Re: consensus and anonymity

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The current process doesn't work very well when voting is required, after hum-style consensus has been inconclusive.

I think a fair vote requires

- a clear definition of who can vote

- a vote that is announced well in advance to all parties, not just a select few

- some process that avoids favoring one or the other group (e.g., by holding a vote during a meeting, while allowing remote participation, but holding the vote at such a time that only certain regions can reasonably participate)

These difficulties are particularly pronounced when a vote is held at a meeting, but the issues of franchise apply in general.

[Without getting into the details, let's just say that I had the non- pleasure of participating in a WG vote that had issues with all of the above.]

Henning


On May 31, 2007, at 3:02 PM, Melinda Shore wrote:

On 5/31/07 2:49 PM, "John C Klensin" <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I think this is more evidence that we need more flexibility and
good sense, not more rigid rules.

Well, what's under description really isn't consensus
decision-making processes - what's being argued is a sort
of voting.  Rather than getting stuck on definitions, though,
I think it's probably worthwhile to frame the discussion
in terms of intentions - what the original intent was, what
the current intent is, whether or not there's a mismatch,
and how to get the process to look like what's intended, if
it currently doesn't (and wow, do I think it does not).

Arguing over percentages doesn't, I think, go very far
towards figuring those things out.  I think I understand
what used to be intended but I'm not sure I can articulate
it, but I do think that the problems around decision-making
come down to a few things:

    1) not-that-great decision facilitation skills on the
       part of some chairs and leaders;
    2) too many participants who'd be happy shutting down the
       whole process rather than accomodating a decision they
       don't agree with
    3) the organization is just too large for a touchy-
       feely decision-making style.

But it seems to me that if you're going to go with some form
of voting, and that's what's happening in practice, it would
be better to design a fair voting process.  If you're going
try to do consensus better you have to figure out how to deal
with the kvetches in a way that doesn't shut out dissent while
still allowing decision-making to move forward.  Either one is
hard to do but I'm not sure that doing nothing is an option.

Melinda

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