| Title: Consensus Building |
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| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| ## Expressing support (or otherwise) |
| |
| First of all, it is important to understand that everyone is invited to express |
| their opinion of any given action or proposal. Apache projects are community |
| projects in which no single individual has more power than any other single |
| individual (except in a very few procedural situations). |
| |
| The notation used is "+1", "-1" and "0". It's also common to see "+0" and "-0". |
| |
| So, what do these notations mean? |
| |
| - +1 means "I agree with this and will help make it happen" |
| - +0 means "I agree with this but probably won't make it happen, so my |
| opinion is not that important" |
| - -0 means "I don't agree with this, but I'm offering no alternative so |
| my opinion is not that important" |
| - -1 means "I don't agree and I am offering an alternative that I am able |
| to help implement" |
| |
| 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". |
| |
| The important thing is that this is not an exact science. It's just a shorthand |
| way of communicating strength of feeling. |
| |
| ## Consensus Building is Not Voting |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| Once there is a clear consensus members of the community can proceed with |
| the work under the [lazy consensus][1] model. |
| |
| [1]: /committers/lazyConsensus.html |