On Jul 13, 2011, at 2:00 PM, Fred Baker wrote:
On Jul 11, 2011, at 10:58 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
We quite often discuss here how to judge rough consensus. In a completely
non-IETF context, I came upon a reference to an article published in 2007
with the catchy title "Inferring the Popularity of an Opinion From Its
Familiarity: A Repetitive Voice Can Sound Like a Chorus".
We deal with that quite a bit. I can think of discussions in v6ops and on
this list in which a single person contributed one message in four in a 200+
message thread, and although he was the lone speaker with that viewpoint, my
co-chair told me he thought we lacked consensus.
There's also a common tendency of some kinds of groups to categorically dismiss
the opinions of those that they see as outliers, even to the point of
diminishing their numbers. If one of those objecting happens to defend his
viewpoint vigorously and to respond to numerous attacks on not only his
viewpoint but also his legitimacy, motivation, character, etc., there is a
tendency among some to dismiss his opinions even more.
All of these clearly happened in recent discussions in v6ops.
It's certainly true that one lone speaker should not be able to deny rough
consensus to a group. That's why the consensus only has to be "rough". But
if the group doesn't even try to understand a minority view, it cannot be said
to have tried to reach consensus of any kind.
To my mind, it's not a matter of voting (how many people think A, how many
people think B, ...) and not a matter of volume (which would accept a
filibuster as a showstopper). It's a question of the preponderance of opinion
("agreement, harmony, concurrence, accord, unity, unanimity, solidarity;
formal concord") coupled with listening carefully to those who disagree and
determining whether their arguments actually make sense and point up an
issue. I will recognize a single person's point at issue if it appears that
they are not being listened to or their issue dealt with. If they are simply
hammering a point, and their point is incorrect, I will note that they have
been hammering an incorrect point ("even though you are sending one email in
four in a long thread and are expressing extreme concern about a draft
because it does ____, I will overlook your objections because it doesn't do
that.") and move on.
I'd agree with that logic. Though I note that "incorrect" is sometimes
subjective.
Keith
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