Re: [wg-review] The Number 1 Problem

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Jan 05, 2001 at 11:12:15AM -0500, Milton Mueller wrote:
> No, we don't "have to" work with it.

We have no choice in this matter.  It is a fundamental premise and
mandate from ICANN, but more important, it is based on reality; its the
only thing that will work.  Milton and Karl's position is based on a
fundamentally flawed idea that an arbitrary 51-49 decision can be
effectively implemented in our environment.  It can't.  Too many groups
really do have effective veto power.  In fact, the situation is much
stronger than that: as a general rule no fixed percentage vote can be
used to define consensus, either -- an 90-10 decision cannot be enforced
if the 10 includes a party that has effective veto power. 

And such parties exist -- this is not a theoretical problem.  Like it or
not, the NSI registry has effective veto power on any number of issues,
and they have demonstrated this time and again.  Other numerically
constrained groups have their own areas where they can simply refuse to
cooperate -- the ccTLDs are of course a prime example. 

Karl Auerbach said " Let's dispense with new-age warm and fuzzy thinking
about 'consensus'", but he's dead wrong.  The motivation for consensus
politics is not fuzzy thinking; it is political reality.  The fuzziness
comes in thinking that we can ignore the strong effective vetos some
groups have, and in thinking that we can replace negotiation with vote
counting. 

> And the problem, is that no one
> seems to know what it (consensus) means anyway.

For our purposes there is a simple definition:  You have reached 
consensus when the entities with an effective veto on the issue agree.  
It takes some human judgement and negotiation to find this -- it's not 
simply counting votes.

This definition rests on the notion of an "effective veto".  An
effective veto as the ability to *in practice* block implementation of a
decision.  There are a myriad of ways that this can happen, from
parliamentary manuevering to legal action to simply ignoring the
decision.  The phrase "in practice" is important, of course --
theoretical vetos are nice for theoretical entities, but not too helpful
for real ones.  

An obvious corollary to this definition is that an entity can have an
effective veto relative to one issue, and not relative to some other
issue. 

Another obvious corollary is that, in the rough and tumble of the real
world, entities that have no effective veto on an issue can, and often
will be, ignored. 

This later situation obtains, of course, for the general user community,
the community of "individuals".  They have very few effective vetos on
any issue.  And, of course, what to do about that situation (if 
anything) is one of the themes of this WG.

> I agree with Karl. 
> Well-stated rules, clear-cut votes on clearly stated issues.  That's the
> way to proceed. 

This is largely OK: there is nothing wrong with taking votes for the
purpose of gaining information -- in fact, straw polls are the bread and
butter of WG work; having well-stated rules is of course to be desired;
having clearly stated issues is a pipe dream -- we deal with issues that
come up, and many of them are not clearly stated. 

But considering votes as more than information gathering is a "snare 
and a delusion".

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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