Re: [ga] Re: "They're Coming To Take Me Away. Ha Ha."

[Michael Froomkin <froomkin@law.miami.edu>]

I meant a professional with experience in survey design, not someone paid by
ICANN to do whatever it is ICANN pays them to do.  It goes without saying that
no one at ICANN, or the NC, has this somewhat specialist skill (although I would
not be surprised to find it in the GA somewhere).  No blame attaches for this,
as there is no reason we should expect them to--it's a technical body (right?),
not a social science research unit.  But nor should we place much credence in
the results, whoever designed it.

I don't see the value of a lot of energy being used to produce something that
cannot be relied on.   The lesson is: if you are going to do a survey, run it by
someone who designs them for a living.   Someone in a sociology department or a
psychology department of a university who does empirical work if you can't get a
professional pollster.

In fact, given the bias of the design, the greater the 'outreach' for this
survey, the greater the damage.

[I'll almost certainly be offline from now until Tuesday due to travel.]

Danny Younger wrote:

> With regard to the WHOIS survey, Michael Froomkin writes:  "I wish whoever
> wrote this had consulted a professional."
>
> Actually, we are probably quite lucky that the Names Council's WHOIS
> committee (of which I am also a member) wrestled this project away from the
> ICANN staff which some time ago had formed its own WHOIS Committee
> http://www.icann.org/committees/whois/.  Yes, it might have been more
> professional had the ICANN staff devoted their full-time professional skills
> to it, but I for one am quite happy to see the uncompensated volunteer
> members of the Names Council showing some real initiative and a desire to
> address the problems that lay ahead.
>
> Whatever this survey may lack in "design", one has to admit there has been a
> major effort made at outreach, along with a significant effort to translate
> this survey into multiple languages (more soon to be forthcoming).  Please
> bear in mind that this is only step one in a much longer process that will
> fully involve the General Assembly.    Let's not go overboard with the
> criticism when it is clear that we are making forward progress.
>
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