RE: [wg-review] The Number 1 Problem

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

> From: Greg Burton [mailto:sidna@feedwriter.com]
> Sent: Friday, January 05, 2001 6:39 PM
> 
> At 07:06 PM 1/5/01, Roeland Meyer wrote:
> >In order to know if one has a majority, one counts votes, 
> ayes, nays, etc.
> >Consensus doesn't do anything near that explicit. One can 
> have consensus
> >with a minority opinion, absent majority disent. The two are 
> NOT equivalent.
> 
> Actually, Roeland, in a formally run consensus process the 
> question is 
> explicity asked:
> 
> "Does anyone wish to block consensus on this statement?"
>
> Responses to the question might include (as examples) "I 
> disagree with the 
> statement and wish to block consensus" or "I don't agree with the 
> statement, but I won't block consensus", or "I agree with the 
> statement". 
> (A situation where a majority don't respond is called a "lukewarm 
> consensus", is regarded as having nowhere near the weight of 
> consensus, and 
> should be reported out as such.)

I have not seen anywhere near such formality within light-years of the
ICANN, or its siblings. In fact, I don't see it now either. Which is my
point. In the San Jose interim NC meeting, a few years ago, I chided the NC
for not even having read Robert's Rules of Order, whilst trying to pretend
they were following same (badly). To be fair, a few had bought a copy at the
airport, they were sitting on them. The end result is that they stopped
pretending to follow RRO (as opposed to reading the book).

I guess that this gets back to an earlier point of the lack of training
among WG chairs and DNSO in general. We have too many folks "winging" it
that shouldn't.

> Way different than what has been happening, eh? It's 
> infuriating that what 
> has been called "consensus" here has so thoroughly tainted people's 
> impression of a very pragmatic and workable method for coming 
> to group 
> decisions. I'll shut up now.

This is right on up there with Karl Auerbach and mine discussion about the
term "stakeholder" and how it has been FUBAR'd by so many. The same can be
said about "consensus", I guess. Now, if we can actually use both concepts
together, the way they are supposed to be used, we may have something.

It's begining to sound as if we are more in need of collective education
than anything else. That, ain't gonna happen in two weeks.<sigh>
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