Rough Consensus

by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

Posted by Anton Katunin on 1 February 2020
Tags: books, 5 stars

I'm very excited about Rough Consensus. Democracy is built around the majority. It works great when all voters are at the same high level of expertise. Unfortunately that can't be further away from reality. For example in voting: "Don't let ignorant people vote".

In practice nobody knows everything, so we should respect our differences. The core idea of Consensus: the lack of disagreement is more important than agreement. The focus on the flaws helps to drive the discussion and share the knowledge of the minority to the rest of the group. It's a way to pick the best option, and not the popular option.

I highly recommend to read the original paper: On Consensus and Humming in the IETF. It explains how to do it and the mistakes to avoid.


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