[llvm-foundation] Voting

[Renato Golin via llvm-foundation]

On 29 June 2016 at 20:03, Hal Finkel <hfinkel at anl.gov> wrote:
> I understand your point, but I don't think this addresses the problem we have in practice. The problem we have in practice is determining when we have consensus. This is because a small percentage of our community actively participates in any given discussion, and disproportionally loud opponents or proponents can skew the apparent tenor of the conversation.

Indeed!! And that's what consensus-then-voting "fixes". It's easy to
blame "few loud opponents", but it's also easy to get distracted by
them.

For example, I did a quick count on people agreeing with GitHub and it
came out as 23 out of 25. That's consensus.

I did the same count on the code of conduct discussion we had, and
that was around 10 vs. 10 on the reporting issue. This is *not*
consensus.

I have proposed voting for GitHub, but I will not propose, nor defend,
voting for the code of conduct. Not at this stage, not until we have a
clear majority. And to have a clear majority, both sides need to reach
a reasonable compromise.

That is the sole reason I support this view: I prefer to reach a
compromise, conceding some of my points, than to force someone to do
what I want, just because I have more friends or am more persuasive.

That's the difference between pure democracy and consensus driven
communities. I don't have any illusion that there isn't politics and
self-interest involved in many decisions around LLVM, but the hard
decisions move slowly and get refined into something most people
agree.

I wanted LLVM to use Git at least 5 years ago. I did propose, and
people did agree, but most considered a contentious issue. So, for the
last 5 years, I've been talking to people, understanding the issues,
finding solutions, as many others have, and here we are, reaching
consensus and getting things done. The right way (tm).

cheers,
--renato