[TLS] Re: Changing WG Mail List Reputation

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Jan 14, 2025 at 11:44 AM Dennis Jackson <ietf=
[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 14/01/2025 18:48, Filippo Valsorda wrote:
>
> Two participants sending a dozen emails in support of solution A, and six
> participants sending one email each in support of solution B can look a lot
> like there is no consensus, or that there is consensus for solution A,
> especially if not all objections to solution B are painstakingly addressed.
>
> I've certainly seen this before. Generally if the chairs are doing a good
job they will not just count mail messages. With that said, I'm also not
sure that in a WG of a hundred people 6 in favor and 2 against is really
rough consensus.


> This is slightly adjacent to the point you were making, but I think
> there's an implicit assumption here which is different from 'rough
> consensus' as I understand it. RFC 2418 [1] lays out:
>
> In general, the dominant view of the working group shall prevail.
> (However, it must be noted that "dominance" is not to be determined on the basis of volume or persistence,
> but rather a more general sense of agreement.)
> [...]
> Note that 51% of the working group does not qualify as "rough consensus" and 99% is better than rough.
>
> RFC 7282 [2], perhaps more an ideal rather than any actual description of
> IETF practice, explores the last part further in the sections: "One
> hundred people for and five people against might not be rough consensus"
> and "Five people for and one hundred people against might still be rough
> consensus".
>
Note that 7282 is an Informational document and doesn't have any normative
force. Absent some edge case like sock puppets, I find it hard to believe
either of these scenarios.

-Ekr