From: grenville armitage <gja(_at_)ureach(_dot_)com>
Surely you mean that the truth has become a lie. Perhaps because
people are no longer holding WGs to the goal of running code, but
rather pandering to pressure for some 'democratic process'. Tyranny
of the masses rarely leads to excellence.
"Tyranny of the masses" *would* be democracy, but there
seems to be continued support for doing what people are
calling "consensus." Nevertheless, I don't think that
what we're doing here could be considered consensus process
according to any reasonable definition of the term.
Consensus really is about process rather than product,
and it requires investment in the process from all
participants, which we certainly do not have here.
Unilateralism, unwillingness to compromise, insults and
derogation, and widespread weenie-waving work against
consensus pretty much by definition. What we seem to
be working towards instead is rough agreement - not the
same thing as rough consensus. I don't think consensus
is possible at the IETF, but it's interesting to
consider whether or not we'd get better results if
participants were more open.
There's not a lot of printed material on consensus, but
Michael Sheeran's "Beyond Majority Rule" is quite good.
Melinda