Re: [icann-eu] 10.000 PIN codes found....

[Harald Alvestrand <Harald@Alvestrand.no>]

At 06:58 19/11/2000 +0100, Marc Schneiders wrote:
>On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, at 11:53 [=GMT+0100], Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
>
> > some might like to know...
>
>I do very much. I have still not lost my surprise that people have let
>this go so easily. Thanks for telling!
>
> > I stuck my head into ICANN's offices while I was in LA.
> > In the At Large Membership office, she (it's one person!) has stacked up
> > approximately 10.000 PIN code envelopes, all returned from the post office
> > and stamped with some variant of "unknown address".
>
>The next question would be: from which countries? What exactly do
>these stamps say?

no stats - the 2 or 3 I looked at were typical post office stamps with 4-5 
boxes, and tickmarks in the "no such addressee".

> > I suggested she should take a picture of them and put it on the Web, so
> > that we can see what happens if we don't fill out Web forms properly.
>
>This is a bit jumping to conclusions. Other explanations include: the
>webform was not suitable for certain countries, where addresses work
>differently; a bug in the software that produced the envelopes or
>labels; the webform was not userfriendly.

the addresses I looked at looked ordinary to me, but failed to arrive. But 
it was a very small sample (2).
I got my PID, so for my address it worked fine, but I don't remember the 
webform.
OTOH, 7% error rate may not be too bad - don't know if we have anything to 
compare it to; people who accept requests for holiday catalogs over the Web 
can probably tell you the hit/miss rate they experience.

> > Only 60.000 non-activated memberships left to understand..... >
>
>What a relief! Though I would like to understand more of these 10,000
>as well. Why not have a volunteer classify and count them? Might give
>us a real clue.

If you know a volunteer in the Bay Area, send his/her name to the ICANN 
staff and offer help. I may be able to supply introductions.
But quick - the likely destination for these envelopes is landfill.

>Thanks again for giving us this information. It suggests that the
>practical parts of the At Large elections merits a study as well.

Yes.



--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, alvestrand@cisco.com
+47 41 44 29 94
Personal email: Harald@Alvestrand.no