[dow2tf] Whois tf 2 survey - clearing up confusion

["Milton Mueller" <mueller@xxxxxxx>]

Hello, 
Niklas and I met by telephone today as part of data analysis "Team 3".

An ambiguity developed as we discussed the data collection effort. 
I was under the impression that the survey was intended for GNSO
constituencies only. However, there have been some suggestions that
we are expecting to get data from any and every Internet user. 
And indeed I see some responses from random Internet users already
in the results.

I see from the message from the GNSO Secretariat circulating the
survey that my initial impression was correct. (see below) 
The survey is intended for constituencies only.

>>> "GNSO SECRETARIAT" <gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 02/16/04 12:48PM >>>
>One of the milestones of this Task Force is to determine whether the data
>which is collected and disclosed at present should be changed. To be able to
>arrive at a informed decision we are asking all GNSO Constituencies for
>guidance on their use of the current data fields.
http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/questionnaire-tf2-all-06feb04.shtml 

This greatly simplifies our task and also eliminates the potential for
bias in the data collection. If we are polling GNSO constituencies, 
then our population of respondents is exactly 7 (counting ALAC)
and we can reasonably expect to get a response from every member
of that population, making our data perfectly representative of
the population. 

Any attempt to broaden the intended population would of course 
result in a much larger population to be sampled, and given the short 
response time frame, lack of adequate publicity, and inability to use
scientific sampling techniques the results would suffer from a 
selection bias so severe as to make the results completely useless
from a statistical point of view.  

In analyzing the results, I will then insist upon analyzing only the
constituency responses. 

--MM