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

[Mike Roberts <roberts@icann.org>]

At 17:57 +0100 11/20/00, Christian Schultz Kommunalberatung wrote:
>Dear Harald,
>
>thanks for your looking into ICANN´s office. It has confirmed my thought
>that there must be a great disorder in this office.

This is certainly not the case.  The voting having been completed,
and the grant funding for the project having been exhausted, there is
now one part time consultant who is providing limited administrative
support to maintain the data base and to respond to inquiries and to
support the needs of the At Large study group when it is formed.

Information about all of the returned PIN letters is being posted to
the database so that it may be used by the At Large study.  When the
work is completed, the letters will be shredded to protect the
privacy of the individuals involved.

The number of returned letters is about 10% of the total who
registered but did not activate their membership.  Of the remaining
90%, or approx 70,000 persons, we have no way of knowing how many may
not have gotten their letters but the postal services did not return
them to us.  I believe this is called putting them into "dead letter"
boxes.

>  Meanwhile I´m not more
>surprised about this because I have some months experience with the ICANN
>staff. With 60.000 not activated memberships there rests no doubts who could
>solve this problem for these members.
>I hope that ICANN after solving the great problem with the new TLD´s can
>solve also the no less important problem of many thousands members who
>like(d) to become real members.
>If furtherone no one will care about this much members will leave. Is this
>an aim of ICANN? Is the frequent mentioning of a democratic foundation of
>ICANN enough?
>I make an appeal to our members who are at the same time members at the
>board of ICANN to see that will be repaired.

Suggestions about the future use of At Large membership information
should be directed to Andrew McLaughlin, or to the At Large Study
comment forum when it is opened up in a few days.

- Mike

>Best regards
>
>Christian
>
>
>-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
>Von: owner-icann-europe@fitug.de [mailto:owner-icann-europe@fitug.de]Im
>Auftrag von Harald Alvestrand
>Gesendet: Montag, 20. November 2000 14:52
>An: Marc Schneiders
>Cc: icann-europe@fitug.de
>Betreff: Re: [icann-eu] 10.000 PIN codes found....
>
>
>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