• I thought I'd give you some feedback here Kataras on your strategy for promoting iris, because I feel it's doing you and your project a disservice.


    I have noticed quite a few self-promotional posts about iris here and elsewhere, and even this, which is purportedly a survey of iris users, reads as one of them. The first question in this form for users is not actually a question, it's self-congratulation about getting into the top 10 trending projects on github. I would remove that, because it leaves a bad taste in the mouth and makes the rest of the form seem insincere. The second question is very similar - it's as if you feel you need to persuade your own users that the project is worthwhile.

    By the time you get to Write down the online websites powered by Iris that you have knowledge of it feels a little odd - why are you asking users for this info and not about their own projects? It is perhaps indicative that all those github stars are not a useful indicator of engagement after all...  as the author, if large projects are using it, you should be intimately familiar with them already, they'd show up in issues etc.

    Many people won't invest in a web framework unless it provides substantial benefits, they really trust the person who made it (ideally several people or a company), and they see other projects using it. The dangers of the project being abandoned, making it difficult to customise their project, or going in a direction they don't like, are just too great. So if you want to persuade people to use Iris, make it great, make great things with it, and keep using it, but don't attempt to sell it.

    I do think you'd be better to focus your energies on any users you currently have, and on using iris to build things that people want. What projects have you built with iris that you've been working on for a while? What projects have others built? Focus on those, and on making it substantially better for those, and if you must do lots of promotion, promote actual useful projects, not the framework itself. If you must promote, consider giving talks, but don't try to flood forums with messages, it is counter-productive and usually provokes quite a hostile reaction.

    As it is, every bit of promotion you do on reddit, and now here, is haunted by your past actions promoting it rather heavily, and I think you need to take a step back from self-promotion and focus on the actual work instead. I hope this is in some way useful to you.