt

  1. I think that its great that hackaday is taking opinions from readers. I think that the survey shouldnt have had the (*)starred questions compulsory, I have no idea about names of writers on the site and I think that it would have been better for people to vote top 10 hacks out of say 20 that were picked by the Hackaday staff.
    Thats all :)

  2. You should make questions 7, 8 and 9 optional:

    #7 – I’d be hard pressed, out of the thousands of posts that must be, to pick three. You should be happy I just come here as often as I do :)

    #8 – Unless it’s a name like Adam Savage, chances are I am not going to know someone’s name. Or would you rather me post something like “that guy who made the relay computer”, where there are at least three matching criteria for that?

    #9 – what if I have no suggestions for the site?

  3. I got most of the way through the survey until I realized questions 7-9 are mandatory. Seriously, HAD? You expect me to randomly think up my top 3 posts I have seen here, and remember what they were called? And I don’t care who writes the articles, I just read them. I certainly don’t know two people to write in for #8. Let me finish the survey without answering these questions because I don’t have anything to contribute for #7-8.

  4. Well, I had no problems with it, although I want to know where my “a few times a day” option is?! ;-)
    (luckily I simply track the RSS so get the post as it happens)

  5. Questions 3 (Which of these items would you like to see HackADay add or expand upon?) and 4 (How often would you like HAD to post new articles to the site?) imply that we viewers must want MORE of HAD.

    Remember when MORE meant including an ipod holder made of Lego?
    I’d much rather have less if the articles were of higher quality.

  6. To be honest, you guys do a great job at this site. It is one of the few sites I actually check back on every fifteen to ten mins to read and look for new articles.

    Love the site have been coming here all day for years and will continue to come view your articles and content.

  7. Doesnt confirm that anything was submitted, just bounces back to the main HAD page. I will lose sleep from the intense fear of not being eligable to cover my pasty white skin with a HAD tshirt.

  8. Thanks for listening to your readers.

    There was no option for less content than we have now. I would like to see less and higher quality content with proper fact checking, than more fluff just tossed in to make my rss reader tell me I have new content.

  9. This question requires an answer.
    3. Which of these items would you like to see HackADay add or expand upon?Which of these items would you like to see HackADay add or expand upon? Software Hacks
    Hacks for Beginners
    Life Hacks
    Round up Posts (i.e. top 25 iPad hacks)
    Tutorial Series (Beginner to Advanced)
    Other (please specify) “Advanced Hacks”

    THIS IS FUCKING STUPID

  10. I think its ridiculous the questions on there — they are all stacked. People complain there are too many articles already — so the question “how many would you like?” is ‘same as now’ ‘more than now’ ‘lots more than now’. If you want statistically viable data you must offer the WHOLE range. ‘lots less’ ‘little less’ ‘same’ ‘more’ ‘lots more’.

  11. This question requires an answer.
    1. How often do you visit HAD?

    but i use rss and don’t visit at all or visit everyday, depending on interest in comments
    can’t pick a valid answer

  12. Question 4 should have an option saying “1-5” because I prefer quality over quantity, I keep coming back here for the quality/inspirational hacks rather than the quantity of them and would prefer 1 quality hack over “how to do xyz with an Android phone” or “how to blink an LED with an Arduino”.

    I will fill in the survey, but not in it’s current form, it needs tweaking.

  13. Caleb, I read everything that gets posted on this site, hence my frustration at times. I’ve read that letter, and responded to it.

    If you don’t want your readers opinions on how to make the site better why ask for them in the first place?

  14. You should look into getting t-shirts screen printed shirts cheaper, if you can only splurge on 5 to promote your website. My dad gets shirts screen printed for <$4 each 2 color front and back printing. In this ecconomy if you can't find a supplier for under $5 a shirt, you didn't get off your computer/

  15. I’d answer “1-2 posts per day too”. But I don’t think every question will be understood literally. If the majority answers the minimum quantity in that question, HaD may take it as a hint. It appears that they’re under pressure from (…) to POST MOARRR, EXPAND, GROW.. etc, that kind of bullshit.. and have to invent ways to satisfy the (…) and not to piss off the old-time readers, all at the same time. Tough job.

  16. I am sure this is simply a scam for them to generate hits for affiliate sites. As stated above…you’re lucky I read your site. 5 shirts, come on! Not worth my time…And if you read this far, it wasn’t worth yours either.

    1. @itwork4me,
      Nope, not a scam. We thought you guys would like the ability to participate in our growing process. As svofski pointed out, the balance is tough. the free shirts were just a bonus. We don’t share those email addresses with anyone else. Besides, you entered your email address in wordpress to make that comment. If we really needed to sell them, I think we could do better than an un-required field on our survey.

  17. @Cabel Just because HAD says that it’s not going to lower the quality of articles doesn’t mean they’re going to actually follow through. I would like the quality to increase. HAD will do what they have to for their site to be popular.

  18. @ehrichweiss,
    My time is worth more than a shirt too. But I would have done the survey if no shirt was given out. I love this site as do most people who post comments here. I think most people would think having input would be worth their time, at least if they enjoyed the content. The shirt to me really is a bonus on top of that.

  19. Had is great, and having more comunity interaction will only be a good thing. I also think a more detailed census on your users will help you tailor your topics, ads and maybe even highlight some new editing talent.

    Another idea is user sponsored projects where projects are agreed, a ringer is brought in and shares out the workload across the comunity and maybe even costs too. This site is perfect for atracting very driven and innovative people, if had can coordinate some colaberations it could provide content, community interaction, experience for those involved and maybe even some world class open source products

  20. Since people are posting what they said in the survey, the main part:

    Hack A Day used to turn down submitted links to projects because another site already linked to it. Those days, they wanted to be a site that had original (-ish) content that you didn’t just find anywhere else. Whether or not this made sense from a marketing point of view or not, it was nice from a readers point of view. I could browse HaD and not feel like I am still reading the RSS feed for Make or any other similar sites. there might be some duplication, but for the most part, it was kept to a minimum.

    Move forward a few years and HaD starts posting articles it itself had posted only a year prior. If the site doesn’t care enough to do a 2 second check in it’s database, why should I care enough to come here and read it?

    Stop posting 10 articles a day about any random bullshit you are typing about; i can find that anywhere online. Go back to quality projects. Go back to one post a day (with a second of minor links compiled). We all know where engadget and make and gizmodo and this old house and whatever else can be found, stop trying to be those other sites.

  21. i agree with the HAD readers above adam Z

    1) feedback to confirm receipt of my submited questionaire would have been nice

    2) forest mims would make an excellent contributor if you could convice him

    3) another electronics/hacking/project design god that i would like to see contribute is albert ricci bitti ( http://www.riccibitti.com )
    , again if you could convince him ?

  22. I filled out the survey, but honestly I don’t know why. This site has demonstrated time and time again that they only care about what we have to say if it’s profitable. Just look above one of your readers (nore then one actualy) said he would like less quantity and more quality and you reply with a flat ‘NO; please see already posted reasons why’ I’ll tell you why because less content means less advertising revenue. Infact if you read the coments on this site (and I know you do Caleb) I’m sure you can see that
    the general sentiment has been against more content since you started posting more content. Why bother asking if you don’t care to hear what we have to say? I and others, most of whom have been around here quite a bit longer then you, have been telling you what we want all along, you obviously heard because you structured the survey in a way that was biased. Now I’m not trying to be a hater, infact I’ve been reading this site since Eliot started it years ago, I even bought my bus pirate from seeedstudio to support this site even though the shipping takes forever and I could have ordered it from sparkfun and had it in a few days. This site is a pale ghost of what it used to be, I only check back because every once in a while you’ll post something good. And to everyone saying our time is worth more then a tshirt; of course it is. The time we waste here is worth far more to Caleb and hackaday then it is to us, because that’s how they get paid. Think about that as you flat out tell your readers your not interested in there input, without us you’d be out of a job.

    1. I’m going in backwards order I guess.
      @Steve and Gottabethatguy,
      It was not my intention to give a “slap in the face”. I was pointing to where the boss (Jason) said we are growing. The reason he posted that was to point out that hackaday needs to make more money, so an expansion is in order. I felt that reading it from the boss’s mouth was a much better solution than me replying with a less eloquently written paraphrasing.

      I really don’t worry about my job security here. I have a day job for that. I do this because I love this site. I want to see it survive this “expansion”. I’m really trying to be a liaison between the business side and the readers. I’m not completely sure how best to do that, but I’m still going to try.

  23. Thanks Steve, you put that more eloquently than I could have. Caleb’s comment was like a slap in the face, when all I was doing was offering my honest opinion.

  24. Caleb, he says nothing in the letter about not reducing the number of posts per day. He says nothing that conflicts at all with the request of “post less and post better”.

    If you aren’t going to read his letter, don’t be an ass when you are responding to other people and claim that he already addressed the point.

    Frankly, all of what has been happening lately (this survey, the letter, the copyright issue on user videos at youtube) is getting to a bit of a critical mass. Yeah, it’s a business, I get that. And yeah, one reader doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme. I’m just about decided to walk away from this site that I’ve been following for years though. I’ll find the projects elsewhere ultimately and if I miss out on condescending owners I’m sure I’ll find a way to deal.

    1. @blind,
      I didn’t say anything condescending. This is a common issue with online communication. Tone isn’t conveyed well, especially when you try to avoid stating opinions. Jason posted that this is a business that needs to grow. I’m trying to strike a balance between that growth and keeping people happy. I was linking to Jason’s letter to show why we won’t be reducing the amount of content on the site based on quotes like this:

      I’d like to see Hackaday grow and expand its mission beyond “one hardware hack a day.”

  25. I agree with the “should have been several times a day option” comment.

    I think you’ll get a lot of good info from this survey, and why are you guys having such a hard time finding your favourite three articles? Just pick three that you really like. I had about 20 come to mind and just chose three of them.

    Caleb, I think you’re doing a great job, keep up the good work!

  26. Seems to me the best way to produce more content and keep the quality and originality that Steve’s talking about is to produce more in house projects. But is that even possible with the current staff? I mean Jukus’s idea was good but is it possible to get the community to work together like that? Something like irc or a dedicated forum would be needed.

    BTW Steve your comment just about brought a tear to my eye.

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