Subject: RE: "trouble maker"

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 07:58:45 -0700

Count the votes as 12:2 or 12:9 there was a clear majority for OPT in and
the 7 who said no but were willing to stand asside for the sake of forward
progress.

However you count them a clear majority of the group believes that the
DNSSEC specs as currently defined are broken and are in need of fixing. Why
then are ANY drafts being forwarded to the IESG?

Ah that is because the establishment gets to choose what consensus is and
what consensus means. So a majority of the group believing that the spec is
undeployable does not matter because we the establishment get to choose the
questions that are asked.

The more salient point was the who was in the 12 and who was in the 9 and
the points being raised.

The 12 people were representing[*] mostly the large registries such as
dotCOM and dotDE and the software writers. Who did the 2 or 9 represent?
Mostly themselves.

So we have a situation where a minority can hold up a standard, if that is
the establishment chooses to endorse them. 

This 'consensus' simply a con game that allows the establishment to ignore
any decisions of the group they dislike and act whatever sweet way they
please and cite 'consensus' as the reason. If the establishment want to they
can interpret the WG outcome as consensus.

Forgive me if I decide not to respect decisions arrived at in that manner as
'standards'.

[*]Yes I know the B/S theory that only the establishment gets to speak from
authority but that is the whole IETF problem. A bunch of unelected cronies
can speak with the authority of their lofty perches while denying everyone
else the authority that comes from the responsibility of their profession.
That is a very convenient little fiction for the establishment.

Given the massive conflict of interest the IETF now has on everything DNS by
the ISOC having decided to become a DNS registrar competitor, the lack of
accountability is a significant issue.

		Phill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Narten [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 10:07 AM
> To: Hallam-Baker, Phillip
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: "trouble maker" 
> 
> 
> "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
> > But there was consensus in favor of OPT IN, the chair 
> decided to abuse his
> > position and ignore it subsituting his own opinion. Read 
> the WG mailing
> > lists.
> 
> Yes, everyone should read the mailing list and form their own opinion.
> 
> > There was a last call, 12 people were in favor, 2 opposed 
> outright, 7 were
> > not in favor but prepared to accept the proposal.
> 
> I note that you choose to interpret the 7, as the same as supporting,
> or not actually being opposed. That is not consistent with what those
> 7 actually said, as they actually did say no. That results in a rather
> different picture.
> 
> > Actually there were in total four last calls. Basically the Chair's
> > strategy was to keep asking the question until he could pretend the
> > result was in his favor.
> 
> Again, your interpretation of motive. It is not uncommon to have
> multiple LCs on the same document, to make sure that it has recieved
> adequate review and all the bugs are worked out. The ADs supported the
> chairs on this. At the end of the process, the WG agreed that the
> technical issues had been worked out and were understood, but there
> was still no consensus with going forward with the solution.
> 
> Thomas
>

---

From: James Seng <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 02:11:01 +0800

Maybe lets put this particular case aside and look at the more general 
problem:

"What is rough consensus?" How rough is "rough"?

Unfortunately, this was not particular well-defined even tho it is one 
of our core principle. Could we tag this as a problem in the 
problem-statement?

I remember I asked this questions before when I am a newbie in IETF. The 
general answer of "rough consensus" are super-super majority.

The general figure is >75%-80% but bear in mind that we dont "vote", 
absolute figures isnt the way to go. We also need to take those who are 
"neutral" into considering as "neutral but wont object" and "no but wont 
object strongly" are important swing factor.

If we can get a rough consensus on what is "rough consensus", then 
perhaps we could avoid a lot of misunderstanding.

-James Seng

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 12:27:10 -0700

James,

JS> "What is rough consensus?" How rough is "rough"?

JS> Unfortunately, this was not particular well-defined even tho it is one
...
JS> general answer of "rough consensus" are super-super majority.
...
JS> The general figure is >75%-80% but bear in mind that we dont "vote",

From RFC 2418, IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures:

   3.3. Session management

   Working groups make decisions through a "rough consensus" process.
   IETF consensus does not require that all participants agree although
   this is, of course, preferred.  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.) Consensus
   can be determined by a show of hands, humming, or any other means on
   which the WG agrees (by rough consensus, of course).  Note that 51%
   of the working group does not qualify as "rough consensus" and 99% is
   better than rough.  It is up to the Chair to determine if rough
   consensus has been reached.

The rest of that sub-section has useful discussion about the pragmatic
aspects of assessing rough consensus.

While the definition of rough consensus is not mathematical, I believe
it actually is pretty clear:

If we can tell what the "dominant" view of the group is, then there is
rough consensus.

References to super-super majorities and numbers like 75% are merely
ways of suggesting what it takes to make a dominant view clear without
having formal measurement methodologies.

The nature of the rough consensus approach to decision-making is not
just that we don't have membership. It is recognition that mathematical
majority doesn't mean much if there is inadequate community support for
a decision.

If there is rough consensus, then there is *clear* community support for
the decision. Even if there is a vigorous minority calling for a
different outcome, our being able to see that there is a rough consensus
*in favor* of the decision gives us some hope that the decision will
mean forward progress and community *use* of the decision.

Of course, rough consensus does not mean much if there is no one
participating.  75% of 6 people is not going to mean much about
community use.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>