Message-Id: <199807301905.LAA05016@admin.upm.edu.my>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 20:01:50 -0700
To: drums@cs.utk.edu
From: Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Subject: Re: call for votes on QUIT
In-Reply-To: <19980730015215.20128.qmail@cr.yp.to>
References: <19980729232651.18393.qmail@cr.yp.to>
 <199807300004.UAA19371@jekyll.piermont.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

sigh.

It continues to be a shame to clutter the mailing list with this sort of
thing, but there is a chance that some subscribers are new to the IETF and
not aware of some relevant points:


At 01:52 AM 7/30/98 +0000, D. J. Bernstein wrote:
>Perry E. Metzger writes:
>> 1) The IETF doesn't do voting, Dan.
>You misunderstand. This vote is simply a mechanism to find out what
>everyone thinks. It is binding only to the extent that you respect the
>opinions of other people.

As stated, we don't do voting.  There are techniques for trying to assess
the 'dominant' view of the list, but simple vote-taking on a mailing list
is not one of them, for a variety of reasons.  

So, this exercise isn't binding (or even valid) AT ALL and for a number of
reasons, none of which include the one rather unfortunate one cited above.

>> 2) We also are a rough consensus based organization. There is no
>> consensus for what you are asking for, based on the amount of dissent.
>I don't believe that your evaluation is accurate. But there's no need to
>speculate; the ballots will provide firsthand information.

The ballots won't even provide that.  There's quite a bit of research and
experience on the matter of experimental validity which would explain the
reasons, but this isn't the venue for such a discussion.

So, just in case anyone on this list was considering sending in their
"vote" please don't.  It will only make some people THINK that the process
has some validity, but perception isn't reality.

d/
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker                            <mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com>

+1 408 246 8253         Brandenburg Consulting            +60 19 329 9445
675 Spruce Dr.          fax:  +1 408 273 6464           P.O. Box 296, UPM
Sunnyvale, CA 94086      www.brandenburg.com      Serdang, Selangor 43400
United States                                                    Malaysia