[Noisebridge-discuss] Consensus and the "old ways".

Christie Dudley longobord at gmail.com
Thu Oct 1 21:53:39 UTC 2009


The only time I've ever seen someone *actually* block is when the anonymous
application for membership "John Waters" came up for consensus.  Generally,
the discussion has been that people figure out

Tradition has it that threats to block are a rhetorical device.  I don't
consider it an ineffective device, as it's a statement of a firm opinion.
It's also considered non-excellent when someone employs this device then is
unwilling to discuss their opinion to either convince others or allow
themselves to be swayed.

Threatening to block is a very valuable tool when a member feels that the
wheels of progress are moving too quickly for appropriate discussion.  There
were several members who used this threat to good purpose when we first
considered moving to 2169.  The decision was tabled, more spaces were
investigated, more information was gathered and we came out ahead as a
result.  And obviously still moved.

Christie
---
Pigs can fly given sufficient thrust.
    - RFC 1925


On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Sai Emrys <noisebridge at saizai.com> wrote:

> One thing that bothers me - that I've seen several times so far - is
> the use of threats to block in lieu of offers to compromise.
>
> Is there a good way to deal with this?
>
> I don't like it that there at least occasionally seems to be a
> substitution of strength of will for reasonable negotiation, and this
> seems to be inherent to a system that allows anyone to veto without
> also giving a veto override method.
>
> That, and I thought that blocks (and by extension, threats of blocks)
> were supposed to be a never-used thing only brought up when
> negotiations fail, not something that's used at the outset as part of
> stating one's position...
>
> - Sai
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20091001/3acfac6d/attachment-0003.html>


More information about the Noisebridge-discuss mailing list