Re: CONSENSUS: should there be term limits?

[Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU>]

    Date:        Tue, 19 Mar 2002 11:19:25 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
    From:        James M Galvin <galvin+ietf-nomcom@eListX.com>
    Message-ID:  <Pine.WNT.4.43.0203191056220.-639537@pc.elistx.com>

  | 1. 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.

I don't think that's relevant.  Perhaps the question should never have
been raised, but once it has been, it really needs adequate time for
discussion.

  | 2. Practically speaking I don't have an effective way to halt discussion
  |    on a mailing list

No (or rather, you do, on one, but that doesn't matter) but just saying
"consensus achieved, discussion closed" is enough to cause some people
to decide "oh well, too late, I missed the opportunity".  It might not
work like that for you (nor for me), but there are people who will simply
fade away if they feel they missed the deadline.

  | 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.

That doesn't work, and is extremely poor management style.   The
"deliberately create a conflict to make people angry" style (which is
what this really is) just raises tempers.   On a list, it is even worse,
as there's no way for people to (more or less silently) indicate which
side they mostly agree with, which you can have in face to face meetings
(the occasional applause, boos, people nodding, ...).

The more common rule with lists is that if you agree with what has been
said, just say nothing.  So, if everyone who agreed with the assertion
simply kept quiet into the future (as you suggest they can), so all
you received were negative comments, the only real reasonable conclusion
from list traffic is that everyone agrees with the (recent) messages
(as no-one is dissenting).

Because of that, people who disagree have to respond anyway.  The most
you can achieve by declaring a result early is that some of the excess
"I also don't agree with X" messages can be eliminated (they were never
needed anyway, and people should ideally learn that merely agreeing,
with anyone, in this form of communication, helps no-one).

In the future, please wait till there has been adequate discussion time,
and then declare consensus, only if there really seems to be a consensus
(rough consensus).

kre