Re: The Emperor's New Consensus (was:Re: [wg-c] IMPORTANT MESSAGE RE: WG-C )

[Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg@mail.msen.com>]

At 03:52 PM 9/20/99 -0700, Randy Bush wrote:
>one measures consensus by counting heads or whatever.  i was under the
>impression that the last count was quite non-consensual.  did i miss
>something?

	Here's the history of the 6-10 compromise proposal:  I first floated this
proposal on September 1, in
<http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-c/Archives/msg01499.html>.  Over the
following two weeks, various people responded; some positively, others
negatively.  More than 70% of those expressing a view, though, were in
favor.  That is, by the end of Sept. 14, twenty-six people had sent
messages to this list weighing in on one side or the other.  Nineteen
people expressed support, and seven expressed opposition.  All of these
messages were sent to the public list.  The folks expressing support noted
the following caveats:  Four people urged that the evaluation period should
be short.  One emphasized that the rollout should continue after the
evaluation period so long as the initial addition goes well.  Two
conditioned their support on the 6-10 new TLDs being run by 6-10 new
registries, and one stated that at least four registries must be included.

	Five of the seven people expressing opposition urged that we should defer
discussing the number of gTLDs until we resolve issues such as whether the
new TLDs are to be special-purpose or general-purpose.  Three of the seven
urged that the initial rollout should be limited to 2-3 new gTLDs, and must
be linked to the establishment of an effective and speedy ADR process,
including protection of famous marks, and an easy and cost-effective system
for obtaining contact information.  One stated that only one new gTLD
should be introduced at the outset.  There was some overlap between the
folks in this group who urged a specific number of gTLDs and those who
urged that the WG had no business addressing the number of gTLDs at this
stage.

	I sent a message to the WG on Sept. 13 suggesting that we were near the
point of calling a formal vote to determine whether the proposal was
supported by rough consensus within the WG.  Javier responded, in a message
to the list, that he didn't believe a formal vote was necessary.  Rather,
the responses to my proposal could themselves demonstrate the sense of the
group.  He urged all those who had not expressed their views to do so (and
he encouraged all "those who have positions that are not far apart from
this one to yield a little bit and support it, if they can").  Several more
people then sent messages to the list noting their support.  A few days
after that, Javier and I agreed that the headcount (particularly, the
agreement of more than 70% of those expressing a view) indicated that we
had rough consensus.[*]

Jon


Jonathan Weinberg
co-chair, WG-C
weinberg@msen.com

[*]  In response to Tony's concern that it is not the job of the co-chairs
to declare consensus, here is the relevant language from RFC 2418:  "In
general, the dominant view of the working group shall prevail.  (However,
it must be noted that 'dominance' is not to be determined on the basis of
volume or persistence, but rather a more general sense of agreement.) . . .
Note that 51% of the working group does not qualify as 'rough consensus'
and 99% is better than rough.  It is up to the chair to determine if rough
consensus has been reached."