On Jun 24, 2011, at 12:18 PM, RJ Atkinson wrote: > Consensus in the IETF has NEVER been a numbers game, > counting merely the public postings. The IETF doesn't vote. > > Just counting the numbers of public postings would be voting, > and this organisation has made a quite explicit decision > NOT to vote. It's true in many ways that IETF does not vote. Last Call inputs are not limited to strictly yea or nay; and there are no well-defined criteria for when an action has sufficient support (or lack thereof) from participants. At the same time, when evaluating consensus, it's often useful to do a count of the number of approvals vs. objections. Anytime there is a significant number of objections, "rough consensus" is in doubt. Sometimes when weeding through a long exchange of emails, it's hard to get a sense of just what the balance is without doing an actual count. Actually counting names helps remove some kinds of bias, e.g. the tendency to count opinions with which one agrees, more than those with which one disagrees. But even counting is an approximate process. Not all responses are entirely yea or nay, and sometimes peoples' opinions shift as the conversation progresses. (which, IMO, is a good sign.) Keith _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf