Subject: [rtcweb] The two consensus questions

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 16:54:33 -0800

Hello,

I read the RTCWEB minutes for the last meeting.  According to the 
minutes there were two presentations about VP8 and H.264.  There was 
then the following question:

   "If you have a reason you cannot live with one of these codecs that has not
    already been discussed, can you explain it now?"

And "no new issues were raised".

"The room was then asked two consensus questions:

1. If you support H.264 as the mandatory to implement codec or are 
willing to live with it as the MTI, please raise your hand now.

2. If you support VP8 as the mandatory to implement codec or are 
willing to live with it as the MTI, please raise your hand now.

You may raise your hand more than once and we encourage you to do so 
if you can live with either, even if you have a preference for one 
over the other."

The above looks like voting to me.  The minutes for the two hour 
session are very short.  It is difficult to get a view of what happened.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Adam Roach <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 19:03:03 -0600

On 12/5/13 18:54, SM wrote:
> The above looks like voting to me.

Voting implies that a strict majority or plurality makes the decision 
for the group. If it were a vote, it would have included a formal count, 
and the option with the larger number would have been declared a winner.

That's not what this was.

There's a fairly long tradition of WG chairs asking questions to get the 
"feeling of the room," as it's sometimes not quite possible to determine 
consensus merely by listening to the points made at the mic. Frequently, 
people will forgo making their point if they think it's been made 
adequately by someone else.

In order for that to look like a vote, a "winning option" would have 
been declared, and we would have moved on to other things.

It didn't, it wasn't, and we haven't.

/a

---

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2013 18:13:58 -0700

On Dec 5, 2013, at 5:54 PM, SM <[email-masked]> wrote:

>  It is difficult to get a view of what happened.

The links to the recordings are included

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 19:03:00 -0800

Hi Herve,
At 18:04 05-12-2013, Herve - wrote:
>These are the minutes, right? 
>http://tools.ietf.org/wg/rtcweb/minutes?item=minutes-88-rtcweb.html

I used http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/88/minutes/minutes-88-rtcweb

>To be fair, the _Nov 4 section_ has a link to the _Nov 7_ audio
>while the _Nov 7 section_ has a link to the _Nov 4_ audio and to the 
>_Nov 4_ meetecho recordings rather than 
>http://ietf88.conf.meetecho.com/index.php/Recorded_Sessions#RTCWEB_II

I usually avoid audio for formal notes as it is easier for some 
people.  I listened to the audio recording.  It was interesting ... :-)

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Mary Barnes <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2013 08:19:30 -0600

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 6:54 PM, SM <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I read the RTCWEB minutes for the last meeting.  According to the minutes
> there were two presentations about VP8 and H.264.  There was then the
> following question:
>
> 1. If you support H.264 as the mandatory to implement codec or are willing
> to live with it as the MTI, please raise your hand now.
>
> 2. If you support VP8 as the mandatory to implement codec or are willing
> to live with it as the MTI, please raise your hand now.
>
> You may raise your hand more than once and we encourage you to do so if
> you can live with either, even if you have a preference for one over the
> other."
>

[MB] The only counts taken were of the jabber room.  The number of raised
hands in the meeting room was eyeballed/guestimated.   AFAICT, there were
very few that didn't raise their hands for both. The whole set of questions
and allowing two votes was a failure path to begin with.  So, yes, there
was some rough counting but no strict voting, the latter being the current
proposal on the table.[/MB]

> The minutes for the two hour session are very short.  It is difficult to
> get a view of what happened.
>
> Regards,
> -sm
>
> _______________________________________________
> rtcweb mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb
>

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2013 10:15:46 -0800

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 7:03 PM, SM <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> These are the minutes, right? http://tools.ietf.org/wg/
>> rtcweb/minutes?item=minutes-88-rtcweb.html
>>
>
>> while the _Nov 7 section_ has a link to the _Nov 4_ audio and to the _Nov
>> 4_ meetecho recordings rather than http://ietf88.conf.meetecho.
>> com/index.php/Recorded_Sessions#RTCWEB_II
>>
>
> I usually avoid audio for formal notes as it is easier for some people.  I
> listened to the audio recording.  It was interesting ... :-)
>
> Regards,
> -sm
>

Thanks for pointing out that the links are wrong; I'll fix it.

Ted

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2013 02:38:04 -0800

Hi Adam,
At 17:03 05-12-2013, Adam Roach wrote:
>There's a fairly long tradition of WG chairs asking questions to get 
>the "feeling of the room," as it's sometimes not quite possible to 
>determine consensus merely by listening to the points made at the 
>mic. Frequently, people will forgo making their point if they think 
>it's been made adequately by someone else.

I listened to the 20 minutes audio.  As background information, I am 
aware of the discussion about decision-making which occurred in March 
2012.  If I take only the audio into consideration I would draw the 
wrong conclusion.  In my opinion the two questions were a 
formality.  I don't know whether I would have asked them.  The 
"feeling of the room" was clear enough.

>been declared, and we would have moved on to other things.

Some working groups are difficult.  This working group is very 
difficult.  If an issue is controversial there are two possibilities:

   (i)   Choice A

   (ii)  Choice B

If the rule is "majority wins" it ends with either Choice A or Choice 
B.  If the rule is complex you still end with a significant number of 
persons in favor of one of the choices.  The alternative is to avoid 
any arithmetic.

Regards,
-sm