Yesterday I sent out 353 mail messages to the PM group leaders using the contact details in the PM master XML document.
Almost instantly, I got 58 bounce messages back. That's an error rate approaching 1 in 6. A sixth of the contact addresses that we are publishing on pm.org are invalid. What kind of an impression does that give to people trying to contact a PM group? And that's after I posted messages a fortnight ago (on use.perl and on Perl Monks) asking leaders to check their contact details.
Oh and I got one reply from a challenge-response system. There's a special circle of hell reserved for people who use challenge-response systems. Especially on email addresses that are published as contact addresses.
If there's anyone reading this who should have received a mail but didn't, can you please contact me at census[at]pm.org so we can fix the problem. You might also check your contact details at http://pm.org/groups/ and email any corrections to support[at]pm.org.
Now I remember why it's been three years since the last census. It takes that long for me to forget what a massive headache it all is :-)
p.s. Oh, but before I forget. A big thank you to the over one hundred group leaders who have already responded.
