On Jul 13, 2011, at 2:00 PM, Fred Baker wrote:
> 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.
There's also a common tendency of some kinds of groups to categorically dismiss the opinions of those that they see as outliers, even to the point of diminishing their numbers. If one of those objecting happens to defend his viewpoint vigorously and to respond to numerous attacks on not only his viewpoint but also his legitimacy, motivation, character, etc., there is a tendency among some to dismiss his opinions even more.
All of these clearly happened in recent discussions in v6ops.
It's certainly true that one lone speaker should not be able to deny rough consensus to a group. That's why the consensus only has to be "rough". But if the group doesn't even try to understand a minority view, it cannot be said to have tried to reach consensus of any kind.
> 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.
I'd agree with that logic. Though I note that "incorrect" is sometimes subjective.
Keith
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