<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 4:38 AM, Hans Fraiponts <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fraiponts@gmail.com" target="_blank">fraiponts@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Hey,<br>
<br>
Just interested, does the consensus pattern[1] work in your space?<br>
<br>
1) do you use the consensus pattern? For some or all decisions?<br></blockquote><div><br>We use consensus at Noisebridge in San Francisco with great debate
and argument over its effectiveness. Despite that, it's been used to
make all the decisions I consider big ones, and many small decisions that affect the group for the past 2.75 years I've been present. Decisions
that affect everyone get escalated to consensus then get debated until
consensus. Smaller affinity groups at Noisebridge use whatever system
suits them -- I know some of them vote to enact decisions. <br>
<br>The decision making process at Noisebridge may be a unique
consensus type. A smaller irregular subset of members (about 5-15
people) meet and consent to things over the course of a 2 week process*
that are not commented on by the larger membership (around 50 people,
+/- ~10). Issues arise like moving Noisebridge, consenting on
controversial new members**, or banning people from the space, that have
resulted in very large meeting attendance. This has only happened a
couple times.<br>
<br>
*Consensus items at Noisebridge are introduced at Tuesday meetings and
discussed for at least a week in this form before being consented to during the following meetings, giving
people who aren't aware of new items time to participate. This inevitably leaves people out who did not hear or read about a consensus item in the shortest possible 14 day
consensus making period.<br>
<br>
**Prospective Noisebridge members are asked to attend meetings for a
month before they
are consented on by the current membership, this ideally forms a
~30 trial period where people not only get familiar with the prospective
members, but the prospective members get familiarized with the consensus model at
Noisebridge. This is not well rehearsed in reality.
<br>
<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
2) what happens when someone blocks consensus? Is this member expected<br>
to reach consensus (by compromise) by next meeting,? Does this ever<br>
happen?<br></blockquote><div><br>When someone says they would block an existing proposal at Noisebridge, there are 3 actions that we've taken that come to mind: <br>1) Attempt to find out what
compromise is necessary from the person who blocks and change the proposal to suit both groups<br>2) Attempt to persuade the person
blocking of the value or importance of the existing proposal as it stands<br>3) Retract or drop the consensus proposal<br><br>Other notes related to blocks:<br><br>Sometimes route (3) above results in action without consensus, as with
proposals I've made to fund infrastructure improvement projects at
Noisebridge.<br>
<br>At Noisebridge we don't have a requirement for blockers to propose
alternatives or compromises, although that does happens during the
consensus process when the vested parties really desire some form of
action.<br>
<br>
When we meet on Tuesdays, the moderator describes consensus in their own words or reads the noisebridge meeting note definition of consensus. Sometimes someone is asked to describe consensus in their own words, which is a good practice. I keep trying to describe consensus in different ways
without using the word block. I learned
about consensus many years ago at food not bombs meetings where blocking was viewed last resort and a failure of consensus.
We joke about blocks a lot at Noisebridge and throw blocks around like
candy. Perhaps people are comfortable with blocks as a way to take
control of what they view as an errant decision making process. I don't
know of any way folks can do that by vote, except perhaps rallying groups to decline to vote when quorum rules require it. <br><br>We talk about trying to craft proposals that can
pass consensus and don't need to be blocked. In action this hasn't happened smoothly. Consensus proposals up for discussion can show up on the day of a meeting, and attention to detail in the language of hastily prepared consensus proposals is sometimes lax (I'm referring to myself here).<br>
<br>I think a group that fails to find consensus
is making an action, and perhaps should declare that they are consenting not to
act rather than to describe a proposal as blocked. Consenting not to
act is probably easier to achieve and shows that folks can at least all
agree about something, lol.<br><br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
3) do you have the impression most members agree with the consensus pattern?<br></blockquote><div> </div><div>I can count only a few Noisebridge members that don't agree with the current consensus pattern, these members are very vocal. There must be more folks that don't agree but aren't as vocal about their disagreement.<br>
<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
4) Did you develop an alternative for the consensus model?<br><br></blockquote><div><br>We use a mix of consensus inspired from political grassroots and cooperative groups (often cited are Food Not Bombs and UCB co-op consensus models) with likely some less cited influence from consensus used by technocratic groups linked below.<br>
<br><br>
Food Not Bombs <br>
here's a book on consensus: <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=yqZQ6X9aln0C&dq=consensus&sitesec=reviews" target="_blank">http://books.google.com/books?id=yqZQ6X9aln0C&dq=consensus&sitesec=reviews</a><br>
here's a one-line google review of the book: "Interesting theory but
it will never work today. He has graphs and charts and everything"<br> <br>IETF rough consensus:<br>wikipedia: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_consensus" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_consensus</a><br>
RFC2418 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2418" target="_blank">http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2418</a><br>The Tao of the IETF <a href="http://www.ietf.org/tao.html" target="_blank">http://www.ietf.org/tao.html</a> section 5.2 <br>
<br></div></div><br>