Hi Sasha,
A couple things that would make the PDP more palatable:
- would it be too much of an extra burden on the WG-chairs to summarise, briefly, how they arrived at the decision that consensus has been achieved/not achieved? (much like a judge would substantiate how they arrived at a given verdict but maybe not quite so verbose)
We do try to do that, but I agree: this this is very important!
- stop the +1 BS. Every voice in support *or* against a proposal to, at least, give a brief reasoning why.
I disagree with you here. A policy proposal is made for a reason, and that reason is included in the proposal itself. A +1 is expressing support for the proposal for the reasons specified in that policy.
I consider it disrespectful if one spends much time composing and arguing an objection if it can be overridden by "+1".
It is important for the chairs to see the difference between people who don't care about a policy proposal and people who stay silent because they agree with the content. Seeing +1 messages helps here. For example: a proposal with no feedback on the mailing list at all will likely be dropped/withdrawn, but a proposal with +1 replies will likely not be dropped/withdrawn. An objection will always be discussed based on its supporting arguments, and only if the objection can't be resolved will the chairs consider any +1's: we cannot abandon a policy proposal because one person (or a few) have a non-resolvable objection that is not shared by rest of the community. Nobody has veto rights.
It's changing the way Internet resources are being managed, not godsdamn Facebook.
I know. Sander