Hi Gabriel,
Gabriel Wicki <[email protected]> writes: > Hi! > > On Sat, May 23, 2026 at 03:54:41PM +0200, Rutherther wrote: >> How can a community stay welcoming if it would just dismiss a >> disapproval of one of its members in a consensus process? > As specified in GCD001 a disapproval can not only just be that, but also > needs an explanation to prevent people from sabotaging consensus finding > without acutally taking part in the process. I argued that Greg's > disapproval—without the hint where discussion should be taken up at a > later point (as requested by Noé but ignored by Greg)—must be dismissed, > since it does not help the process of finding a consent. I understand that you argued that. But in my opinion, this is not enough at the current moment. The issue is that it's hard to objectively say if a person has given good reasons for their disapproval or not. This is just subjective. Since there is no objective way to do that, it's all left to interpretation, I find it easy to convince myself that if this is the first time the GCD is proposed, and first time the person has disapproved, pretty much no matter what we think about their reason (if any is given, which it is in the form of opinions in comments about what to change or not), it should not be dismissed. If the same person has been disapproving more often, not giving enough of reason in eyes of multiple people multiple times or multiple times on the same/similar GCD, where their comments have been addressed, I think we could at that point say their disapproval is not enough. And dismiss it based on the GCD 001. But as long as it's not completely clear to multiple people, I don't think we can do that. > >> That seems to me like one of the most unwelcoming things to do. > Veto-ing 3 months of work of ~20 community members to me sounds not very > welcoming or appreciative either... The GCD has been established to reach consensus. It's natural that consensus won't be reached in every case. If members withheld their disapprovals to make the community more welcoming, they would be going against core ideas of a consensus making process. The reason consensus processes are made is that everyone in the community can express their opinion and their opinion is taken into account, as opposed to democractic voting where the majority wins even if the minority doesn't agree, no matter how large disagreement they have. > > >> These limits exist because there have to be some stated, you cannot just >> say "enough people of the community", because then there is nothing to >> check against. One person can think it's 90 %, another can think it's 10 >> %. Both might be right depending on the circumstances. >> >> But the 25 % limit to me seems as the bare minimum to have, it ensures >> that there is consensus in portion of the community. Ensuring there is >> 100 % consent would be hard in an online community. There are >> communities/structures that are using consensus between the whole and >> anyones disapproval is taken into account, discussion pending until >> everyone agrees with the outcome. >> >> If a GCD barely makes the 25 % limit it's not something to be happy >> about, it sort of seems like the remaining 75 % might not agree, might >> not care... who knows. So even if the GCD had 25 % 2 days before the >> deadline, I wouldn't look at it in a good way. Sure at that point it >> would get accepted as long as there are no disapprovals. But now this >> GCD had 25 % only after deadline and just barely AND a disapproval. To >> me there is nothing pedantic here as you are trying to imply. It would >> be pedantic if 20 people responded after the deadline that they support >> and the GCD wouldn't be accepted at that point. (again, only if there >> was no disapproval, that's also important!) But if that was the case I >> can imagine the GCD would get accepted. > I hope you realize that you are arguing against your own ideas, here. I do not. In what way? > >> Despite multiple people telling you otherwise. > It seems very strange that *people* are right but fail to come up with > stringent argumentation. So we have an implicit (informal) hierarchy > that I have to obey? Don't think I ever read such a passage in the > manual. I am not aware of any hierarchy in the GCD process. From its nature, a consensus process, there cannot really be a hierarchy. Although then, situations can arise (such as this one) where the result might not be clear to everyone and that can be an issue. The reason I pointed this out is that it seems multiple people are convinced this way, while currently it seems only you are convinced about this GCD reaching consensus. Of course multiple people being convinced in a given way does not correspond to them having the correct opinion/facts, but it's always something to look out for, I believe. > > >> How can someone help you if you aren't willing to reconsider your >> opinions? > Why would you want to help me? I'm trying to help the project by > explicitly defininig the current social structure. It'd be great if > some more people helped (constructively) with that approach. You asked me to help, I am merely responding to your e-mail. Rutherther > > > Thanks for taking the time and replying. > g
