Re: Complaining about ADs to Nomcom (Re: Voting (again))

In the light of this and Dave's comments, and since I used to 
teach people how to design survey questions so that the 
questions were as non-reactive as possible and the answers could 
be interpreted.  There is nothing inherently wrong with a 
self-report question.  We ask them all the time and normally 
expect truthful answers.  The tricky part is understanding which 
questions people may not want to answer truthfully, the reasons 
why, and, if the person who is reluctant to answer provides 
_some_ answer, how either that or a pattern of non-response is 
likely to bias the results.
For example, if one asks a large sample of 10-year-olds how old 
they are, the answers will, predictably, be mostly truthful: 
there are few incentives to lie and mistakes will tend to be 
nearly randomly distributed (slightly fatter tail to the 
"younger" side because of forgetting birthdays).   If one asks 
the same question of 60 year olds, the answer pattern would 
probably be different, and it is important, if one is trying to 
interpret validity, to understand those differences and their 
likely impact, rather than assuming either that all population 
groups are the same or that all self-report answers are invalid.
Coming back to the question at hand, if the nomcom asks people 
whether they would have accepted nominations if their names 
would become public, why would someone lie?  And, if they did, 
then which way would the report be biased.   I would think that 
people who are inclined to give incorrect answers would be more 
inclined to answer "no problem" given the community's biases 
about openness and unwillingness to admit that they require 
secrecy.  Maybe I'm wrong about that, but, if I'm not, the 
results Danny reported would, if anything, underestimate the 
number of people who would not be willing to be considered if 
their names were public.
We now return you to the regularly-scheduled religious arguments 
on the subject.
       john


--On Monday, May 16, 2005 10:52 +0200 Brian E Carpenter 
<brc(_at_)zurich(_dot_)ibm(_dot_)com> wrote:
> You've seen Danny's message with the results of asking the
> question in a straightforward way - 20% of IESG nominees
> say they would not have volunteered. Unlike Dave, I am
> willing to believe them.
>
> fwiw I responded "Yes" to Danny's question, but not
> without careful thought and some hesitation.
>
>     Brian
>
> Dave Crocker wrote:
> > > Seems fairly easy to judge the validity of that argument to
> > > me.  ASk the nomcom to ask volunteers whether they would
> > > have volunteered if their name was gonig to be made public.
> > > Collect statistics.
> >
> >
> > Sam,
> >
> > Sorry, no.
> >
> > As I posted earlier, that sort of methodology relies on what
> > survey  researchers call "self-report".
> >
> > It is very good for assessing attitudes and very bad for
> > assessing  actual behavior.
> >
> > For example, what you are likely to get are responses that
> > indicate  whether the people would like to have nominations
> > be public.
> >
> > It does not guarantee -- and well might not even correlate
> > with --  whether they really would run or not run, depending
> > on the public-ness  of the nomination.
> >
> > It is one thing to ask simple questions about simple issues.
> > As soon as  we get into something more "political" the
> > psychodynamics get messy.
> >
> >
> >   d/
> >   ---
> >   Dave Crocker
> >   Brandenburg InternetWorking
> >   +1.408.246.8253
> >   dcrocker  a t ...
> >   WE'VE MOVED to:  www.bbiw.net
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ietf mailing list
> > Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
> > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf




_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf