Is the US Postal Service Biased Against Atheists? Check Out This Study

[DavidDvorkin]

Remember those atheist shoes?

Well, the Berlin-based makers of the shoes have been sending their goods to a lot of Americans and they’ve noticed something weird: The shoes take a lot longer for American customers to receive than you might expect:

We have lots of customers in the USA, but sometimes the shoes we send them take longer than they should to arrive, or even go missing. And, when some of our customers asked us not to use ATHEIST-branded packing tape on their shipments, we started to wonder if the delays were caused by the US Postal Service taking offence at our overt godlessness…

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/03/26/is-the-us-postal-service-biased-against-atheists-check-out-this-study/

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I doubt it

But those shoes are going through two postal systems, increasing chances of things going array.

[Katashi_itto]

8. Didnt you know that the Post Office is funding HARP to target Atheist Shoemakers???? Come on!!

Everyone knows that....btw the Post Office was behind the Kennedy assaination and every war we've ever had.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. That explains the

Hiring of vets them. A ready made military force.

[Katashi_itto]

14. Exactly!

[backscatter712]

58. Got any evidence?

Fortunately, the Atheist Shoes folks from Berlin in the OP presented their evidence.

[Katashi_itto]

59. Correction: The Atheist Shoe Illuminati!

[nadinbrzezinski]

60. Lemme see, ship them through the Postal System in Berlin

Go through US Customs, and then go to the processing plant for the USPS in NYC for disbursement around the country.

You knew this right?

Or somehow I went back to 1911 when the US Postmaster General refused to deliver a magazine. Yup, that became a SCOTUS case. It was about contraceptives and condom use to be specific.

There is more, with the sequester customs operations are now slower than usual, so I expect their shoes to be further delayed, with everybody else who is shipping into the United States.

And if you think postal workers have time for that shit, I hear there is a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

Serious.

By the way international shipments take anywhere from a week to ten days...we know this...we order from England or NZ fairly regularly. We never expect that to get to our doors before ten days. And sending a birthday card to Mexico City takes anywhere from ten days to two months, depending on the time of the year...that my friend is the well known issues f the Mexican postal service. Oh and from NZ at times a packet takes all of a month, the one from Poland took a month as well. It went through three postal services and customs inspections.

There are days, really.

[backscatter712]

61. You saw post #15, or the same illustration in the link in the OP, correct?

Look at that illustration, down at the bottom, in the fine print.

There's the results of their statistical math.

In all cases, p is less than 0.01. That means that the odds that atheist packages are getting delayed or lost at higher rates due to a systemic cause is 99%, and the odds that this is a fluke due to random chance is less than 1%

Yes, they did the math. And the math says that packages with "ATHEIST" tape are treated differently from the same packages mailed to the same people with blank packing tape.

[nadinbrzezinski]

62. Yes, I read it

And we order product from abroad regularly, I guess they are also biased against dream pod 9 Canadian company, two months for a shipment to Hawaii, flames of War, new Zealand, three weeks is not rare, games Workshop, British company...three weeks for a packet.

For the record, DP 9 now ships from a warehouse in New York State... It is customs...

Now if they think they got a case...I recommend contacting a lawyer.

Who knows, it could become a SCOTUS case.

Perhaps since I deal with this regularly it struck me as meh!

Or perhaps I am mistaken and Mail Handlers, and delivery people do have more time in their hands than I though, and do commit a federal offense to boot just to spite them. (Tampering with the mail)

[backscatter712]

69. The evidence shows that mail marked "ATHEIST" gets handled differently than normal mail.

And the folks that did this study used standard scientific and statistical techniques to account for random variation.

They found that mail marked "ATHEIST" takes an average of 3 days longer than packages not so marked. So while a normal package might take 7-21 days to arrive, given the random variation in delivery times, a package with the mark might take 10-24 days to arrive. This is all other things being equal - the study used both "ATHEIST"-marked mail, and a control group of unmarked mail, and saw that measurable difference when they collected the data and did the math.

I think they do have a case, and should be contacting a lawyer and bringing this issue up with the Postmaster General.

[nadinbrzezinski]

71. because the autimated system

Will kick any marked mail. It's not personal. They do kick adidas too. The computer can't read it. It kicks it out to be handled by a human

This is why the post office asks for plain packages, with only an adress label It has nothing to do with them

My source...one of those pesky mail handlers that man those pesky machines

(Hate the phone to post)

[backscatter712]

80. Interesting hypothesis.

I'd like to see this experiment done again, this time, with the blank packages as the control group, as before, packages with "ATHEIST" packing tape as before, and a couple more groups - one with "JESUS SAVES" packing tape, and another with "ALLAH" packing tape.

I think the results will be interesting. I'll bet the "ALLAH" group will tend to be subjected to lots of delays, controlled demolitions, etc...

[nadinbrzezinski]

82. So you think postal workers are doing it on purpoise

Here, postal regulations for shipping packages once again...oh and I just told the company rep on linked site the same essentially.

Dog mind checking the USPS site on how to send a package?

http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm100...

FYI, Nike has the same issue. The machines kick them out for human handling if the boxes are not plain. Between the delay at Customs and having to be handled by hand...

Hope this helps. FYI, if you use UPS or FedEx thinking it will be better, both have a last mile contract with the USPS in rural areas and DHL does not go there. Your experiment revealed why those postal regulations are in place.

It is the scanners in the machines. I hope that helps.

Oh and for the record, chain of custody, German post, German customs, us customs, USPS. That is assuming you did just rely on postal services.

DHL also has to go through both German and US Customs, though they can retain custody until final delivery

He, or you, have evidence to the contrary contact the FBI...you and him are charging of a federal, I might add, criminal offense.

http://about.usps.com/posters/pos311/welcome.htm

One punishable by $10,000 dollars and ten years in federal prison.

Ed for clarity

[backscatter712]

119. I don't think it's most postal/DHL workers - it'd likely a small subset of felonious bad apples.

And actually, I think your theory has merit, as I'm a software engineer, and know how easy it is for OCR-based systems to get confused and fail to read what they're supposed to read - this is why the USPS wants its commercial customers to not only use standardized shipping labels, but to also have bar-code/QR-code style machine-readable code blocks printed on the shipping labels - those are much easier for computers to read.

Assuming that there were some packages being maliciously mis-sorted, the culprit would have to be a small set of people acting on their own out of animosity towards atheists, not an organized conspiracy. It only takes one person to see a package with "ATHEIST" on it, get offended about it, and toss the box in the wrong sorting container, ensuring the package would probably have to take another lap through the sorting facility before it got resorted and moved back to its correct route. If questioned about it, he can claim he "accidentally goofed."

And I stand corrected - looks like it's DHL that does the shipping.

[nadinbrzezinski]

121. How about DHL?

Just went to their site...alas, it is DHL that ships.

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

Tell me all of you, is DHL the United States Postal service?

There more to this bullshit of a story.

You were had.

The USPS has almost nothing to do with this except last mile.

Dishonest to put it mildly. You were had

[nadinbrzezinski]

123. The company lied

So I personally would not buy anything from them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

124. If postal workers are involved s with last mile

http://blog.uspsoig.gov/index.php/tag/last-mile-strategy/

This will add three days average to DHL.

So let's do some common sense math

3-5 days in Germany, including customs

3-5 days with DHL including customs (best case scenario with sequester assume more like two weeks for US).

3 days with postal service, most likely five, they have to transfer from DHL to ups, and then the machine at the processing station kicks it out...we are now to an average of 13 days.

I suspect the company has no clue how the USPS works like, or that the semi private Deutche Post (with DHL as part of it) is not the USPS. It will come as a shock to them, but they are not the same entities, yet. If Darrel Issa has his way, it will.

I just get irked when public servants are automatically blamed, and in this case...you were lied to.

[nadinbrzezinski]

117. Here is one better

What if I told you the company does not even use the USPS, except maybe for last mile delivery?


Just went to their site...alas, it is DHL that ships.

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

Tell me all of you, is DHL the United States Postal service?

There more to this bullshit of a story.

I would not buy water from them, even if they were the last water purveyors on the planet.

[jeff47]

51. You'd have a point, except that they sent "plain wrap" packages to the same people

The ones that had "atheist" tape were lost only 10 times more often than the ones that had unlabeled tape.

[TheBlackAdder]

83. The shoes are being sent to younger people, identifying the product, against USPS rules.

It's no wonder things are coming up missing.

You have younger kids who might want to 'get something for free' from an off-shore company by claiming it was never received.

You have the identified deliveries being sent to households with other young residents who now know what's in the box.

===

Atheist was dumb not to place a tracking number on the produc, besides being dumb for labeling the boxes.

===

Why doesn't Atheist send a package with the words 'iPhone or iTouch' on the outside and see how many get there?

[nadinbrzezinski]

84. They are getting delayed due to not following packaging

Guidelines.

Lost...in the mail, tampering with US mail.

But kids claiming they did not get them is a good theory too.

[Phillip McCleod]

94. because apparently the most obvious explaination..

..and the one with empirical evidence to support it *must* be wrong.

couldn't have atheists being right about anything, ever.. no matter how minor. ever. right?

[nadinbrzezinski]

95. Well this is what we call bias confirmation

On steroids.

I like it when a fact of how things work, is just a nice theory.

[Phillip McCleod]

96. no this is what *you* are calling 'bias confirmation', not *we*

you may be satisfied with your 2nd hand story but some of us prefer out facts with a little more meat on the bone.

your sample size: 1.

yeah. assertions do not make facts, even when coming from a respecting authority.

[nadinbrzezinski]

98. You mean my first hand story

From an actual mail handler

Here is the USPS mailing requirements. This time the whole page.


Careful preparation of your package helps to ensure safe delivery.

Preparing packages


The Box
Choose a box with enough room for cushioning material around the contents. Sturdy paperboard or corrugated fiberboard boxes are best for weights up to 10 pounds. If you are reusing a box, totally remove or obliterate all previous labels and markings with heavy black marker.

Where to Find Boxes
You can purchase boxes and tubes of various sizes at most Post Offices. Express Mail and Priority Mail boxes are available free at the Post Office for items sent using either of these services. While you are not required to use the free packaging for these services, you must use the USPS-produced address label provided by the Post Office for Express Mail. To order Express Mail or Priority Mail boxes at no extra charge, call 1·800·222·1811 or visit www.usps.com and click on Shop.

Cushioning
Place the cushioning all around your item or items. You can use newspaper, “foam peanuts,” or shredded paper. Close and shake the box to see if you have enough cushioning. If you hear items shifting, add more cushioning.

Placing an extra address label with the delivery and return addresses inside the package will ensure that the item can be delivered in case the outside label becomes damaged or falls off.

Mailing Fragile Items
Use foamed plastic or padding to protect your items, placing the cushioning inside hollow items as well. Mark the package “Fragile” or mark “Perishable” on packages that contain food or other items that can spoil. Careful packaging is the best way to safeguard your valuable items against damage.

Mailing Heavy Items
If you are mailing a very heavy or very dense item, start with a sturdy box, pack the contents securely with a strong material for bracing to prevent shifting, and tape all the edges with reinforced tape. Packages heavier than 70 pounds cannot be mailed.

Sealing
Tape the opening of your box and reinforce all seams with 2-inch-wide tape. Use clear or brown packaging tape, reinforced packing tape, or paper tape. Do not use cord, string, twine, masking or cellophane tape. Place a strip of clear packaging tape over your label to prevent the address from smearing.

Return Address
Print or type your address in the upper left corner on the same side of the package as the delivery address.

Extra Services
Place labels for extra services above the delivery address and to the right of the return address, or to the left of the delivery address.

Postage
Use stamps, a postage meter, or a PC Postage system to affix the correct amount. You can calculate and purchase postage online at www.usps.com.

Delivery Address
Print or type the delivery address parallel to the longest side of the package. Type or print clearly with a pen so that your address is legible from an arm’s length away. Do not use commas or periods.

Confirmation Services
Labels for Delivery Confirmation or Signature Confirmation are placed to the left of the address label.

City, State, and ZIP Code
To find the correct spelling of a city name and state abbreviation or to find a ZIP Code, visit www.usps.com or call 1·800·ASK·USPS. Using the correct ZIP Code helps direct your mail more efficiently and accurately.

Drop Off
If your mail item weighs 13 ounces or less, and you have affixed correct postage, you can drop it into a blue collection box. If your item weighs more than 13 ounces, and you have affixed postage stamps, you must take it to an employee at the retail counter of a Post Office.

http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm100/preparing-packages.htm


Now you explain how affixing tape that is not clear or brown meets USPS regulations.

Yup, confirmation bias, on steroids.

[Phillip McCleod]

100. that's not how '1st' vs '2nd' hand works.

fail.

[nadinbrzezinski]

102. No son, he is what historians consider a primary source

I see you ignored postal package packing regulations, why is that?

[onehandle]

2. I would roll my eyes at a package covered with 'Atheist' just much as 'Christian.'

Either way, it sounds like someone is preaching to me.

[nadinbrzezinski]

68. And the automated processing machine

At the plant kicks it out. It can't process it...human!!!! Do that at Philadelphia, extra day, and then at the other end at processing station...you just added two to three days.

The machine will do the same for anything except address label.

It will do that for fragile as well.

But hey, it sounds good.

[ZombieHorde]

140. Neither would sound preachy to me.

A one word label on a box doesn't really say much to me, unless that word is something like "explosives" or "bio-hazard."

[kudzu22]

3. I don't know if it's bias, but

I applaud them for doing actual statistical analysis on the outcome of the experiment, rather than just guessing what the results mean.

P.S. What did the 'neutral' packing tape look like? Was it blank or did it also have printing on it?

[nadinbrzezinski]

108. The neutral package met USPS shipping regulations

The test package (lettering other than address label) did not

[kudzu22]

111. Aha -- perhaps the culprit has been revealed

Thanks for the info.

[nadinbrzezinski]

113. You welcome

I went to the site linked by the OP and told the company rep as much, with link to shipping standards. Strange lettering, the machine can't read it, kicks it out for human handling, delaying it by a day. Well two to three plants average and three day delay average...

[nadinbrzezinski]

118. More to the culprit

Dishonest to say the least.


Just went to their site...alas, it is DHL that ships.

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

Tell me all of you, is DHL the United States Postal service?

There more to this bullshit of a story.

I would not buy a glass from water from these guys...even if they were the last purveyors.

[RoccoR5955]

4. Gee, I wonder what would happen if they used

"Jesus Sneakers" tape on a box of sandals!

[LiberalFighter]

7. So they wouldn't get into copyright issues

Prehistoric Jesus Sandals

[nadinbrzezinski]

90. The machine would kick it out as well

It's the scanners stupid.

Why the USPS requires plain tape and boxes

[LiberalFighter]

5. There needs to be an investigation as to who is doing the delaying

within the postal system.

Maybe there should be a study to see how long it takes for sexual devices to be delivered? Or christian goods.

[backscatter712]

28. Yes - clearly, some fundies are letting their religious beliefs interfere with their jobs.

I don't think it's official US Mail policy, it's a few postal workers illegally taking matters in their own hands and discriminating against atheists. The Postmaster General should investigate and start firing people caught deliberately mis-sorting or mis-delivering mail.

[My Good Babushka]

6. I doubt it

Mail processors handling thousands of pieces of mail each day probably don't obsess about the labels on each piece.

[LiberalFighter]

9. When humans are involved it can happen.

[My Good Babushka]

22. All those shoes are going to the same place

so they aren't going through the same sorter. Maybe Germany's not addressing their mail properly. Maybe they aren't filling out the invoices the right way.

[nadinbrzezinski]

103. Mebbe company is not following USPS shipping guidelines

http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm100/preparing-packages.htm

[WinniSkipper]

141. Is the "not following" part

the white stoping/branding tape that said "ATHEIST"? Is that what you are saying is throwing off the scanner?

[backscatter712]

27. See post #15. n/t

[My Good Babushka]

33. I have no idea how often packages from other German companies go missing

en route to the U.S or how those packages are labelled.
I'd need more information.

[backscatter712]

37. The study here presented a control.

Half their packages were mailed with "ATHEIST" tape, half with blank packing tape.

If the people of the postal service were doing their jobs correctly, there would be little or no difference in speed of delivery or loss rate between the two classes of packages.

But the ones marked "ATHEIST" took three days longer on average to arrive, in some cases far longer, and while only one package with blank packing tape was lost, nine with the "ATHEIST" tape were lost.

That looks like clear-cut evidence to me.

[nadinbrzezinski]

85. Three days.

Day one at Philadelphia

Day two regional processing center

Day three local processing center

Kicked out of the machines for human handling.

I hate it when conspiracy theories die.

Plain tape matches USPS regulations, quelle surprise?

If they were going to Hawaii add two more days...and two more plants.

[My Good Babushka]

132. Thank you, I have a small craft business that does lots of shipping

and when I used to tie up my parcel with string, it got the frowny face no no from the USPS.
Switched to plain tape and my parcels went sailing. They've got rules and some things can't go through the machines, that's what I was trying to say.
I worked in a corporate mail room, and when you're routing mail, nothing even registers except the pertinent information because you are trying to go quickly.

[nadinbrzezinski]

134. And add insult to injury

These people are not even using the post service (except last mile when appropriately). From their website, they ship world wide using DHL.

So the study was badly designed and the premise was flawed.

But people here lapped it up, confirmation bias...them government workers are all kinds of bad and religious nuts hate 'em.

I honestly hope they lose business out if this.

[Poll_Blind]

10. This atheist needs a little more proof before he'll have faith in the assertion. nt

PB

[backscatter712]

25. The link does show an actual experiment being conducted.

The company shipped a bunch of packages with "ATHEIST" tape, and a bunch of packages with blank packing tape - and yes, the ones marked "ATHEIST" took longer to arrive and were more likely to get lost in the mail.

Probably some fundies in a mailroom somewhere "accidentally on-purpose" mis-sorting packages. I think the Postmaster General needs to investigate and see to it anyone deliberately mis-sorting or tampering with packages gets fired and prosecuted.

[nadinbrzezinski]

125. He of little faith...you were correct.

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

Best case, they think DHL is the USPS since the semi private Deutche post is...worst case...

Here, link to Deutche post

http://www.dp-dhl.com/en.html

[FSogol]

11. Unrec for pointless speculation: "we started to wonder if"

More likely being held up at customs. That's why there are delays in international shipping, not the USPS.

[Fumesucker]

15. Oh, like good atheists they performed a carefully conducted experiment after they wondered

[AtheistCrusader]

142. Carefully Constructed Experiement would have included tape that said SOMETHING inoffensive

so as to catch out the possibility of this being related to shitty OCR routing technology causing the packages with wording to be confused and forced into hand-sorting because the machines couldn't do it.

Otherwise, this raises some serious questions, at least.

[RebelOne]

19. I think customs is the problem.

I order my blood pressure medicine from a Canadian pharmacy. My order usually takes 2 weeks to reach me here in Georgia.

[nadinbrzezinski]

127. And it is DHL that does the shipping per their own site

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

[Fawke Em]

12. I didn't realize shoes could have a religious preference.

[niyad]

16. this is most interesting

[MineralMan]

17. Save The Atheist Shoes!!!11!

Now, there's something I can believe in...

[backscatter712]

29. How about having a government agency treat everyone equally.

And not letting people use their own biases as the basis for discriminatory treatment.

Atheists have the right to have their mail treated the same as everyone else's.

That's my recommendation for framing this issue.

[MineralMan]

35. Actually, I'd be more interested in seeing if there was truly

a delay due to the packaging. I doubt it very much.

[backscatter712]

46. The study in the OP show numbers comparing ATHEIST-marked packages with unmarked packages.

I'd have to be sitting in front of a system running SPSS, and run statistical analysis on the raw data to be sure, but I strongly suspect there are indeed self-righteous fundies who are fucking with people's mail in the name of Jeezus. There's a word for that: Felony.

[Niceguy1]

76. due to the automated

MAchines they shoukd have included a group with marked boxes tio rule out automation issues

[Nye Bevan]

18. WOW. Packages mailed internationally taking a long time to get there?

Obviously the two most likely explanations are:

1. The US Post Office hates atheists; or

2. The Lord God Himself is intervening in the delivery process, miraculously creating customs and sorting delays, to stick it to people who don't believe in Him.

So hear this. Repent of your sins, have faith in the Lord Jesus, and I tell you solemnly, your shoes will be delivered faster.

[jeff47]

53. FFS, try reading more than the headline.

They sent packages with "ATHEIST" printed on the tape. (it's their brand)
They sent packages to the same addresses with plain tape.

Plain tape got there 3 days faster on average, with some very, very long delays for some "ATHEIST" packages. The "ATHEIST" labeled packages were lost 10 times more often than the plain tape.

[olddots]

20. GET REAL

I'm an atheist but don't push it down people's throats --that's why I'm an atheist .

[Apophis]

23. Using atheist packaging tape is "shoving it down people's throats"?

Okay then.

[nadinbrzezinski]

128. Using DHL and blaming USPS is kind of funny

Here, horses mourn

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

The knee jerk reaction was fun though.

[jeff47]

54. You just "shoved it down people's throats" more than a strip of tape on a package.

After all, your post is going to be read by many, many more people than will see the outside of a box being shipped.

So if the story in the article is too much, then clearly you need to be banned.

Or perhaps you're a tad wrong about what "push it down people's throats" is.

[olddots]

66. must have hit home

my choice of words is reactionary towards reactionary posts so ban me -ignore me or what ever gives you a net thrill oh so I am not a good enough atheist ?????

[JVS]

21. It's not bias, the US postal service really sucks when it comes to international packages.

I order books from Europe sometimes. I try to avoid it because it is a pain in the ass and expensive. In my dealings with the German post system they have been not only quick, but they give you a tracking number for regular packages. So I got to watch my package move from Europe into the US system in a just few days, where someone from the postal system signs my name on the German forms (which are viewable online), loses the package, and I consider myself lucky to have had it finally turn up 6 weeks later.

[Apophis]

24. You did read the part where packages with atheist tape

arrived much later, right?

[backscatter712]

26. See post #15. n/t

[JVS]

32. But given the abominably slow nature of the postal service's handling of international packages is..

an average of 3 days more statistically significant?

[backscatter712]

38. Is the fact that ATHEIST-marked packages were ten times more likely to be lost significant? n/t

[jeff47]

55. Yes. They did the math. So's the 10x higher loss rate. (nt)

[backscatter712]

56. See the bottom of the illustration in post #15. p<.01.

Down in the fine print in the bottom, they show their math results. In most cases, p<.001, and in one case, p<.01.

That's statistically significant. The odds of this happening due to pure random chance are less than 1%.

[nadinbrzezinski]

63. And it is really, the slow point, US Customs.

Once it enters the postal system...

And it will get worst, sequester is the name of it.

I deal with international mail regularly. Three to six weeks is hardly unusual.

[nadinbrzezinski]

129. They use DHL by the by

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.







http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

[OriginalGeek]

30. But are the shoes any good?

I like good shoes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

91. They'd better, for the price 129.00 euros

[OriginalGeek]

109. Yep...

they do look pretty cool and they have funny names (Kitten testicles grey!) but I'd need to try some on before dropping that much.

[mathematic]

31. The real question is: Do they have soles? nt

[MineralMan]

36. Atheist shoes got no soles.

That's what I hear.

[JHB]

39. Oh, Thank God! (so to speak)...

30 posts go by without a sole-related joke! Such sole-sapping lack of humor!

Thank you #31 mathematic for restoring my faith... so to speak.

[surrealAmerican]

34. I'm curious as to whether the tape itself might be the problem.

We might know more if they were to repeat the experiment with "atheist" tape and some other printed tape - or maybe blank tape and no tape. There's a chance it might be the adhesive or the printing or something. Could the presence of printed tape cause the USPS to need to further verify that this is not priority mail or something?

[backscatter712]

40. Maybe there should be a third group in this experiment.

Have a third group of packages sent with packing tape covered with crosses and Jesus fish, and see how they fare.

Have a fourth group of packages sent with Islamic crescents and Arabic writing, see how many of them get misdelivered.

[muriel_volestrangler]

72. The 4th group would probably be prone to being blown up in controlled explosions (nt)

[nadinbrzezinski]

74. Yes, but not exactly the reason you suggest.

The automated system cannot process those words, or Nike, or Adidas or an odd font. It kicks it out, with the rest of them, where humans have to be involved this adds at least two days to processing, one in Philadelphia and on at final destination.

This is why their plan packages made it faster. They also complied with Postal regulations.

Yes, the USPS asks that people use plain boxes with just an address label. That is the reason.

My source, a pesky mail handler for the USPS who sees Nike marked boxes kicked out regularly and handled manually as well. I guess they hate Nike too.

[Phillip McCleod]

92. so your 2nd hand anecdotal 'evidence' is..

..is supposed to be more convincing than a controlled study, exactly why?

[nadinbrzezinski]

97. You mean my first hand

Source? You mean an actual USPS mail handler who actually mans the mail sorting machine that kicks out packages with words, or letter, it cannot recognize.

By the way, here are those pesky regulations.

http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm100/preparing-packages.htm

Please note the plain packaging requirement on the web page.

This is why their plain packages got to their destinations faster. they even found that our in their own study.

[Phillip McCleod]

99. doesn't change the *fact* that your 2nd hand evidence..

aka, evidence provided by a primary source that is not your own experience..

is an anecdote in support of an untested hypothesis. until you or the atheist shoemaker includes an a true control group to the study no conclusion is definite.

what is most assuredly not definite is that your assertion, baldly made and summoning all the evidence of one guy that you could have made up on an internet forum, isn't going to sway anyone.

i'll still take my facts with some meat, please. you have a hypothesis.

[nadinbrzezinski]

101. So riddle me this batman

Packages that did not meet regulations took on average three more days to reach destination...matching, shazam, the Philadelphia Station, a major processing center and a secondary processing center...

Like magic, the packages that were marked properly actually reached the destination three days faster. Aka, like any other properly marked and packaged packet

Is logic something missing here?

Look, they hate Nike as well as Gamesa, as well as Adidas, or any other fracking box with markings the scanners in the machines do not fracking recognize.

So will ask you this too. Are you suspecting USPS workers are tampering with the mail? If you are...here are two critical contacts to make. I urge you to do so like right fracking now!!!

The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Office of the Postal Inspector. What you are claiming that is happening here is a federal offense. Capice?

[Phillip McCleod]

104. cutting to the chase here..

am i suspecting USPS workers of mail-tampering? when the marked packages are outright lost as a statistically significant number were in the study, then yeah i start to suspect some tampering?

might your hypothesis correctly explain a statistically significant delay in any marked packages? yeah it might and though i'm impressed the shoemakers bothered at all i wish they had gone a step further, but the combined stat sig figures of both delayed and lost are more convincing that one guy in an appeal to authority on an anonymous board.. that's all.

it's not to disparage the potential validity of your hypothesis, but it seems as if it's being presented as a complete refutation and you just don't have the evidence to make that assertion. you might even be right but your not helping your case by claiming to be right without something meatier.

to sum.. the stat sig lost package figures combined with delays, not *just* delays, are more convincing that the USPS employee you claim to have spoken to on this matter.

that's all i got.

[nadinbrzezinski]

105. To sum up

Contact the Office of the Postal Inspector.

https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/

This is a very serious allegation with fines and hard time. it is treated as a very serious federal offense.

Since I am sure you might think they won't do a thing, your local office of the FBI will also take the complaint and start the investigation.

The USPS takes these allegations very seriously and will actually investigate this, and if evidence is found that this is the case, somebody will do hard time.

By the way, I urge others on this thread to do the same.

[hay rick]

106. Look at the "study" again.

Do you see a beer mug? Do you see an octopus? Do you see humping koala bears?

I'm sure the "statistics" are "significant."

[nadinbrzezinski]

120. Gets better

And I don't expect an apology from either the OP or the rest.


Just went to their site...alas, it is DHL that ships.

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

Tell me all of you, is DHL the United States Postal service?

There more to this bullshit of a story. And it is dishonest.

[nadinbrzezinski]

116. Look what I just found

Just went to their site...alas, it is DHL that ships.

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

Tell me all of you, is DHL the United States Postal service?

There more to this bullshit of a story.



Personally I would not buy a thing from such a dishonest company.

[AtheistCrusader]

144. I think you've adequately explained the delay.

What of the missing packages?

That's a pretty high rate of loss. I might actually insure the next valuable thing I ship USPS based on this.

[kudzu22]

112. Looks like the "controlled study" missed accouting for one variable

Instead of plain tape on the control group, they should have used letters that spelled something else. That would indicate if it's the presence of any words or just the specific word that causes the delay.

[AtheistCrusader]

143. And what of the missing packages?

[NCTraveler]

41. One cannot create a good statistical analysis from such a small sample size.

The errors will be huge.

[backscatter712]

44. I've seen studies with this kind of size that show statistical significance.

We'd have to see the actual data, and run the analysis to get the mathematical measures of significance, and get the p-value to be sure, but I do have strong suspicion we have fundies who think it's OK to fuck with people's mail in the name of Jeezus.

EDIT: I looked again, there IS statistical evidence. See below.

[backscatter712]

47. Scratch that, the atheist folks from Berlin DID run a statistical analysis.

See the fine print at the bottom of the illustration in post #15.

** 3.03 days. One sample 2-tailed t-test was significant t(73)=4.4 p<.001. Also ran nonparametric Wilcoxian signed-rank test, as data was clumped towards y-axis (+ve kurtosis) but this was also significant: z=-4.67, p<.001, r=-.54

*** 9.96 times more likely to disappear. x^2(1)=6.77, p=.009, Fishers exact 2-sided test p=.018: 4 participants did not get back to us with their dates and so were not included in the analysis.

Based on the math reported here, I conclude that there is indeed statistically significant evidence that "ATHEIST"-marked packages were delayed or misdelivered at a substantially higher rate than unmarked packages.

[Phillip McCleod]

42. wow the attempts to weasel out of statistical analysis here are telling.

'in god we trust.. but verify.'

it must be the germans' fault. or customs. or the tape with 'atheist' printed on it is too sticky and the boxes get stuck in conveyors.

but it's not bigots in the postal service. nahhhh..

[backscatter712]

43. The unspoken message I'm getting here is:

"Atheists deserve to have their mail be fucked with, and we're not going to lift a finger to address this injustice."

Yeah. Way to be progressive!

[Phillip McCleod]

45. right..

take it on faith that USPS employees would never do that? 'no problem.'
accept evidence that they in fact would do that?

'nononono.. gotta be the tape. not a big enough sample. and besides who cares?'

[DavidDvorkin]

49. Just barely unspoken

This is one area where DU fails badly.

[nadinbrzezinski]

75. Riggghhhttt

Ignore this

The Box
Choose a box with enough room for cushioning material around the contents. Sturdy paperboard or corrugated fiberboard boxes are best for weights up to 10 pounds. If you are reusing a box, totally remove or obliterate all previous labels and markings with heavy black marker.

http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm100/preparing-packages.htm

Care to tell me why they ask all lettering except the mailing label should be obliterated?

I told you already...the machines will kick it out because they can't process this...meaning humans have to process the box manually, meaning they take longer.

Yup, they found in their testing why USPS regulations speak of packages with no previous labels.

Not everything is a conspiracy. It is on the USPS fucking site!!!!

[Apophis]

110. That's the message I'm seeing.

[DavidDvorkin]

48. Indeed.

[backscatter712]

50. And I just posted the fine print at the bottom of that illustration.

The Atheist Shoes makers did run a statistical analysis on their data, and got p-values below 0.01, and usually below 0.001, which means the odds of this happening due to pure random chance are below 1%, or 0.1%.

I'd call that mathematical proof of statistical significance.

[kudzu22]

114. Numbers don't lie, but the interpretation of them often does

All the analysis shows is that there is a difference -- it does not explain why there's a difference.

[nadinbrzezinski]

136. What if I told you they use DHL not USPS?

Here, from horses's mouth.

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

You owe an apology to USPS workers..-and this company did not have good controls for writing, any writing will kick it out...because you know what...they use similar scanning technology.

This is bias against public servants by otherwise reasonable people.

[Rex]

52. Not any real surprise to me.

nt.

[temporary311]

57. Wish I were surprised

at the buggery going on with the post or the general "they're atheists, who cares?" attitude displayed by some here, but alas.

[ieoeja]

64. Not the USPS. But if each package goes through a dozen different hands?

Last time I saw/heard anything on the subject, 40% of Americans did not believe in Evolution. Actually, I think it is even higher now.

So if that package goes through a dozen hands, odds are 5 of them are religious extremists.

[nadinbrzezinski]

65. Oh and here is more

A packet that has anything on it but label for address is kicked off the automated system and goes to manual handling. Why their packets that are plain arrive faster.

This matters little if the box is marked atheist shoes or Adidas or the left handed widget.

Proof, I am in front of one of those pesky mail handlers who man the machines at one of the many plants around the country.

[Blue_Tires]

67. Isn't there some way to trace or track the packages?

i.e., if one package usually takes a day to pass through Des Moines, but the 'atheist' took 4-5 days, you could at least contact that office and find out what caused the delay??

[nadinbrzezinski]

73. An answer that is away from victim mode

1.- The USPS is moving to tracking all packages.

2.- Any packet with writing on it, Adidas, Nike, Atheist Shoes, the automated system at the processing plant will kick it out from the automated system. This is why the USPS asks for plain packets.

Now for these packages. The first in the US to handle them is not the USPS but US Customs, which is slow, with the sequester even more so.

Then they go to Philadelphia, on the East Coast that is the initial processing center, where the system will kick it, with Adidas, Nike and Handle with Care because the machine can't read it. This delays it by a day. Then it goes into a plane and onto De Moines, San Diego what have you, add two to three more days if Hawaii or Alaska, where once again the machine kicks it out with the Nike, Handle with Care, Adidas and Gamesa boxes, again that is another day.

So from Germany, two to three days, German Customs, two to three days then US Customs, a week on a good day, then the added kicks from machines, and processing down to your mail box...two weeks would be short, three to six not unheard from.

Yup, my husband is one of the people that company is accusing of tampering with the mail. They got good evidence, they should contact the FBI or the postal inspector. Tampering with the mail is a federal offense punishable with both fines and jail time.

[hay rick]

79. I want my conspiracy theory back.

My personal postal experience (34 years) leads me to believe that the claimed discrimination is really far-fetched. It might be good marketing, though.

During my career, I listened to dozens of service talks about "address hygiene." We were told how mail should be addressed so that it would be machine-readable (instead of requiring the pesky services of those expensive human employees).

I am particularly skeptical of the idea that, from a 178 package sample, they were able to determine that offensively taped packages were 10X as likely to be lost as plain-taped packages. This suggests that at least 11 of the 178 packages were lost. I delivered 100,000+ packages during my career and didn't receive 11 inquiries about lost packages.

You mention the postal inspectors. The inspectors used to send out packages with incorrect names or addresses as bait. The packages were marked to suggest that the contents were valuable, for example, they might say "valuable autographed baseball cards." The bait package would be sorted to the carrier who served the address (or address range if the number was incorrect). If the undeliverable parcel was not endorsed and returned, they started an investigation. Entrapment was a fact of life in the Postal Service. The suggestion that employees would discard parcels with offensive wrapping tape, and do so with impunity, is ludicrous.

[nadinbrzezinski]

81. I just posted as much

To the company with link to USPS postal regulations.

Pesky reporter, I know.

[Fumesucker]

131. Evidently Amazon dot com is not aware of this problem with the USPS machines..

Here is a picture of a package I had delivered not all that long ago from Amazon, note it came through the USPS and it has tape with the company name wrapped all the way around it.

[hay rick]

135. A few points.

Amazon is a large domestic shipper. This package is using USPS's parcel select service (a successor to parcel post). This is a non-urgent service (2-8 days) and includes several different discounts depending on the level of presorting undertaken by the customer. Presort discounts are given because- you guessed it- it allows the Postal Service to avoid the cost of sorting the packages.

The package label includes an "intelligent bar code." The bar code includes zip code information which should be sufficient for sorting without resort to OCR address decoding.

The word "amazon" is in a very large font and may therefore be viewed as a design rather than letters by the OCR software.

The Atheist shipments were clearly not eligible for parcel select services and very probably did not include USPS standard intelligent bar codes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

126. And then I found the truth

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

[Tommy_Carcetti]

70. WHO IS THIS SENDER AND WHAT IS HE DOING WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S MAIL?!?!?!?

Yes, I am quoting cornball Tom Arnold family comedies. What are you going to do about it?

[djean111]

77. If the mail scanning machines automatically kick out packages with printed tapes

then the statistical analysis is actually pretty pointless, unless they sent packages with other printing on the tape. Like Have a nice day or whatever.
Well, the statistical analysis would show that printed tapes take longer, but not just Atheist tape.
If they didn't send packages through with other-messaged tape, it was not a good test.
(I am an atheist QA engineer - I would have marked the stated test case incomplete.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

78. They do

I have it from good authority, my husband is a mail handler at a processing center.

Add this, postal regulations.

http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm100/preparing-packages.htm

[Marr]

86. I'd like to point out that this was apparently part of an ad campaign...

for a company selling a product that's meant to inspire a bit of in-group loyalty. I'm an atheist myself, but this smells like clever viral marketing to me.

[nadinbrzezinski]

87. Hubby had another theory

Behind in production, so blame the postal service...both are old tricks relying on the ignorance of the final customer.

[Marr]

88. Could be. It'd be a bit hypocritical of me

to accept their story on faith, just because someone wrote it down.

[nadinbrzezinski]

89. I happen to be married to one of the workers

Charged by the OP of a federal offense. So it is annoying as hell.

[hay rick]

93. This "study" was very graphics-intensive.

Come to think of it, what dissertation isn't improved by a judicious sprinkling of pictures of a UFO, a beer mug, and humping koala bears? I particularly enjoyed the man riding a dinosaur through Alabama...

[bhikkhu]

107. So, they think the overworked and harried package sorters have special corner for "atheist" stuff?

where they sit them aside and neglect them for awhile, in favor of ordinary packaging? I haven't worked for the post office, but I've known some people who do, and I have been in a sorting room - the idea is ridiculous. The work, space and attention that would require is just not available.

[backscatter712]

122. I suspect all the worker has to do is put the package that offends him in the wrong bin.

So instead of getting shipped to Denver, it gets shipped to Dover.

It'd be a misplacing that would look like an ordinary sorting error.

[nadinbrzezinski]

115. There is more...

Just went to their site...alas, it is DHL that ships.

SHIPPING INFORMATION
We ship worldwide via DHL. All services make deliveries between 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Please note some services may not be available in all countries. Shipping is calculated at the checkout based on the address you are shipping to:

Germany - 8 euros
EU - 12 euros
USA & Rest of the World - 17 euros

From time to time we offer promotional or trial shipping rates that may not be reflected in this table. For details on these rates, please refer to the promotional banners and communication.

http://www.atheistberlin.com/service/orders-and-shipping

Tell me all of you, is DHL the United States Postal service?

There more to this bullshit of a story.

[yawnmaster]

130. poor controls. poor study. eom

[nadinbrzezinski]

133. And they ship through DHL

[yawnmaster]

138. Looking at the link, I do believe this is mainly for publicity...

probably worked.

[nadinbrzezinski]

139. Not really, they had this "study" posted,

go to the link in the OP. They got taken to the cleaners by those of us familiar with it. I find it despicable that they engage in an anti public worker stunt, which is also anti American, using every stereotype in the book... and people fall for it.

[struggle4progress]

137. oh! sure yah! them postal employees is got nothin on their mind cept whether th'sender

might could be some atheist t'whose them is gotta teach a good lesson to! yah! tis a cryin criminal shame, tis! and wadda ya think'll happen next, yah? th'USPS is gonna invade germany, i'm tellin ya, and them gonna round up all th'atheists and mail em t'guam by surface mail, that's what. oh yah! tis gettin so ya can't tell between th'USPS and th'fascists, that's what i say. yah!