I can understand your reasoning, but you need to remember that the key to bone marrow donation is getting as many people as possible on the register. That means making it easy to sign up. The simpler the process, the better.
Making a web form complicated, demanding, or asking for too much information is a mistake people make right across the internet all the time, and it's shown to cost them customers. I've definitely seen articles about how slightly tweaking the wording of forms increases sign ups by some percent. Why would giving bone marrow be any different?
Criticism of the bone-marrow donor sign up process should be welcomed. The user stated that they did eventually get through the process, so your criticism of them is unfounded. Would the world really be better if people didn't criticise processes because they were somehow linked to charitable good?
It's not petty and disgusting to criticise a flawed process, whatever it's for. If this was someone's startup and it had that kind of convoluted signup process, would anyone complain about criticism? No. Surely a process that could result in saved lives is more important to get right than someone's start up.
I feel it'll be hard enough convincing someone to lay with a wide gauge needle in either arm for 6 hours, so if they're cool with that, then I'd be keen to have them on board regardless of their other personality traits.
So while I wasn't fond of the delivery, he's demonstrating that technical barriers, most of which are artificial, are possibly getting in the way of altruistic intentions.
For example, if a person sits down to sign up, then needs to go away from the computer to obtain various amounts of private information, there is a good chance that they won't return right away and possibly not at all.
The guy did complete the registration. If he wants to complain about the design of the site and the fact that it's unclear why they want certain information, that's legitimate because it actually could be an impediment to people signing up, despite your disapproval. Is it appropriate on HN comments instead of actually sending an email to the guys who run the website? Probably not.
Chill out. Just because signing up is important doesn't justify the website going out of its way to make it obnoxious and hard to do so. The parent got a kit, others may not.
:)....By improving the signup workflow Amit and others who share the same plight will have a better chance at finding a donor....By taking 23andMe data from consenting 23andMe users this process will become so much better that potentially everyone will find a donor(not just famous people like Amit!)
Yes I am that asshole and the world is forced to become better to accomodate assholes like me...:)...peace!
