Problem statement draft comments

[Basavaraj.Patil at nokia.com]

> Specific issues:
> 
> A.2.2 How the consensus process works
> 
>    o  Waiting for WG meetings at IETF meetings to identify/reach
>       consensus sometimes delays the advancement of the WG - this
> 	happens even though the mailing list should be the prime
>       discussion forum. Judging consensus based on the mailing list 
>       comments sometimes obscures the silent majority opinion (Marc
>       Blanchet: P4) and sometimes reflects exhaustion rather than true
> 	consensus (Elwyn Davies).
> 
> ==> this is coupled with the issue of active participation.  
> If you judge consensus at IETF meeting, you just get 80-95% of "maybe 
> clueless, maybe clueful" hums -- the silent majority of the working group (or 
> those who came in as tourists, either for kicks or looking for 
> electricity for their laptops) which does not typically participate actively in the 
> w.g. list or elsewhere.  So, all the options for judging consensus (highlighted if
> there is no clear consensus) seem to be bad ones --  especially doing it in
> the meeting.

The humming method used for consensus gauging is really ineffective because 
the number of people who really understand or care what is going on is very
minimal (as noted above). Hence the expressed views of the tourists/network
connection seekers in an IETF mtng room, really do not imply true consensus.

When consensus has been sought on the mailing list, the number of actual 
responses is limited in the order of double digits while number of people
subscribed to the mailing list is in the order of 1000~2000. 

-Basavaraj