off-topic was Re: [] NCSG Checkin

[Dan Krimm]

I'm not saying anything either way, and don't think it's "idiotic" to
think there might (should?) be a difference.

Maybe one might think institutional members would be more careful to
respond than individuals, since they represent more than their own
individual interests and thus might feel more duty to engage on behalf of
the institution (in which case the proportion of votes would exceed the
proportion of voters).

But apparently not, unless there are yet other factors complicating
matters (which is also possible -- after all, there is *something* that
differentiates responders from non-responders, and it is not necessarily
random such that any one of us could be likely to be a non-responder two
thirds of the time, which I actually don't think is the case --
participation in groups like this typically tends to follow a power-law
curve, and this is usually some function of intensity of interest in the
topics at hand, with a variety of factors playing into that function).

It's actually an interesting question, I think.  But probably one that
psychologists and pollsters might be more likely to have studied
systematically than ICANN folks.

Cheers,
Dan



On Thu, July 21, 2011 2:30 pm, Avri Doria wrote:
> i had no hypothesis.  was just surprised that the numbers were so close.
>
> so i guess i should not feel that it was remarkable.
> but just accept that i am an idiot who is easily amused.
>
> either that or went bonkers long time ago.
>
> thanks for the input.
>
> a.
>
> On 21 Jul 2011, at 17:26, Dan Krimm wrote:
>
>> On Thu, July 21, 2011 12:44 pm, Avri Doria wrote:
>>
>>>             (
>>>              personal aside, I find it remarkable that the
>>>              two ratios came out so close given proportional
>>>              voting based on organizational size or individual status -
>> got to be amused by the little things in this job
>>>              or you will go completely bonkers!
>>>              )
>>
>>
>> This sort of thing is my occupation these days (policy research,
>> statistical analysis), so permit me to engage this tangent.
>>
>> What this indicates is that the probability of response (or
>> non-response)
>> is not correlated with (i.e., appears to be independent of) the
>> vote-count
>> per respondent.  (I checked it per respondent type, and it is comparably
>> close across types:  large = 7/21 = 33.333%, small = 22/64 = 34.375%,
>> individual = 55/166 = 33.133%)
>>
>> Why this should be remarkable or not is an open question.  :-)
>>
>> Why would you hypothesize that they would be different?  Did you think
>> institutional members would be systematically different (on average)
>> from
>> individual members, in this regard?  Do you have a theory of response
>> that
>> predicts this?
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>> --
>> Any opinions expressed in this message are those of the author alone and
>> do not necessarily reflect any position of the author's employer.
>>
>