Personally, I'm more in favor of "votes" than just hums, the reason being that a count of hands is unambiguous data. In contrast, the results of a hum are more subject to interpretation, where one's perspective of the results of a hum may well depend on which side of the room one happens to be sitting.
FWIW, I personally prefer humming because my belief is that unless the rough consensus is sufficiently strong (so that it's clear no matter which part of the room you stand), the WG should probably be better off seeking better consensus than deciding that (for example) 1/3 of people voted X, and 2/3 voted for Y.
And if one reads from the WG minutes that "the hum said x", one really can't challenge what that means, becuase there is no agreed-upon data on which to draw conclusions from.
This is true, of course.
In contrast, with a count of hands, it's much harder to argue that 100 to 20 "vote" is not strong support for a particular direction. Likewise, a "vote" of 5 to 2 says something pretty significant too, i.e., serious lack of participation.
Very weak humming could also be minuted as such, of course.
Maybe a part of the issue is that when the minute-taker is not a chair, it may be more difficult to document the result of the consensus call.
-- Pekka Savola "You each name yourselves king, yet the Netcore Oy kingdom bleeds." Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings
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