Re: Online 'hum'

Michael Richardson <[email protected]> Sat, 25 Apr 2026 14:02:05 -0400
Newsgroups	gmane.ietf.general
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Joel Halpern <[email protected]> wrote:
    > I don't know that we are inherently bound by any particular slogan. 
    > However, the avoidance of voting still seems to me to be an extremely
    > good idea.

Yes.

It's not the mechanism by which we get feedback that matters.

It's what we do with the feedback.   Humming had the advantage that is was
somewhat anonymous, yet provided immediate feedback if one wasn't alone.
This lets people be a bit braver, even when it's their boss' I-D.
Online, there are many ways to replicate that with many tradeoffs.

What matters is that we (WG Chairs) are then curious about the results.
A silent room means that few have read the document and/or few understand or
care about the problem.  Which is it?
A 50/50 split with significant participation (equal loudness) means that
there are more things to discuss, but it could also be that there there are
irreconciable differences.
Only a few objections or only a few supporters, begs the question as to why.

From 7282 (formatting/editing mine):
   So, in the case of a working group decision, after the initial
   discussion of the pros and cons of the available choices, it is most
   important to ask not just for objections to a particular proposal,
   but for the nature of those objections.

   A chair who asks, "Is everyone OK with choice A?" is going to get
   objections.  But a chair who asks,

                "CAN ANYONE NOT LIVE WITH CHOICE A?"

   is more likely to only
   hear from folks who think that choice A is impossible to engineer

So a slider vs a vote vs an MRI does not matter.
The nature of the question is far more important, and what we do with the
answer.   That also suggests that having polls at the *end* of a discussion
period is probably wrong, unless it's to determine if there are *still*
objections.


--
Michael Richardson <[email protected]>   . o O ( IPv6 IøT consulting )
           Sandelman Software Works Inc, Ottawa and Worldwide

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