> given that email is one of the worst ways yet invented to build consensus > and comfort, and that we still need an open consensus building process, > what can we do to make it more scalable?
that's a very good question. It seems to me that we need to find a way to impose some sort of discipline on the conversations - in particular, to clearly separate - recognition and identification of a problem - determining whether consensus exists for a problem statement - proposals for a solution - feedback/comment/critique on such proposals - determining whether consensus exists for such proposals separation is probably needed both in message labelling and time. in other words, it's not enough if each message is clearly labeled according to its purpose (though this would help immensely); it's also necessary to discourage indefinite discussion in any of these phases, and to have clear transitions from one phase to another. and yet all of this must be done without censorship or the appearance of censorship. I suspect email could work as a mechanism except that existing user agents do not support for the additional content tagging and user interaction that would be needed. so it would probably need to be prototyped using a web interface, perhaps with a receive-only email channel for passive monitoring and archiving. we would do well to experiment with other means of conducting WG dialogue. I see no process problems with doing so provided that such experiments are carefully constructed to ensure visibility and openness and approved in advance by IESG. a first step might be to assess the effectiveness of mechanisms that are already employed by some WGs. Keith
