[AfriNIC-rpd] Section 3.8 of AFPUB-2010-v4-005-draft-02 - IPv4 Soft Landing

[Owen DeLong]

> At 07:53 23-05-2011, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> How does one gauge consensus in the absence of some form of voting or without
>> asking the question of who supports and/or opposes a policy?
> 
> Let's say that I am working for you and there is a vote on your proposal.  My personal opinion is that it is a bad proposal.  If I raise my hand to vote against it, I may lose my job.  The alternative is to use a ballot box.  Now you have to count the vote and have a rule determining how the vote is won.  There is less than five hours and more than five proposals on the draft agenda.  You would need more time if decision was taken by voting.
> 

Either I failed to make my point clear or you misunderstood it. I am not sure which. I will
make one additional attempt.

It was not my intent to discuss the mechanics of voting or of consensus calls. I consider that the PDP-WG Co-Chairs are perfectly capable of handling those details or the PDP can be expanded to address them as necessary if that is desired.

My point was that if you don't ask the questions and get feedback from the community or ask for a show of hands or in some other way (balloting or whatever) get some indication from the community of the extent of support and opposition, gauging consensus is akin to throwing darts while blindfolded and kinesthetically disoriented.

> Consensus is about making everyone equally unhappy. :-)
> 

Agreed, but, that means that gauging consensus is about knowing how unhappy everyone
is and how unhappy they will be about what if the action proposed is taken.

My question was how would you measure that in the absence of the ability to ask the
question or take a vote (for whatever form of vote is determined appropriate in the
context).

Owen