Quynh, In case you have not read it recently, I think that RFC 7282 "On Consensus and Humming in the IETF" is an excellent discussion of this question. Regards Brian Carpenter On 18-Jan-25 07:37, Quynh Dang wrote:
Hi S. Moonesamy, If you reviewed all of my messages, you would have noticed that I did not ask for any change. I have not seen a chair not doing a good job. In the past, many times I felt that the chairs (of different groups and at different meetings) were so stressed. If the "consensus" is that the people are happy with the current process, I'll become happier (I have always been happy with the IETF work). Regards, Quynh. On Fri, Jan 17, 2025 at 12:46 PM S Moonesamy <sm+ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:sm%2Bietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote: Hi Quynh, [switched reply to other mailing list] At 09:37 AM 15-01-2025, Quynh Dang wrote: >I have not advocated against "rough consensus". > >The problem is that "rough consensus" is so broadly or vaguely >defined. So consensus calls can be made based on inconsistent >"policies" or "unknown rules/policies" and many people might feel >that they are treated unfairly in many consensus calls and they >could have a question in their head: why did the chairs do that to >me ? So the problem makes the job of the chairs so hard and stressful. > >Defining a minimum percentage of votes to have the consensus would >take care of the problem and the chairs at the IETF would love that. On one hand, it is easy to understand how a decision was taken when it is based on votes as people are generally familiar with the concept. On the other hand, people might view the decision-making as vague when it is said to have "rough consensus". This is where a person might view the decision-making as wrong. Here's a thread which mentioned voting: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/lp-wan/NY0IC2yJY8ejabMd3-ISjv09sN4/ <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/lp-wan/NY0IC2yJY8ejabMd3-ISjv09sN4/> I don't have any interest in the work. I also don't have a strong opinion of how the group of people do the work. Looking at it from the outside, I'd say that the group of people seem happy with how the group works. Regards, S. Moonesamy
