Re: CONSENSUS: should there be term limits?

[James M Galvin <galvin+ietf-nomcom@eListX.com>]

On Tue, 19 Mar 2002, Robert Elz wrote:

    Deciding consensus on the basis of less than 3 days discussion
    (your original message with the Subject was Thu Mar 14, 21:27 -0500,
    your "consensus reached" was Sun Mar 17, 17:00 -0500) is just way
    too quick, in any circumstances.

    If this process is every going to achieve anything that anyone would
    even consider as half way reasonable, it needs to at least pretend to
    observe some kind of open discussion.

Robert, certainly I agree with you in principle and share your concern.
I would like to make three observations, however.

1. The issue of term limits has come up with every revision of the
   NOMCOM document.  Even a cursory inspection of the archive will
   validate this.  While there may have been only "3 days" of discussion
   this time it is my opinion (with which you can disagree) there has
   been no new information put forward.

2. Practically speaking I don't have an effective way to halt discussion
   on a mailing list (and I'm setting aside the obvious technical
   mechanisms).  In fact, I regard this as a feature of mailing lists
   and it's one of the two principal reason I felt that POISSON should
   never have face-to-face meetings, i.e., in a face-to-face meeting at
   an IETF you have to cut people off because there is a time limit.
   (The other reason is that the IETF is an engineering group and
   process discussions really shouldn't compete with the mission of the
   IETF.)

3. The *assertion* of consensus is a way to get those who agree with it
   to realize they do not have to feel compelled to respond to future
   messages.  This allows the additional messages from those who
   disagree to "stand out" and I'd like to think that gives everyone a
   better chance to review the "other side".  Maybe the "other side"
   will swing some opinions who will then also respond and then
   consensus will fail.

Jim