[anti-abuse-wg] About "consensus" and "voting"...

Hi,


On Sat, 9 May 2020, Nick Hilliard wrote:

> Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote on 09/05/2020 15:23:
>> Having one might at least lay this discussion to rest once and for all. 
>> I?ve seen variants of it for several years now.
>
> But imagine if someone contacted a bunch of their colleagues and said: "look, 
> there's this policy proposal going on in RIPE AAWG and it would be really 
> great if you could just join up on the mailing list and add in a +1, thanks!"
>
> Therein lies the problem - or at least one of the problems - with voting: 
> it's wide open to manipulation.

Same goes for "it takes only 2 or 3 voices to break consensus".

Even if arguments are somewhat "creative"...



> There is another way of looking at this stalemate though:  there's a policy 
> development process and it produces outcomes.  The outcomes may not be what 
> some individuals on the WG want, but they are clear outcomes all the same.
>
> In the sense that you're concerned that there's stalemate regarding some of 
> these proposals, there isn't according to the PDP: no consensus is a 
> legitimate and clear outcome, and when there is no consensus, the policy does 
> not proceed.

The *proposal* does not proceed... the policy can already be in place, but 
remains unchanged.



> So the issue is more: why are newer versions of this policy proposal 
> returning repeatedly, and are they dealing adequately with the things that 
> are blocking consensus?

It may, for those trying to accomodate "creative" arguments.

For those which may be impacted by rules changing, certainly they won't 
see it as "adequate".



> It's surprising to see a third iteration of this policy proposal - the first 
> two versions didn't look like they were going anywhere.  But resubmitting new 
> versions is an issue between the WG chairs and the proposer.

That's the PDP.
You can also try to change it, to prevent 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and so 
on versions, but i suspect consensus might not be easy to achieve :-)


Regards,
Carlos


> Nick
>