The instrument was sent to over 9000 addresses on two different subscription lists for White House electronic publications: a list for general documents (6800 addresses) and a list for health care bulletins (2250). This instrument was also distributed through regular usenet channels and sent to a short list of known regular redistributors of the documents, including operators of commercial networks, university gophers and government agencies. These agents were were asked to pass along the survey to their audiences, and obviously distribution of the survey was constrained by the extent to which they did so.
1592 people responded to the survey, including 810 and 167 listed on
the two mentioned subscription lists respectively. While these numbers are
relatively high percents of the subscription lists, we believe the total
number of respondents is a much lower percent of primary recipients of the
documents. Recipients of the documents through means other than these lists
were less likely to receive and return these documents, because most
downstream agents did not respond to our request to send out or post the
survey.
At several sites, incorrect or confusing directions for obtaining the
survey were initially posted, and considerable time past before they were
corrected. Note even when correct instructions were posted, recipients were
being asked to send mail to an unfamiliar address and use commands unfamiliar
to many of them. This may have kept some people from trying to get the survey
and led others to abandon the effort when they received an error message. In
addition, people without email facilities who get the documents by downloading
them from bulletin boards could not take the survey, and there is some
evidence of many such recipients. In short, then, the responses best
represent the direct subscribers and do not directly represent non-email
capable recipients.