At 12:10 PM -0500 1/23/01, Frank Solensky wrote:
>One could ask a sample of administrators and extrapolate the results
>but, again, the problem becomes how confident you could be of the
>results if you don't get a very significant response rate
The problem is *much* worse than that. You have to be confident that
your sampling method actually reflects enough of the Internet to be
valid. Determining how you have reached a valid sample of
administrators would be an interesting problem. Further, it is safe
to assume that administrators for the largest networks are the least
likely to reply, or to reply accurately.
And then there is the problem of assuming that they understand your
question, and can even count the systems on their networks well
enough to answer accurately...
--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium
