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Why do government web forms suck?

post #1 of 15
12/4/09 at 2:12pm
Thread Starter 
A student of mine received a box from his uncle in Saudi Arabia. The box contains see-through plastic bags with dates from his uncle's farm, plus some Arabic coffee and spices. Before customs will release the box to him, he is required to fill out a "past notice" form online. Unfortunately, these forms are the most confusing, convoluted things I've ever seen in my entire life. My ISA is doing the forms for him because he simply can't understand them, and his English is pretty good. She has to fill out a seperate form for each food item, and she just finished the first form after about 45 minutes and three phone calls to customs. What the fuck is wrong with these people??? And are other countries' government forms as bad?
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post #2 of 15
12/4/09 at 2:56pm
Why does your threak posting ability suck? DOUBLE THREAK POAST FAIL
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post #3 of 15
12/4/09 at 3:25pm
Thread Starter 
Eh?
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post #4 of 15
12/4/09 at 3:36pm
He's probably referring to how you posted this thread twice (then deleted one of them).
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post #5 of 15
12/4/09 at 5:30pm
I forget what I had to fill out recently but the forms were brutal. I think it is because the gov't probably spend a million dollars to consultants to make them more ergonomic. I recall there was a place about __ that long for a phone number.
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post #6 of 15
12/5/09 at 5:55pm
I think that customs agencies like to make their rules as confusing as possible. It's the philosophy of security through obscurity.
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post #7 of 15
12/5/09 at 7:14pm
Because they're produced by the government.
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post #8 of 15
12/5/09 at 8:48pm
See title word three.
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post #9 of 15
12/5/09 at 8:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mickey711 View Post
He's probably referring to how you posted this thread twice (then deleted one of them).

haha
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post #10 of 15
12/5/09 at 11:32pm
I remember a form for business ideas how to help others like orphans, handicapped etc. I had the idea of a shop for self made knitted socks and pullovers. old ladys know this stuff and have a lot of time in their nursing homes, and some other people would love to get personalized or stylish self made woolen stuff. so why not make a b2c market and the old ladys had some extra money they could waste for more bingo events. although I had all the needed information on a paper, it took me 15 minutes to fill out the form. when I clicked submit I was told my session had expired. so I wrote them their time frame was too small. someone from boston consulting replied I should try again or email him all the information. I just sent him a
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post #11 of 15
12/6/09 at 7:18am
Government forms are created by government bureacrats. They usually can't be fired. On a related note, we have a post in front of our apartment with -- get this -- four parking signs on it, one on top of the other. My gf and I are both lawyers, and we thought we had figured out what's what. Nope, we got two tickets the other day for "disobeying an official sign" within 15 minutes of each other (one by a human, the other by a vehicle camera). So, again being lawyers, we appealed. After the appeal was mailed, we got charged another $25 for not paying the first ticket. A call to the DC parking office later, which was escalated to a supervisor of some sort, it was admitted -- by a source who can't be named here -- that we shouldn't have gotten a second ticket, and furthermore, we shouldn't have been charged a late fee. But, there was nothing he could've done. The appeal process takes 6-8 months.
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post #12 of 15
12/6/09 at 7:41am
Most web forms suck.

BTW, most government web forms are not designed by bureaucrats..they're designed by consultants!
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post #13 of 15
12/6/09 at 11:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by RyJ Maduro View Post
Because they're produced by the government.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MarquisMagic View Post
Most web forms suck.

BTW, most government web forms are not designed by bureaucrats..they're designed by consultants!

And the answer lies somewhere in the middle. It is true many of these jobs are put out for bid to consultants. The root of the problem is that when this is done there is no one receiving the product who is qualified to verify quality and user experience. And since the work is done on fixed bid, the consultant has no motivation to improve any awkwardness once the product is delivered.
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post #14 of 15
12/7/09 at 12:46am
Are you sure you're allowed to import spices? I know whenever I come from Asia I get grilled at customs making sure I didn't bring any spices into the country.
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post #15 of 15
12/7/09 at 2:40pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by musicguy View Post
Are you sure you're allowed to import spices? I know whenever I come from Asia I get grilled at customs making sure I didn't bring any spices into the country.

Don't know. It's up to the student. He's had to drive to Minneapolis (5 hours each way) TWICE because of this. Neither the people in Minneapolis, nor the people in DC, nor the web site have been helpful at all. The crazy thing is, he could have just gone to our international market and bought the same shit...it's just dates, coffee, and spices.
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