Consensus on IRC for the most part, but they're all still open for discussion if you disagree with any of them (except the 2nd one - that's the law!).
I'm not objecting to these decisions themselves (I came too late to be part of them).
Not at all, nothing has been done yet (beyond publicising our plans and gathering a list of names), it's not too late to change anything if you have any comments to make.
However, I do object to decisions being made on IRC (or any other form of synchronouse communication). Synchronicity requires one to be present at a given time. In a distributed community this is not possible.
IRC (and other synchronous communications) should only be used to formulate proposals. Decisions must (IMHO) be made on the mailing list with a minimum period of 72 hours for objections.
Absolutely, and that's what's been happening. Once we have a consensus on IRC we put the proposal on meta and there is room for further discussion there. Perhaps we haven't made it clear enough that nothing is final yet - I'll add a notice to the top of the meta page to that effect. I think the decisions should be made on meta rather than this mailing list - it's more easily accessible and allows for better record keeping (finding things in a mailing list archive is not a fun job!).
You can use "lazy consensus" to smooth the flow of these proposals to decisions and avoid the need for vote counting. Lazy consensus means that a proposal becomes a decision if nobody objects within the a defined period of time. If someone objects the proposal is discussed until a new satisfactory proposal is written and the lazy consensus period commences again.
That's pretty much what I understand the definition of consensus to be.
Should it be impossible to come to a unaminous consensus with respect to a proposal then a vote can be called.
Obviously this is not a fully detailed decision making process, some decisions need to be formalised with a vote. However, for most decisions this process is easy to adminster, effective and (most importantly) inclusive.
Voting is not really a good way to make decisions unless you're in an actual meeting with a set group of people, it takes too long otherwise. We've done pretty well with consensus so far, and I think we should just go with a rough consensus formed through discussion if that's the best we can get rather than going to the hassle of a vote. The only vote should be the one for a board - once we have a board they can make the final decisions (after consultation with the community if appropriate).