Hello All, I recommend that all read the following document, particularly those involved in chairing working groups: It is RFC2418 IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures - dated Sept 1998. From: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2418.txt It has sections dealing with disruptive behaviour as well as determining when rough consensus is reached. E.g "As with face-to-face sessions occasionally one or more individuals may engage in behavior on a mailing list which disrupts the WG's progress. In these cases the Chair should attempt to discourage the behavior by communication directly with the offending individual rather than on the open mailing list. If the behavior persists then the Chair must involve the Area Director in the issue. As a last resort and after explicit warnings, the Area Director, with the approval of the IESG, may request that the mailing list maintainer block the ability of the offending individual to post to the mailing list. (If the mailing list software permits this type of operation.) Even if this is done, the individual must not be prevented from receiving messages posted to the list. Other methods of mailing list control may be considered but must be approved by the AD(s) and the IESG." "3.3. Session management Working groups make decisions through a "rough consensus" process. IETF consensus does not require that all participants agree although this is, of course, preferred. In general, the dominant view of the working group shall prevail. (However, it must be noted that "dominance" is not to be determined on the basis of volume or persistence, but rather a more general sense of agreement.) Consensus can be determined by a show of hands, humming, or any other means on which the WG agrees (by rough consensus, of course). Note that 51% of the working group does not qualify as "rough consensus" and 99% is better than rough. It is up to the Chair to determine if rough consensus has been reached. It can be particularly challenging to gauge the level of consensus on a mailing list. There are two different cases where a working group may be trying to understand the level of consensus via a mailing list discussion. But in both cases the volume of messages on a topic is not, by itself, a good indicator of consensus since one or two individuals may be generating much of the traffic. In the case where a consensus which has been reached during a face- to-face meeting is being verified on a mailing list the people who were in the meeting and expressed agreement must be taken into account. If there were 100 people in a meeting and only a few people on the mailing list disagree with the consensus of the meeting then the consensus should be seen as being verified. Note that enough time should be given to the verification process for the mailing list readers to understand and consider any objections that may be raised on the list. The normal two week last-call period should be sufficient for this. The other case is where the discussion has been held entirely over the mailing list. The determination of the level of consensus may be harder to do in this case since most people subscribed to mailing lists do not actively participate in discussions on the list. It is left to the discretion of the working group chair how to evaluate the level of consensus. The most common method used is for the working group chair to state what he or she believes to be the consensus view and. at the same time, requests comments from the list about the stated conclusion. The challenge to managing working group sessions is to balance the need for open and fair consideration of the issues against the need to make forward progress. The working group, as a whole, has the final responsibility for striking this balance. The Chair has the responsibility for overseeing the process but may delegate direct process management to a formally-designated Facilitator. It is occasionally appropriate to revisit a topic, to re-evaluate alternatives or to improve the group's understanding of a relevant decision. However, unnecessary repeated discussions on issues can be avoided if the Chair makes sure that the main arguments in the discussion (and the outcome) are summarized and archived after a discussion has come to conclusion. It is also good practice to note important decisions/consensus reached by email in the minutes of the next 'live' session, and to summarize briefly the decision-making history in the final documents the WG produces. To facilitate making forward progress, a Working Group Chair may wish to decide to reject or defer the input from a member, based upon the following criteria: Old The input pertains to a topic that already has been resolved and is redundant with information previously available; Minor The input is new and pertains to a topic that has already been resolved, but it is felt to be of minor import to the existing decision; Timing The input pertains to a topic that the working group has not yet opened for discussion; or Scope The input is outside of the scope of the working group charter."