On Jul 11, 2011, at 10:58 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> We quite often discuss here how to judge rough consensus. In a completely non-IETF context, I came upon a reference to an article published in 2007 with the catchy title "Inferring the Popularity of an Opinion From Its Familiarity: A Repetitive Voice Can Sound Like a Chorus".
We deal with that quite a bit. I can think of discussions in v6ops and on this list in which a single person contributed one message in four in a 200+ message thread, and although he was the lone speaker with that viewpoint, my co-chair told me he thought we lacked consensus.
To my mind, it's not a matter of voting (how many people think A, how many people think B, ...) and not a matter of volume (which would accept a filibuster as a showstopper). It's a question of the preponderance of opinion ("agreement, harmony, concurrence, accord, unity, unanimity, solidarity; formal concord") coupled with listening carefully to those who disagree and determining whether their arguments actually make sense and point up an issue. I will recognize a single person's point at issue if it appears that they are not being listened to or their issue dealt with. If they are simply hammering a point, and their point is incorrect, I will note that they have been hammering an incorrect point ("even though you are sending one email in four in a long thread and are expressing extreme concern about a draft because it does ____, I will overlook your objections because it doesn't do that.") and move on.
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