Re: Membership and voting and consensus... (Re: Membership)

[Kjartan Maraas <kmaraas online no>]

Jim Gettys wrote:
> 
> In the IETF, the membership never votes on anything...  At most, there
> are straw polls to see if it appears there is rough consensus of a meeting.
> 

I think this is far better than having the overhead of a voting process.
The sheer volume alone is probably enough to disrupt the schedule for
the thing that is being voted for. :) The point should be that votes
are unneccesary in most every case. If it is impossible to solve a
dispute by other means, then it would make sense, but not before that.

> There are a number of bodies which vote, and there are appeals processes
> in case someone wishes to dispute that "rough concensus" has been achieved.
> 
> And yes, the number of clueless people in IETF outnumber the cluefull by
> maybe 5-10 to one.  Nonetheless, it has a mechanism to put cluefull people
> in the places that matters...  And why votes are a "bad thing"...
> 

I firmly believe that people will "behave better" and not do stupid
things if they feel a part of the GNOME community than if they're
effectively estranged by some barrier of being/not being a full /
voteworthy member. This has (as far as I can see) been the case since
the very start of the project, and I don't see how that would change
now.

> You can't even define  is not a member, other than saying anyone who has
> posted to a mailing list or attended a meeting IS a member.
> 
> This is why I think as a model the IETF has alot to offer.
>                                         - Jim

I think it's definitely the better of the alternatives. It's not
like anyone can force the maintainers or community as a whole
into making bad design/technical decisions or disrupt the release
schedule etc. Let the people have their say - and if what they say
is sensible - listen to them.

Cheers
Kjartan Maraas