Re: understanding consensus

[durrell@innocence.com (Bryant Durrell)]

Christopher Ambler writes:
> Then that begs the question - if this is such a hot topic, where are
> all the posters? If this topic is such that only 10 people are making
> the vast majority of the posts, and there seems to be agreement
> amongst most of them on some points, wouldn't that suggest that
> most people, while interested, don't care?

It could also suggest that they don't have time to read the hundreds of
messages, or that they feel any posts will be lost in the noise.  I'm
intending to send my comments to the IAHC direct, and skip this list,
simply because I see no useful discussion here.  I know some have
tried; I certainly count you, Chris, among them.  However, there's way
too much of "$20,000 is too much!"  "No, our rough budget shows that
this is about right."  "$20,000 is too much!" and of course the other
favorite, "60 days is meaningless!"  "I think it provides some real
protection.  "60 days is meaningless!"

I don't think any of this is furthering the argument at all.  I don't
know where the One Truth (ha) lies, but it's not going to be found
like this.

> If the IAHC is getting comments from outside of this list - the list
> that THEY set up to discuss this issue - they should post it here so
> we can accurately gauge the opinions of those who care to give them.

It's not our job to do that.  We *feel* a lot of ownership in this
process, because we (or some of us) have been staring this issue in the
face for a year or more, but the truth is our opinions are not really
more valuable than, say, Perry's.  The most you gain by letting us pick
over other feedback is more differing opinions, and the IAHC already
has quite a few.

-- 
Bryant Durrell (sysadmin, cynic, coyote) | "well, it seems doable so we should
durrell@innocence.com / durrell@bofh.net |  do it.  if we can't then we should
http://www.innocence.com/~durrell        |  get no biscuits."  -- tim@meer.net