[Noisebridge-discuss] consensus process meeting project postmortem (worth reading)

jim jim at well.com
Sun Feb 13 18:42:31 UTC 2011




    My take on the Consensus discussion meeting of Friday 
20110211 was similar to Patrick's. It seemed a good 
discussion. 
    Here are some points that I recall. 
* No one presented an example showing that the consensus 
process is broken. The examples presented illustrated that 
the consensus process has been working (examples included 
accepting new members and one or two other things that i 
have forgotten). 
* A question is whether people are avoiding the consensus 
process because it's burdensome. 
* Is there a contradiction between doocracy and consensus? 
If someone does something doocratically, they haven't 
gotten consensus. The example was moving furniture to a 
drastically new configuration. The result seems to have 
been an unpleasant surprise to some people. Should there 
be consensus on taking drastic actions? Is the act of 
moving furniture part of a conversation? I.e. others can 
move the furniture back or to a different place. 
* For what issues should we apply consensus? This question 
was not answered. 
* We want to invite ideas of all kinds. 
* We want to avoid talking on and on without taking action. 
* Voting lets us make a decision based on a majority (or 
probably more correctly "plurality") that are for a proposal; 
it seems a quick and simple means of making a decision. 
Objections to voting are that those who vote are not 
necessarily informed, or not well-informed, and also that no 
accommodation is given to those who are opposed. 
* Consensus lets us make a decision if no one is opposed. 
One value is that if no one cares, why not agree, and 
anyone who is opposed will have some reason, i.e. will be 
informed at least with respect to some affect of the 
proposal. Another value is the protection of minority 
interests from being overrun by a possibly uncaring majority. 
Note that if no one is opposed to a proposal, decisions 
can be made very quickly. If someone is opposed, the cost 
is putting up with discussion and it is probably a case-
by-case issue, depending on the importance of the objection 
(and possibly the person objecting). 


-------To be clear, here are some terms and definitions: 


"Process" is a sequence of steps taken to achieve some goal. 
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/process.html 

"Consensus" is a process. 
The steps for consensus are to present a proposal for some 
decision and ask if there are objections; if there are 
objections, the group must resolve the objections so that 
no objections remain in order to make the decision; if 
objections cannot be resolved, the group cannot make the 
decision. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making 

"Doocracy" is a style of working together without formal 
process. Someone may suggest some action, but should do 
so with the willingness to do the action, asking for help 
with some parts of the action. Someone can just perform 
an action without prior notice or discussion. Those who 
dislike the result are welcome to undo or modify it. There 
is a claim that this doing and undoing business is a 
conversation. 
http://www.communitywiki.org/cw/DoOcracy

"Conversation" is communication between people. Note 
that communication may be non-verbal. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation 

"Anarchy" is a philosophy for holding together a group 
without a formal authority. Some people at noisebridge 
believe in anarchy: "anarchists love rules, they just 
don't want rulers" (an approximate quote from someone's 
post to the noisebridge-discuss list. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism 

"Voting" is a process of polling a group to determine 
how many are for, against, and neutral with respect to 
some proposed decision. Determining outcome can be by 
majority, where some percent greater than 50% (e.g. 60% 
or 2/3...) is required to decide, or by plurality, where 
the greatest number of "for" votes, no matter that the 
number is a majority. Note that Noisebridge seems to 
use plurality, not majority, for choosing board members. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system 



On Sat, 2011-02-12 at 13:29 -0800, Patrick Keys wrote:
> I'm starting this new thread for everybody to benefit, share opinions, 
> and hopefully gain interest in joining a subsequent consensus process 
> meeting.  It's been decided off-list that consensus process discussion 
> should remain on this main discuss list because everybody at noisebridge 
> has a stake in how we reach consensus at noisebridge.
> 
> My personal take-away from the consensus process meeting was many 
> things, as follows (PLEASE COMMENT ON ANY AND/OR ALL OF THESE!):
> 
> * people claim the noisebridge consensus process is broken but nobody 
> knows exactly why
> 
> * the hassle of the consensus process results in circumventing the 
> process in favor of the do-ocracy
> 
> * do-ocracy is also referred as "autonomous action" or perhaps even 
> vigilante action
> 
> * a random sample based on the consensus process meeting is that half 
> the people that participate at noisebridge aren't noisebridge members
> 
> * everybody at noisebridge can participate in the consensus process but 
> only members can block an item up for consensus
> 
> * the only benefit of being a noisebridge member is the right to block a 
> consensus item
> 
> * some people at Noisebridge will block any consensus item based on 
> their personal general opinion against consensus
> 
> * comparing bringing an item up for consensus versus just handling a 
> matter do-ocracy style, there is absolutely no incentive at all for 
> bringing an item up for consensus (quite the opposite!) because that 
> could just result in a block of the item.
> 
> * although we have weekly meeting notes, the details of any consensus 
> item and the reasoning of any consensus decision are ultimately at the 
> discretion of the weekly meeting note-taker.
> 
> 
> Patrick
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> 




More information about the Noisebridge-discuss mailing list