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CEAC data is available and we are scraping!!!

Can someone explain to me how solving captcha's gives us this information?? I spent some time yesterday doing them, just would like to know how it is helping the cause.
Also, another question; my wife is watching and reading all she can on the diversity lottery. We've perused tons and tons of data. One that we came across was the number of selectees for SA at a hair under 5000. But from the 'data scrape' so far, it shows a max case number of 2600'ish. How can this be the case?
We're in the low SA21**, and let me tell you, living in our part of canaduh sucks the big one. The land of taxes, I so want to sign up as a refugee if we don't get through this year ;)
 
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Can someone explain to me how solving captcha's gives us this information?? I spent some time yesterday doing them, just would like to know how it is helping the cause.
Also, another question; my wife is watching and reading all she can on the diversity lottery. We've perused tons and tons of data. One that we came across was the number of selectees for SA at a hair under 5000. But from the 'data scrape' so far, it shows a max case number of 2600'ish. How can this be the case?
We're in the low SA21**, and let me tell you, living in our part of canaduh sucks the big one. The land of taxes, I so want to sign up as a refugee if we don't get through this year ;)

What part of SA are you originally from? Congrats on your selection and keep a close eye on the VB because your case number is little high compared to previous years.
 
What part of SA are you originally from? Congrats on your selection and keep a close eye on the VB because your case number is little high compared to previous years.

Wife is from Grenada, only 11 selected from there. We live in Canada though, we're watching closely hoping the travel ban aids us some.
If it's as mentioned earlier, maybe the rush to get Venezuelans through in numbers will be a part of us getting through.
 
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Wife is from Grenada, only 11 selected from there. We live in Canada though, we're watching closely hoping the travel ban aids us some.
If it's as mentioned earlier, maybe the rush to get Venezuelans through in numbers will be a part of us getting through.

Congrats to both of you and hope your case number gets an interview.
 
Can someone explain to me how solving captcha's gives us this information?? I spent some time yesterday doing them, just would like to know how it is helping the cause.
Also, another question; my wife is watching and reading all she can on the diversity lottery. We've perused tons and tons of data. One that we came across was the number of selectees for SA at a hair under 5000. But from the 'data scrape' so far, it shows a max case number of 2600'ish. How can this be the case?
We're in the low SA21**, and let me tell you, living in our part of canaduh sucks the big one. The land of taxes, I so want to sign up as a refugee if we don't get through this year ;)

Each captcha solved allows the program to capture the details of a case number in CEAC. THat data gives valuable insights.

Each case includes derivatives, at about 2 people for each case. So - 4995 people (including derivatives) is less cases.
 
Each captcha solved allows the program to capture the details of a case number in CEAC. THat data gives valuable insights.

Each case includes derivatives, at about 2 people for each case. So - 4995 people (including derivatives) is less cases.

So when the number 11 is shown for the country, Grenada in our example, does that mean there are 11 cases, or is this 11 including derivatives?
 
So when the number 11 is shown for the country, Grenada in our example, does that mean there are 11 cases, or is this 11 including derivatives?

That is a count of people (selectees + their families). In an extreme case, that could mean that e.g. only 2 people were actually selected from Grenada: your wife and someone with a spouse and 7 children. There's no way to get the number of cases per country from CEAC data as it's not provided there.

However, US Department of State provides some statistics regarding visas issued per country of chargeability. Unfortunately, it takes some time for DoS to gather the data. They release it with a 2 month delay. AFAICT nobody from Grenada received a GC in October and November 2017.
 
Good chance it is 2 then, we have 2 kids, the 3rd was born in the US, so doesn't have to go through this with us. I just don't want to wait till he's old enough to sponsor us, I'll be too old by then ;)
Just how much scraping is there to do? I think I'm close to 500, there are lots of people with nearly 9000 scrapes...
 
Good chance it is 2 then, we have 2 kids, the 3rd was born in the US, so doesn't have to go through this with us. I just don't want to wait till he's old enough to sponsor us, I'll be too old by then ;)
Just how much scraping is there to do? I think I'm close to 500, there are lots of people with nearly 9000 scrapes...
It's an ongoing effort, we will be doing that as long as there are people willing to do that and DV is still going. Once we get a status for a case and it's e.g. 'Ready' after few days we revisit it to see if something happened with it. Some cases (holes, visas that were issued or refused) are scanned only once.
 
How often is this data updated in the available charts Xarth? Is this the stuff I'm seeing in the data sets I've seen linked on Simon's site?
 
I notice on the charts that in SA from 601 to 700, there is an 87% no response rate. Is this just because it is too early?
Yes, it's too early. Previous cutoff for SA was 625. 2NL for range 625 - 800 are being sent right now, CEAC site hasn't updated yet.
 
I just released a new db dump after the initial pass over cases that received 2NLs today. I also updated charts to show cases that are "In Transit". Make sure you do a hard refresh on the page in order to clean cache from old data.
 
BTW, I wonder if its possible to clean up the second set of graphs, so it only reflects cases from the actual region in which the embassy is. It obviously still wouldn't be precise, but it may be a little more accurate portrayal of the effects of the ban on Asia.
Since multiple people asked about that feature, that's now available online.
 
Since multiple people asked about that feature, that's now available online.


Damn you're good!

I have to say - the visualization of the data is impressive. I love the time bar. I have lost count how many times I tried to explain certain concepts that the visualization immediately makes clear.
 
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