[Fwd: Re: rough consensus (was Re: "trouble maker")]

Erik Guttman erik.guttman at sun.com
Thu Jul 17 12:28:25 CEST 2003


Martin Stiemerling wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> the proposal of Erik sounds good so far, but what I'm missing is that 
> the list of choices for rough consensus is missing. 

Martin,

When I have written consensus statements, I always list the conflicting
positions which were taken and the contours and result of the debate.
The summary reduces complex matters to a synopsis, sufficient for
someone who is interested (but not involved) to follow up on.  Debate
participants can tell immediately whether the synopsis is fair or
slanted and can insist on proper representation in the statement.

 > It should be documented what are the choices have been for voting on.

Presenting things as 'Joe, John, Jim and Jazz argued blah, while
Kevin and Karl maintained bleh.  The WG went with blah because...'
makes the decision resemble a vote; we list people by name, give
numbers of participants and so on, to justify the decision.  By
writing down the grounds for decision, we have a concrete statement
which can be criticized and evaluated.  But this is not a vote. It
is a judgment call based on the generally acknowledged technical
strength of the arguments presented.

We trust in the integrity and insight of the WG chairs and IESG
members to be fair and correct.  A written record improves
accountability.

 > Sometimes there
 > is not only a yes/no decision, but a choice a,b, or c decision.

I agree that a consensus decision may involve a merging of
different positions.  This is subtle stuff.  The output of a
decision is in many cases specific instructions to the document
editor.

Erik



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