Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.

Possibly the most important invention of the past century, the web is undeniably one of the most robust engines of knowledge transfer, political and social change, artistic endeavor, and economic growth the world has seen.

Remove the web, and billions in trade disappear. Websites enable people who can’t walk to run to the store. They bring knowledge and freedom of thought to places where such things are scarce; make every person with a connection a citizen of the world; and allow every citizen to be heard.

Yet nobody bothered to conduct a serious inquiry into the working conditions of people who make websites until A List Apart launched its first survey in 2007.

Last year nearly 33,000 of you took the survey, enabling us to begin figuring out what kinds of job titles, salaries, and work situations are common in our field.

The responses to last year’s survey began teaching the world about the previously invisible profession powering its information economy. The responses also taught us what we did wrong in constructing the survey.

This year’s survey corrects many of last year’s mistakes, with more detailed and numerous questions for freelance contractors and owners of (or partners in) small web businesses. There are also better international categories, and many other improvements recommended by those who took the survey last year.

As we did last year, we will analyze this year’s data and publish the results for all to see in an upcoming issue of A List Apart . We will also, as we did last year, provide an “anonymized” version of the raw data, so that the highly motivated among you can do your own number crunching.

Enough talk! Please take the survey and encourage your friends and colleagues who make websites to do likewise. The world is watching.