Re: Trying to invent a way of determining "consensus"

Sandy,
experience shows that you would only create more traffic. The smart 
people who support the statement will not answer your call, but will 
comment what those who object will answer. As I doubt you can word a 
statement in such a way people who object may simply answer "no".....
There are ways to reach a true consensus, to address the users 
expectations, to come with neatly finished documents, etc. They are 
not the IETF ways. And they would not produce RFCs.
There is a growing consensus the general architecture is to change. 
This includes the architecture of the Internet SSDOs. PESCI is/was 
(?) an effort into that direction. IAB-discuss was another one. NSF's 
GENI is another one. WSIS' IGF will probably propose another one. 
Grassroots efforts are all over.  There are too many interests, 
habits, egos, creeds involved in the IETF. WG consensus by exhaustion 
+ IETF consensus by disinterest + IESG consensus by inability to 
share in every thing (the new architecture should be _mastered_ by a 
"standard" participant in one month training). This is at least a 
working status quo.
But nothing prevents you to create an ietf-poll.org site. To try to 
summarise the debates at hand as a single statement, with a 
"placet/non placet/placet juxta modum". To report the current results 
(I think you cannot advertise your site, but you can report in a 
debate such a poll). If this helps, it will take over. If it does 
not, I suspect you will have gained experience towards other possibilities.
NB: I think the most important response for a consensus is "placet 
juxta modum". There is _no_ consensus if there is a small reasonable 
number of them (unsatisfied supporters). They also remove the idea of 
a "winner", except general consensus, because they show "NP" people, 
some of their positions are listen to (without detailling). And show 
"P" people they are not the truth owners they often think they are. I 
tend to think that if we could force a vote on the IETF current 
system, "PJM" responses would be overwhelming.
All the best.
jfc



At 18:52 06/01/2006, Sandy Wills wrote:
> Are you guys taking turns, saying the same thing over and over again?
>
> For the record, I'm not taking sides in any of the current questions 
> about ASCII/Word/AmiPro/etc, or DKIM, or the other discussions 
> filling my inbox.  I'm trying to come up with a way for the 
> participants in those discussions to determine if they are done yet.
> I am proposing a formal construct, called a "Call for Concensus", or 
> appreviated as "CfC" (because I'm lazy and can't spell that third 
> word the same way two times in a row anyway), for a specific 
> purpose: to determine if we have reached an agreement during a discussion.
> It is _not_ used _IN_ a discussion, it is used when the discussers 
> are tired of the endless circles that these discussions turn in, 
> _AFTER_ all the different options have been mentioned.
> In order for such a test to work, it MUST be posted as a statement, 
> which can be agreed with, or not.  Simple enough.  In order to cut 
> down on the noise level, you word the statement such that it 
> includes the supposed-agreement.  People who agree don't need to 
> reply.  People who don't care, either from lack of expertise or 
> apathy, don't need to reply.  ONLY PEOPLE WHO OBJECT to that 
> statement should reply to the CfC.  If you have a rough idea of how 
> many people received the CfC post, and you can easily see how many 
> people objected, then you can easily see if your statement does, in 
> fact, state a concensus agreement.
> I don't see how this can be too complicated for people who create software.
>
> The CfC is not part of the "discussion".  It is a test to see if the 
> discussion has had a result.
> Is this a bad idea?  I don't think so, but I keep getting replies, 
> from differing posters, with differing words, that all evaluate to 
> "But someone will disagree, and then you can't tell...."  Yes, you can.
> There are only four meaningful groups of people here, the matrix of 
> care/don't care and agree/don't agree:
>   Anyone who disagrees with the CfC statement, but didn't reply, is 
> too apathetic to participate.  Don't count them, because they 
> themselves don't think that their opinion is worth your time.
>   Anyone who agrees, and did reply, has trouble understanding 
> instructions like "Only reply to this CfC if you disagree".  Given 
> that, should these people be making decisions for the group?.
>   Who's left?  The two groups that we care about:
>
>   Anyone who disagrees, and replies, will have their voices heard, 
> because their opinion is the one asked for by the CfC.  If their 
> objections (or volume) are significant, then the discussion will 
> turn to ways to make progress while satisfying their concerns.
>   Anyone who agrees with the CfC statement, and doesn't say 
> anything, is fine, because the CfC doesn't need or want their 
> support.  The CfC will stand or fall based upon the size of the 
> "disagree and replied" group.
>
> Marshall Eubanks wrote:
> > If there is a last call, and _nobody_ objects, then I think it 
> > is  fair to say that the majority either
> > was in favor, or at least acquiesced. At least, if people complain
> > later, you can say, "you should have spoken up when appropriate." (I
> > suppose, for symmetry, that the same could be said against a proposal
> > if there are only objections, and absolutely no support, but 
> > this  must be rare indeed.)
> > But, as soon as there are _any_ objections, then people could remain
> > silent saying to themselves "I agree" or "I don't care" or "I agree
> > with the objections, which have been much better stated than I could
> > do." You just don't know.
> > So, I regard it as improper to assume support either way from the
> > "silent majority" if there is
> > any dissension at all. That doesn't mean that you can't 
> > have  consensus in the face of objections, but
> > it does mean that you can't just wave them away by pointing to 
> > all  the people who remain silent.
> > Regards
> > Marshall
>
> --
> Unable to locate coffee.
> Operator halted.
>
>
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