RE: [nc-whois] chapter ii, question 9

[Steve Metalitz <metalitz@iipa.com>]

Thank you for your comment Thomas.  I would welcome the chance to review and
comment on the draft text of the report.  Is it available anywhere?   

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Roessler [mailto:roessler@does-not-exist.org]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:24 AM
To: nc-whois@dnso.org
Subject: [nc-whois] chapter ii, question 9


I'm concerned by the current draft text covering question 9, in 
chapter II:

>Not surprisingly in light of the responses to question 8, more  
>than half of respondents found each individual data element now in 
>the com/net/org Whois to be essential. Perhaps more remarkably,  
>this held true for nearly every category of respondent with  
>respect to nearly every data element. The lowest proportion of  
>"essential" responses to any part of this question was 39%, by  
>individual respondents with regard to the date of registration  
>data element; and even there, 48% of the same individual  
>respondents called this data element "desirable," with only 12%  
>deeming it "valueless." The clear trend of satisfaction among  
>these respondents with the information currently provided to the  
>public by Whois is evident in the responses to question 9 as well  
>as 8.

Instead of looking for a low number of "essential" responses (which, 
in this case, leads to an element which is found _desirable_ by  
many), a considerably better metric for the degree of consensus  
found is to look for high numbers in the "valueless" category, and  
adding together "desirable" and "essential" for the purpose of this 
particular evaluation.  Numbers are attached; I've taken the liberty 
to mark the individuals' "valueless" responses by putting them into 
boldface.  Based on that, I'd suggest the following text instead of 
the wording of the current draft:

>Not surprisingly in the light of the responses to question 8, more 
>than half of the respondents found each individual data element  
>now in the com/net/org whois to be essential.  Across all  
>categories and data elements, more than 70% of respondents  
>selected either "essential" or "desirable".  The largest portion  
>of "valueless" responses to any part of this question was 27%, by  
>individual respondents with regards to the registrant's name and  
>address.  22% of individual respondents also found the  
>administrative contact's name and address "valueless", 18% gave  
>this answer with respect to the technical contact's name and  
>address. The clear trend of satisfaction among respondents with  
>the information currently provided to the public by Whois is  
>evident in the responses to question 9 as well as 8.

The report should, for intellectual honesty reasons, probably also  
mention some of the criticism received concerning the wording of  
this question, and the wording of question 8.

Such criticism can, for instance, be found in some of the responses  
to question 8 which are also attached.  More of this may be in the  
responses to question 20.

-- 
Thomas Roessler                        <roessler@does-not-exist.org>