RE: [ga] Consensus

["Roberto Gaetano" <ga_list@hotmail.com>]

Leah,

>
>Okay, let's say the GA agreed on 2/3 (not necessarily my choice).
>2/3 of what?  The entire voting membership?  Has that ever
>happened?  I don't think I've ever seen 2/3 participate in discussion,
>never mind a vote.  That would permanently paralyze the GA.
>
>2/3 of the 30 or so who do participate?  This has happened
>already.  The few really loud ones squelsh those who disagree with
>them.  One could easily draw a line and the two camps would be
>obvious.  When does it reach consensus enough for a vote?


I have two comments.

First, the questions of consensus and participation happen all the time in 
bodies like the IETF. They don't have a strict definition either, but in 
years I have not seen the type of debate we are having here now (not even in 
Poisson, the most "wandering-in-the-weeds" IETF WG).

Second, does it matter? I mean, it seems to me that we are mistaking the GA 
for a decision-making body, like a small parliament (or Name Council), where 
a single vote might matter. We only debate and provide indications: whenever 
a resolution or a vote is passed, we register the number of voters, the Yes 
and No, and present the result to NC and/or BoD for their evaluation. The 
one vote more or less is not the issue: the issue should be the 
participation to the debate, the capability of coming up with imaginative 
alternatives, the depth of the argumentations, the capacity of involving who 
is sitting at the fence.
I argued many times by now that the tendency of solving our problems with 
motions and votes changes the nature of the GA, and will eventually make us 
superfluous.
In particular if we vote motions *instead* of debating the issues.

Best regards
Roberto


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