RE: [wg-d] What our product should resemble

["Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <froomkin@law.miami.edu>]

This is a useful discussion we should have.

I personally reasonably comfortable with the concept of "rough consensus".
I take it to mean that there ALMOST a true consensus...but a small number
may be left out and the (vast) majority believe that (1) the minority is
small; (2) its concerns are either zany or at best deeply mistaken; and
(3) life must go on.

While I love consensus, I fear the heckler's veto.  And I say this as one
who thinks he's more likely to be a heckler...

The critical point for me is that to be a rough consensus the majority
must be prepared to explain why it is they feel justified in overriding
the view of the minority.  And merely saying "we don't agree with them"
isn't enough -- that's mere majority rule.  It should take quite a lot
more--a sense that logic has prevailed, and some people aren't being
logical.

I would be the first to add, of course, that this concept works best when
the issues are logical or technical ones, rather than political or
aesthetic. Rough consensus works badly when the choice is chocolate or
vanilla ice cream. (Then you need to change the option set to include free
choice.  Or we're back at majority rule.)

On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, David Schutt wrote:

> Quite some years ago, when I was learning about different management
> techniques used by different cultures, I was given a definition of consensus
> that was quite meaningful, precise and useful.
> 
> Consensus -is- unanimity. Unanimity of a special kind, perhaps, but there is
> no minority opinion or expression of dissent when a group has achieved true
> consensus. That does not mean that all the participants agree with the
> position taken by the group, only that they are willing to set aside their
> differences and *present a common front for the good of the group*.
> 
> This is very important - to achieve consensus participants must be willing
> to subsume their individual interests and opinions to that of the group.
> This is not normal behavior in most Western cultures :-). If for some reason
> a participant continues to express dissent, the group does *not* have
> consensus. Even in cultures that encourage this kink of behavior, such as
> the Japanese, it can take a loooooong time to get to consensus on a
> contentious issue.
> 
> Relatively recently I've come across the term 'rough consensus', which I
> found interesting, as it is an essentially meaningless term that could be
> used to describe everything from majority rule to a jerkocracy where the
> most dominant and belligerent in a group wins.
> 
> Now, with pop culture being what it is, the term consensus is bandied around
> by all sorts of people who don't have even the slightest interest in what
> the term means, but use it because they think it makes them sound like
> people they want to associate with. In other words, it's part of fashion
> speak.
> 
> Let's do ourselves and everyone else a favor, and stay away from terms that
> mean different things (or nothing) to different people, and try and get some
> precision into the process.
> 
> D Schutt
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-wg-d@dnso.org [mailto:owner-wg-d@dnso.org]On Behalf Of Mark
> C. Langston
> Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 2:38 PM
> To: wg-d@dnso.org
> Subject: [wg-d] What our product should resemble
> 
> 
> 
> Here's a brief sketch of what any product of this group should look
> like:
> 
> The process should be streamlined.  Relatively short and easy to follow.
> The process should be fair and balanced, allowing no one interest an
>  undue influence over any other, from the perspective of the process itself.
> The process should be inclusive, providing some mechanism that ensures
>   participation from all interests.
> The process should be accountable.  There should be some way to accurately
>   determine consensus or lack thereof, and the demographics of that
>   consensus.
> The process should be swift, providing a means by which we can quickly
>   arrive at consensus while not sacrifing speed for breadth or depth.
> The process should provide a means of determining a clear goal for the
>   process.
> The process should balance the powers of the chairs against the powers of
>   the body.
> 
> I'd like to mention that I use the word consensus here.  I use it to
> mean some sizeable majority of the participants.  The issue I believe
> is not what is meant by the word, but the process by which its
> existence is determined.
> 
> --
> Mark C. Langston	LATEST: ICANN refuses	Let your voice be heard:
> mark@bitshift.org  to consider application for       http://www.idno.org
> Systems Admin    Constituency status from organized http://www.icann.org
> San Jose, CA      individual domain name owners      http://www.dnso.org
> 
> 

-- 
A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   froomkin@law.tm
U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
+1 (305) 284-4285  |  +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)  |  http://www.law.tm
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