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| layout: page |
| title: Building Consensus |
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| |
| <p>In some cases there is no obvious path to take, or you might be a new community, |
| or a new member of an existing community. In these cases people will often |
| need to build consensus by making proposals and eliciting responses.</p> |
| <p>We want to avoid unnecessary discussion and the creation of significant |
| amounts of unnecessary mail that everyone in the community needs to read. |
| That is not to say that we want to avoid constructive discussion. This is |
| the lifeblood of a successful project. However, many ASF projects adopt a |
| shorthand notation for showing support, or otherwise, for a proposal.</p> |
| <h2 id="expressing-support-or-otherwise">Expressing support (or otherwise)</h2> |
| <p>The notation used is "+1", "-1" and "0". It's also common to see "+0" and "-0".</p> |
| <p>So, what do these notations mean?</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>+1 means "I agree with this and will help make it happen"</li> |
| <li>+0 means "I agree with this but probably won't make it happen, so my |
| opinion is not that important"</li> |
| <li>-0 means "I don't agree with this, but I'm offering no alternative so |
| my opinion is not that important"</li> |
| <li>-1 means "I don't agree and I am offering an alternative that I am able |
| to help implement"</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>Many people will use fractions to indicate the strength of their feelings, |
| e.g. "+0.5". Some will even indicate this is a "no brainer" with something |
| like "+1000".</p> |
| <p>The important thing is that this is not an exact science. It's just a shorthand |
| way of communicating strength of feeling.</p> |
| <h2 id="consensus-building-is-not-voting">Consensus Building is Not Voting</h2> |
| <p>The confusing thing about this notation is that it is the same notation |
| used in a formal vote. Knowing when something is a vote and when it is a |
| preference is important. It's easy to tell though, if the subject does not have |
| "[Vote]" at the start then it's just an opinion. We try not to call votes, |
| consensus building is much more inclusive.</p> |
| <p>The reasons for this notation being common is |
| that when someone wants to summarise a discussion thread they can mentally |
| add up the strength of feeling of the community and decide if there is consensus |
| or not.</p> |
| <p>Once there is a clear consensus members of the community can proceed with |
| the work under the <a href="https://community.apache.org/committers/lazyConsensus.html">lazy consensus</a> model.</p> |