In message <[email protected]>, at 08:24:41
on Tue, 19 Nov 2013, Nurani Nimpuno <[email protected]> writes
(Anyone who is not a professional diplomat, who has been in meetings
where a whole document ends up in *square brackets, shivers at the
thought of such negotiations.)
Actually, I think it works very well, especially the square brackets
part, because it allows you to park an area of disagreement (possibly
sending it off to a spin-off working group to resolve amongst those who
care the most) while the meeting can get on with the remainder of the
document, and not losing sight of the 'big picture'.
For example, a meeting can agree the need for policy objectives in
respect of rolling out IPv6, but could get derailed if there's
protracted disagreement about whether to call it "deployment" or
"migration". So put that word in square brackets and move on to agree
the broad principles, while a subgroup works out which word has, yes
I'll use the word, consensus.
>I am certain that when it comes to the Internet, that slowness is a
>bug. Rough consensus and running code works a lot better
Probably does when debating "Standards" (or should that be "standards" -
I know let's put the word in square brackets).
*Square brackets are used in UN contexts to mark text that cannot be agreed on.
When I was in the UN CSTD WG on IGF improvements, in the first
round, we failed miserably as a group to agree on anything. Text was being
thrown up on the screen, only to immediately be protested by
someone, and consequently being put in square brackets. At the end of the
meeting, the whole document was in square brackets...
Of course, the idea is to remove the square brackets, or delete the
bracketed text before the end of the meeting. If more than 10% of the
document ever gets (temporarily) in square brackets the whole basis of
the meeting, or the motives of the attendees, is thrown into doubt.
--
Roland Perry
