Re: Last Call: <draft-resnick-on-consensus-05.txt> (On Consensus and Humming in the IETF) to Informational RFC

[Peter Saint-Andre <[e-mail]>]

On 10/7/13 10:48 AM, The IESG wrote:
> 
> The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
> the following document:
> - 'On Consensus and Humming in the IETF'
>   <draft-resnick-on-consensus-05.txt> as Informational RFC

I would like to perform a thorough review and provide more detailed
feedback, but time is short right now. Here are a few questions in the
meantime...

The Abstract states:

      It is simply a collection of principles, hopefully around which
      the IETF can come to (at least rough) consensus.

Does that mean you aim to make *this* I-D an IETF stream RFC that will
itself have consensus, or do you instead aim to use this document to
generate discussion that might result in consensus in the future (e.g.,
as a BCP)? If the latter, publishing in the Independent Stream seems
sensible. If the former, then I think we need to have more discussion
(along the lines of other Last Call feedback I've glanced at).

The Introduction states:

   Our ideal is full consensus, but we don't
   require it: Full consensus would allow a single intransigent person
   who simply keeps saying "No!" to stop the process cold.

By "full consensus" do you mean "unanimity"?

And do you think that unanimity or "full consensus" is our ideal,
although an ideal that's not always reachable in practice? Or is our
ideal actually rough consensus (i.e., something like general agreement
without unanimity)?

If unanimity or "full consensus" is our ideal then we might expend more
energy to win over instransigent persons or those who are "in the rough"
than we would if rough consensus were our ideal. So I think it's
important to be clear on what we're aiming for.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/