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There are 7 posts — by 5 authors — in this topic.
Latest post made by Miles Fidelman at Feb 08 00:29 UTC

From: Peter Shane Date: Feb 07 15:23 UTC Short link

I've been loosing following this thread, but find myself wondering -- is
everyone using "consensus" to mean the same thing?  Some posts seem to aim
towards something like unanimous agreement.  Others seem to mean something
like "general agreement," even if there remains substantial dissent.  Yet
others seem to mean just a majority conclusion, so long as the dissenters
buy into the legitimacy of the process.  What, exactly, are you all talking
about?

Best, Peter

From: Peter Shane Date: Feb 07 15:58 UTC Short link

Sorry - I meant "loosely following," of course.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter M. Shane [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 10:23 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: [Consult] Building consensus online/definitions?

I've been loosing following this thread, but find myself wondering -- is
everyone using "consensus" to mean the same thing?  Some posts seem to aim
towards something like unanimous agreement.  Others seem to mean something
like "general agreement," even if there remains substantial dissent.  Yet
others seem to mean just a majority conclusion, so long as the dissenters
buy into the legitimacy of the process.  What, exactly, are you all talking
about?

Best, Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: Pete Thomson [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 10:12 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: [Consult] Building consensus online

Michael, I think it was the word "force" that sparked my comment - I'm not
sure if it's really an objection. Miles has now clarified that he didn't
mean quite what I took it to mean.

Where I'm coming from, basically, is the relatively low level of
participation in almost all online spaces (low compared to, say, voting in
elections). It is about point (a) in Michael's labelling of my points:
individuals and interest groups are not under any pressure to participate.
That means that (1) there's not seen to be an active marketplace that's
worth selling into, and (2) legitimacy is weak so action is unlikely (unless
the forum is sponsored by an institution that's committed to acting on its
conclusions).

This may be getting a bit off topic from Steven's original question, which
is more about point (b). But actually I wonder whether one reason for
difficulty in reaching consensus is that the participants don't really
believe it matters. We may heckle the guy spouting off from the soapbox, but
the discussion with him won't change the way we vote.

Member profile for Pete Thomson:
http://groups.dowire.org/contacts/petethomson

-----------------------------------------

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-----------------------------------------

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From: Christoforos Korakas Date: Feb 07 16:15 UTC Short link

Hello to all,

I try to follow the discussion as much as i can ...

We are actually trying through this mail list, through debate and
deliberation, to arrive at a consensus ourselves on what consensus is ...
(???)

I would be keen to see if anyone has spotted any better tool than mail list
to actually exchange debate and deliberate on any issue ...
I cant believe that this is something we can propose as a solution to any
real life implementation (such as 500 people deliberating on substantial
issues they need to decide on)

And i mean discuss ... not reply to questionnaires nor Vote on options ...
discuss...

Forums will not do either ... when you eventually reach a critical mass of
arguments (lets say 500) it is impossible to do anything with it ...
(Imagine what it would look like ... *"replying to the thread number 235 on
the 7th page of contributions to this discussion i would like to say that
...* "

Has any one got anything better to propose ?

And thats just a mild case ...

We all want participation right? what if people actually show up ? what then
??

try deal with 10.000 citizens wanting to discuss issues with the mayor!!

try a 100.000 wanting to discuss with the President ...

I try to find a way to solve this one but no success till now ...

Best Regards

Christoforos Korakas





On Feb 7, 2008 4:23 PM, Peter M. Shane <> wrote:

> I've been loosing following this thread, but find myself wondering -- is
> everyone using "consensus" to mean the same thing?  Some posts seem to aim
> towards something like unanimous agreement.  Others seem to mean something
> like "general agreement," even if there remains substantial dissent.  Yet
> others seem to mean just a majority conclusion, so long as the dissenters
> buy into the legitimacy of the process.  What, exactly, are you all
> talking
> about?
>
> Best, Peter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pete Thomson [mailto:]
> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 10:12 AM
> To: 
> Subject: Re: [Consult] Building consensus online
>
> Michael, I think it was the word "force" that sparked my comment - I'm not
> sure if it's really an objection. Miles has now clarified that he didn't
> mean quite what I took it to mean.
>
> Where I'm coming from, basically, is the relatively low level of
> participation in almost all online spaces (low compared to, say, voting in
> elections). It is about point (a) in Michael's labelling of my points:
> individuals and interest groups are not under any pressure to participate.
> That means that (1) there's not seen to be an active marketplace that's
> worth selling into, and (2) legitimacy is weak so action is unlikely
> (unless
> the forum is sponsored by an institution that's committed to acting on its
> conclusions).
>
> This may be getting a bit off topic from Steven's original question, which
> is more about point (b). But actually I wonder whether one reason for
> difficulty in reaching consensus is that the participants don't really
> believe it matters. We may heckle the guy spouting off from the soapbox,
> but
> the discussion with him won't change the way we vote.
>
>
> Member profile for Pete Thomson:
> http://groups.dowire.org/contacts/petethomson
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
>
> Group home for Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation:
> http://groups.dowire.org/groups/consult
>
> Replies go to members of Online Consultations, Dialogues, and
> E-Participation with all posts on this topic here:
> http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/FngbNHyu4Qg4qTuDr2VaI
>
> For digest version or to leave Online Consultations, Dialogues, and
> E-Participation,
> email 
> with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*.
>
> Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation is hosted by
> Democracies Online - http://dowire.org.
>
>
>
> Member profile for Peter Shane:
> http://groups.dowire.org/contacts/petershane
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
>
> Group home for Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation:
> http://groups.dowire.org/groups/consult
>
> Replies go to members of Online Consultations, Dialogues, and
> E-Participation with all posts on this topic here:
> http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/3UHT75AHgeuTSdgwrNf7zC
>
> For digest version or to leave Online Consultations, Dialogues, and
> E-Participation,
> email 
> with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*.
>
> Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation is hosted by
> Democracies Online - http://dowire.org.
>



--
Christoforos Korakas
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ckorakas

From: John Miller Date: Feb 07 16:26 UTC Short link

Peter is correct.
Participants in this thread have slid around in their definitions of
"consensus" (like me on the highway yesterday).
Start a new thread. Defining terms is helpful.

Opinion: Even talking about consensus obliges us to step outside notions of
dis/agreement, win/lose, vote for/against. It requires an underlying
"paradigm shift" or else the speaker is probably using the term as a synonym
for something else. For example, have you ever heard olde school politicians
talk about consensus? To them it seems to mean beat the crap out of
opponents until the only people left standing are compliant.

Practically speaking, when I'm asked to define consensus (eg while teaching
group facilitation) my "easy" answer is: "Enough agreement that the whole
group can move forward together."
It's like Pareto's principle. There probably should be 20% of the decision
that one doesn't necessarily agree with but one needs to...
- understand where it came from / why it was reached,
- be implicated; actually had an influence; was heard during the
proceedings,
- be able to live with it; not oppose.

...john miller

From: Miles Fidelman Date: Feb 07 22:41 UTC Short link

On 2/7/08, Peter M. Shane <> wrote:

> I've been loosing following this thread, but find myself wondering -- is
> everyone using "consensus" to mean the same thing?
A really good question!

John Miller wrote:
> Practically speaking, when I'm asked to define consensus (eg while teaching
> group facilitation) my "easy" answer is: "Enough agreement that the whole
> group can move forward together."
>
And a pretty good answer, with the caveat that  sometimes an 'agreement
to disagree,' and for sub-groups to split and go down different paths
may be a reasonable outcome; with at least two possible variants:

- try multiple things in parallel, and then select among them later
(e.g., think about various kinds of grant programs, or competitions -
lots of phase 1 winners, not so many at later phases)

- multiple approaches / groups continue to co-exist - think markets, or
forks of open source software projects (how many Linux distrubutions are
there now?)

From: Simon Smith Date: Feb 08 00:12 UTC Short link

The advantage of email lists - and I know Steven Clift believes strongly in
this - is that they are a 'push' technology (someone else in the original
thread used the term 'forcing' the discussion). They can contribute to the
democratic process precisely because each member of the list is 'forced' to
expose herself a broad range of ideas, opinions, issues, etc (as broad as
the subject-matter of the list anyway).

Whereas other tools are designed to allow filtering and personalisation of
the information you receive, an email list makes you wade through (or more
realistically skim-read) a whole lot of stuff you probably aren't very
interested in. That's viewed as important for citizens in a (deliberative)
democracy, who need to be aware of what's currently being discussed in the
public sphere because they are then more likely to act in a public-spirited
manner and display more understanding for otherness. That would in itself
generate at least a weak form of consensus.

On the other hand email lists are perhaps better employed in the 'getting
issues on the table' phase than the 'arriving at (strong) consensus' phase
of a political process, where a generally acceptable decision is taken
between alternatives: how many threads arrive at anything that could be
described as a conclusion to the debate?

There's also the problem of scale, as Christoforus points out. But that can
often be solved by breaking the discussion up into small groups, which is of
course a common technique in face-to-face participative planning exercises.

On 07/02/2008, Christoforos Korakas <> wrote:
>
> Hello to all,
>
> I try to follow the discussion as much as i can ...
>
> We are actually trying through this mail list, through debate and
> deliberation, to arrive at a consensus ourselves on what consensus is ...
> (???)
>
> I would be keen to see if anyone has spotted any better tool than mail
> list
> to actually exchange debate and deliberate on any issue ...
> I cant believe that this is something we can propose as a solution to any
> real life implementation (such as 500 people deliberating on substantial
> issues they need to decide on)
>
> And i mean discuss ... not reply to questionnaires nor Vote on options ...
> discuss...
>
> Forums will not do either ... when you eventually reach a critical mass of
> arguments (lets say 500) it is impossible to do anything with it ...
> (Imagine what it would look like ... *"replying to the thread number 235
> on
> the 7th page of contributions to this discussion i would like to say that
> ...* "
>
> Has any one got anything better to propose ?
>
> And thats just a mild case ...
>
> We all want participation right? what if people actually show up ? what
> then
> ??
>
> try deal with 10.000 citizens wanting to discuss issues with the mayor!!
>
> try a 100.000 wanting to discuss with the President ...
>
> I try to find a way to solve this one but no success till now ...
>
> Best Regards
>
> Christoforos Korakas
>
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 7, 2008 4:23 PM, Peter M. Shane <> wrote:
>
> > I've been loosing following this thread, but find myself wondering -- is
> > everyone using "consensus" to mean the same thing?  Some posts seem to
> aim
> > towards something like unanimous agreement.  Others seem to mean
> something
> > like "general agreement," even if there remains substantial
> dissent.  Yet
> > others seem to mean just a majority conclusion, so long as the
> dissenters
> > buy into the legitimacy of the process.  What, exactly, are you all
> > talking
> > about?
> >
> > Best, Peter
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Pete Thomson [mailto:]
> > Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 10:12 AM
> > To: 
> > Subject: Re: [Consult] Building consensus online
> >
> > Michael, I think it was the word "force" that sparked my comment - I'm
> not
> > sure if it's really an objection. Miles has now clarified that he didn't
> > mean quite what I took it to mean.
> >
> > Where I'm coming from, basically, is the relatively low level of
> > participation in almost all online spaces (low compared to, say, voting
> in
> > elections). It is about point (a) in Michael's labelling of my points:
> > individuals and interest groups are not under any pressure to
> participate.
> > That means that (1) there's not seen to be an active marketplace that's
> > worth selling into, and (2) legitimacy is weak so action is unlikely
> > (unless
> > the forum is sponsored by an institution that's committed to acting on
> its
> > conclusions).
> >
> > This may be getting a bit off topic from Steven's original question,
> which
> > is more about point (b). But actually I wonder whether one reason for
> > difficulty in reaching consensus is that the participants don't really
> > believe it matters. We may heckle the guy spouting off from the soapbox,
> > but
> > the discussion with him won't change the way we vote.
> >
> >
> > Member profile for Pete Thomson:
> > http://groups.dowire.org/contacts/petethomson
> >
> >
> > -----------------------------------------
> >
> > Group home for Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation:
> > http://groups.dowire.org/groups/consult
> >
> > Replies go to members of Online Consultations, Dialogues, and
> > E-Participation with all posts on this topic here:
> > http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/FngbNHyu4Qg4qTuDr2VaI
> >
> > For digest version or to leave Online Consultations, Dialogues, and
> > E-Participation,
> > email 
> > with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*.
> >
> > Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation is hosted by
> > Democracies Online - http://dowire.org.
> >
> >
> >
> > Member profile for Peter Shane:
> > http://groups.dowire.org/contacts/petershane
> >
> >
> > -----------------------------------------
> >
> > Group home for Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation:
> > http://groups.dowire.org/groups/consult
> >
> > Replies go to members of Online Consultations, Dialogues, and
> > E-Participation with all posts on this topic here:
> > http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/3UHT75AHgeuTSdgwrNf7zC
> >
> > For digest version or to leave Online Consultations, Dialogues, and
> > E-Participation,
> > email 
> > with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*.
> >
> > Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation is hosted by
> > Democracies Online - http://dowire.org.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Christoforos Korakas
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/ckorakas
>
> Member profile for Christoforos Korakas:
> http://groups.dowire.org/contacts/ckorakas
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
>
> Group home for Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation:
> http://groups.dowire.org/groups/consult
>
> Replies go to members of Online Consultations, Dialogues, and
> E-Participation with all posts on this topic here:
> http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/5UA9mUgZcriVJtnrOnGwek
>
> For digest version or to leave Online Consultations, Dialogues, and
> E-Participation,
> email 
> with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*.
>
> Online Consultations, Dialogues, and E-Participation is hosted by
> Democracies Online - http://dowire.org.
>

From: Miles Fidelman Date: Feb 08 00:29 UTC Short link

Simon Smith wrote:
> The advantage of email lists - and I know Steven Clift believes strongly in
> this - is that they are a 'push' technology (someone else in the original
> thread used the term 'forcing' the discussion). They can contribute to the
> democratic process precisely because each member of the list is 'forced' to
> expose herself a broad range of ideas, opinions, issues, etc (as broad as
> the subject-matter of the list anyway).
>
I too am a big fan of email lists - for similar reasons.

One tool I  recently came across a tool that can sort and color code
threads of conversation as they evolve on an email list.

Take a look at
http://www.communitywiki.org/en/OnlineDeliberationConference and scroll
down the page until you get to "arguement mapping."

Sort of an interesting approach.

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