Re: Yesterday's IETF

--On Wednesday, March 25, 2026 14:20 -0400 Michael Richardson
<[email protected]> wrote:

> 
> Stephen Farrell <[email protected]> wrote:
>     >>> Could the "hums" has fallen in disuse have the
>     >>>
> unintended effect of reinforcing the idea that we do vote?
>     >> I don't think so.
> 
>     > I do think so.
> 
>     > I don't know how to fix that whilst aiming for equality
> between     > in-person and remote participants though. But maybe
> there's a     > way?
> 
> 0. ideally, all polls are known before the session starts, and are
> presented    for wordsmithing sufficiently in advance that poor
> wording can be eliminated.
> 
> 1. the straw-poll is conducted around a clearly articulated
> question for    which there has been sufficient discussion.
> 
> 2. the results are used to inform consensus, to determine if it's
> one loud    voice of rough objection against a silent majority of
> support, or    against a significant disinterest or lack of opinion.
> 
> 3. that we remain curious (and courteous) about the reasons for
> objection,    summarizing that briefly (even if pseudonymously)
> into the minutes, and    into an email thread that explains any
> tusscle that has arisen.
> 
> So I would to see polls that ask, "Objections to adopting
> foo-example?" and that the choices are something like
> Object/Support/Have-Not-Read/Do-not-care.

Michael,

Ok.  But, at least historically, straw polls and humming (or
surrogates for them) are quite often used, and used very
productively, to get the sense of the (virtual) room on a question
like "The discussion seems to point to three ways we might approach
issue X, is there a sense of the room about which one we want to
pursue?".  The humming then might be for A, B, or C.   Depending on
circumstances and the discussion to that point it might also be
useful to ask about one or more of  "indifferent", "confused", "not
ready to make a decision", etc., as well.  WG leadership still needs
to be very careful to not turn such a question/ hum into a
significant decision made at the meeting rather than on the mailing
list, but that is also true of your formulation.

   john