[iot-wg] consensus v voting at RIPE

On 12 Oct 2018, at 15:26, Olga Kyryliuk <olga_kyryliuk at ukr.net> wrote:
> 
> I also don't feel that consensus is the best available option for selecting people for positions. What could be used is anonymous voting ballots. I don't know what exactly software or platforms are used for that, but this is how we vote during elections at ICANN constituencies for example. And then the person is elected by the majority of votes. I believe it's better than consensus. 

Thanks for your reply Olga.

RIPE has always used consensus for all important decisions: WG charters, policy making, selecting WG chairs, etc. If you want to change that, you will need to persuade the RIPE community -- by consensus! -- to agree to use some other mechanism. Voting at RIPE is not practical because there is no way of controlling who gets to vote or policing how often they do that. Since there's no membership or eligibility criteria, the concept of one member, one vote just doesn't make sense. Which is why we use consensus-based decision making for the big stuff. Many other institutions do that too, usually for similar reasons.

I'm not sure how well your ICANN example could or would fit at RIPE. That's probably a discussion for another list and another place.

If I understand your position correctly, you support the proposed selection procedure though you'd prefer the WG used voting instead of consensus. Is that right?