Re: [wg-d] Silence (Was: Streamlining Voting)

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Aug 13, 1999 at 12:59:55PM -0400, Bret Fausett wrote:
[...]
> 
> But when the work is done, I think approval should be based on 
> affirmative votes, yes or no. If anything, silence at that point should 
> mean that the WG member is unavailable or has lost interest in the issue.

I'm not sure what you mean by this -- in particular, what you mean 
by "silence".

In my research concerning Roberts Rules, I came across the following:

  "SILENCE IS ASSENT"

  "Those members who do not vote agree to go along with the decision of 
  the majority through their silence."

(This is not a statement of policy; it is a statement of fact about
Roberts Rules.) A further explanation was given elsewhere: basically,
you can't force people to vote.  This is, of course, even more true 
on mailing lists.

A typical WG might have 50 people on the mailing list, with 5 people
having contributed 95% of email volume, and doing most of the work.  
At the end, the vote is 7 "yes", 6 "no".

What does it mean?

In experience in the PAB (where we did have a voting mechanism), the
turnout for votes was always very small.  Turnout for a couple of
officer elections got the highest, at maybe 20-40%; turnout for
policy votes could be as low as 10%, maybe lower; turnout for straw
polls was sometimes just a few individuals, out of a theoretical
voting pool of 200+.  (I'm remembering this from the top of my head
-- hence the very rough numbers.)

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain