A cool insight that was recently shared was: "We might not be able to get consensus, but we might be able to get consent." E.g. perhaps the outcome is not the one you preferred, but you see the value of the decision, and are okay with it.
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This can take many forms. Both active, and passive. Active would include making misleading statements, making up facts, or speaking in half-truths. Passive can be as simple as not doing things. Undermining the process by not participating where requested. Quietly.
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And even better: they can be used in combination! For example, by throwing around some wild claims you force the opposition to fact-check your claims. Which can then serve as a guard to cover for non-participation in the process. Which again only requires to do nothing.
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Often it's hard to prove any of this tho. The undermining of the process to get things their way just wears everyone out around them. The only way I know how to deal with it is through sharp moderation.
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Anyway. I think strong moderation is crucial in consensus-seeking scenarios because else it becomes impossible to make decisions where there's consent. It's essential for the health of projects to remove people who undermine the process, lest their peers burn out or give up.
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Addendum: another fabulous trick that can be employed by bad actors is framing the other side as uncooperative or unreasonable. Especially when the other side is too tired to deal, *they* are the ones who are uncooperative and halt progress. Moderation is *so* important.
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Anyway, I've typed enough for now. This is vaguely on reflecting on several situations I've seen happen in the past few months. Reality is more complex than bad-actor/not-bad actor. But I hope that if you can have one takeaway it's that moderation is crucial to guide consensus.
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End of conversation
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This was an interesting read along those lines: https://medium.com/@elplatt/building-consensus-through-deliberation-in-large-collaborations-organizations-and-cooperatives-79d28c3e3acc …
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