Re: [wg-d] Overview

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

At 06:26 AM 10/12/99 -0700, Bret A. Fausett wrote:
>>  I confess, though, that I'm a little confused about how this discussion
>> fits into Bret's (extremely well done) report draft.  I wasn't a member of
>> this WG when it did most of its work.  Reading Bret's report without
>> preconceptions, it seems to set up a model of a WG that does *not* take
>> consensus as its touchstone.  Rather, under sections 4.1-4.5, all disputed
>> substantive issues within a WG seem to be decided by simple majority vote.
>> To the extent that 4.7 contemplates that the WG can't issue a report
>> without consensus , I'm not sure what the relationship is between that
>> section and 4.1-4.5.  Am I missing something?
>
>No, but you raise an issue for further discussion. There was some
>"consensus" in the group that for a small group working asynchronously
>online, voting would be easier and more precise, when necessary, than
>determining consensus. The fact that WGs may vote and the NC looks for
>consensus is not as disjointed as it might appear: WGs will be small and
>may not necessarily be representative of the community.
>
>Majority votes allow things to move forward, and then the public comment
>period and NC review can determine whether there is community consensus
>over the result.
>[snip]

	Let me see if I understand.  Presumably a WG will still strive for
consensus, since a WG report that doesn't reflect consensus is less likely
to lead to NC action.  (As I understand Bret's other note, a WG report that
doesn't reflect consensus can lead to NC action only if the NC decides,
ICANN-style, that there really was consensus after all, even though the WG
was unable to find it.)  But the report contemplates that the WG will move
the issues forward through simple-majority voting, and doesn't include any
mechanisms for determining whether the WG has achieved the sort of
consensus that would likely satisfy the NC.  It seems to me that that'll
work only if we figure that the NC will, as a *routine* matter, be finding
"consensus" even where WG reports don't reflect it.  I don't expect that's
a desirable result from the perspective of the WG members who are
uncomfortable with the manipulability of consensus mechanisms.  Would it
help to keep the voting mechanism, but call for votes to be carried by
supermajorities in order to form the official position of the WG?  (I
apologize for coming in late, and I'll drop the issue if it's already been
settled to everyone else's satisfaction.)

Jon