Question for the Candidates - Roberts Rules of Order

Dec 14 03:37 UTC 1998

(I should probably have gotten around to this earlier.  Nevertheless, I
have 2 questions (at least!) for the board candidates.  Even if they
don't help anyone else, the answers will certainly help me, since I
haven't voted yet.  I'll enter each in a separate item, in case they
spawn any discussion.)

My first question has to do with that old horse, ``Roberts Rules of
Orders''.  I believe at least one of the candidates is a board member of
at least one rival organization which uses ROR.  Grex has traditionally
*not* used ROR.  How comfortable do the various candidates feel about
the current de facto rules used?  How much importance would the board
candidates place on adopting ROR?  ROR, by design, is not an effective
tool for consensus building, and is not very inviting towards outsiders.
Unfortunately, these 2 ideals have traditionally been considered very
important on grex, although like any ideal, we haven't always been
perfect about them.  What would you do to work towards these grex goals,
if ROR were adopted? Under ROR, the chairperson of a meeting is a very
powerful person, and would have special responsibiltiies in terms of the
above grexian ideals.  Who among the continuing board and candidates do
you feel is qualified to act as president and likely to respect these
grexian ideals?

response 2 of 41:

Dec 14 16:00 UTC 1998

Under Roberts Rules of Order, the overriding principle is to run the 
meeting smoothly, in an orderly manner, providing everyone who should be 
able to speak the opportunity to do so, but to facilitate coming to a 
resolution whenever possible.  There are a lot of procedures that can be 
used under RRO, but those that aren't needed aren't supposed to be left 
in as bureaucratic intrusions.

From http://www.psychiatry.ubc.ca/dept/rulesord/principles.htm:
(Roberts Rules of Order: Simplified)

1.The purpose of parliamentary procedure is to make it easier for people 
to work together effectively and to help groups accomplish their 
purposes. Rules of procedure should assist a meeting, not inhibit it. 


They may not be needed for Grex meetings, but they aren't either 
difficult to use, or a means by which a crafty RRO devotee will be able 
to take over Grex meetings.  Read them for suggestions, anyway.  Adopt 
the parts that make sense.

response 4 of 41:

Dec 14 18:56 UTC 1998

The main reason for adopting RRoO by a statement in the bylaws  is
because rules that are just used because they make sense are not
really rules - they are just conscensus (perhaps...) procedures.
There may be a problem for them not to be appropriate (fair) for
some new situation. 

I did observe, when I served on the Grex board, that RRoO would
have been very helpful in quite a few instances. 

response 6 of 41:

Dec 15 06:21 UTC 1998

Stopping long, rambling, discursive and off the topic discussions.
Properly ordering the amendment process for efficiency and fairness.
Preventing debate of undebateable issues.
These come to mind...but there were many more. 

response 8 of 41:

Dec 15 16:27 UTC 1998

Being familiar with the process would put in peoples minds that they
should stay on topic. RRoO is not just a procedure, but a way of thinking
and ordering behavior - a philosophy, if you will - for both expeditious
and fair consideration of business. The origin of RRoO could not have been
more "grexian": it was written by a Corps of Engineer Brigadier-General,
but specifically for events such as church meetings, and he said of the
first edition that it was "a fifteen-page manual for the guidance of
himself and his friends in conducting the deliberative work of charitable,
social and civic organizations in which they might be interested". (If you
detect more than a casual interest...I collect editions. The first edition
was published in 1876. I have an 1885 edition that belonged to Michigan
governor (1911-12)  Chase S. Osborn.) Grex sort of follows the founders'
somewhat random knowledge of RRoO. However the founders won't always be
around. They would bestow upon Grex a lasting legacy if they would either
write down their Rules or Order, or adopt Robert's with (as Robert
suggested) their own additions for the peculiar Grex needs. 

response 10 of 41:

Dec 15 17:17 UTC 1998

Dreamer....give a little thought at a board meeting to each time some
implicit "rule" is invoked in such "simple" actions as recognizing
a person to speak, making a motion, admending it, disposing of it
(postponing, tabling, voting, etc).... Robert started out with 15 
pages. 

response 12 of 41:

Dec 15 20:36 UTC 1998

(I don't think the candidates particularly want to take a position on
this and are glad to have it hijacked...  8^}  Very few people have
had any experience with RRoO, so most can't take a position on its use,
except maybe from hearsay.)

response 14 of 41:

Dec 15 20:55 UTC 1998

Bleah.  I don't want to have to learn another programming language.

response 16 of 41:

Dec 16 06:42 UTC 1998

If most of the board wanted to run with RRO, I'd say the board should
vote to operate under RRO for the next year.  I don't see that this is
something that needs to be etched in stone one way or the other.  Each
board should figure out what best allows them to get their job done, and
should then do things that way.

If a majority of people on the board wanted to run under RRO, I'd be
perfectly willing to do so.  I don't have a problem with RRO.  I do
believe that they generally make meetings between contentious people
work more smoothly.  I don't think we particularly need them right now.

It's certainly possible for a group of people to get elected to the
board who don't work well together, and get actively contentious.  If
that ever happened, I think RRO would likely help.  If that happened, it
might be hard to vote RRO into place, so it might be easier to establish
use of RRO before you need it.

However, I don't think that RRO is absolutely needed to make a
contention meeting work.  It's one thing that can help, but there are
lots of others.  Since I don't anticipate having a contentious board any
time in the near future, the whole issue basically seems pointless to
me.

The board has better things to think about that whether or not use RRO.

response 18 of 41:

Dec 16 06:58 UTC 1998

Given the elections are now over, it's quite fair to hijack this item.
With this item especially, I wish I had gotten my act together to enter
it sooner, but it's academic now.

Robert didn't start with 15 pages.  He started with the rules of order
used in the US congress, which had evolved to deal with the needs of a
*large* organization.  Some of those needs included pretty much
excluding outsiders and other visitors from contributing to the meeting,
except under *very* strict conditions, and the mechanics of resolving a
many-many complex relationship in something less than O(n!) time.

There are times when "debating the undebatable" is in fact important.
Right now, debating CDA III falls into the "undebatable" class.  When
CDA III happens, it will flip, and it will have *been* important to
*have* debated CDA III.  Much of that discussion should have happened
here, but there are parts the board members will have to specifically
address.  With the US congress, since these people eat sleep and breath
together, a lot of this consensus building process is invisible to us;
it happens in the cloakroom, where we can't see it, or less formally,
elsewhere.  Many of the grex board members, on the other hand, don't see
each other except at board meetings.  Now, there are *provisions* within
RRO where you can do all sorts of magic stuff.  But there's nothing in
RRO that says *why* you would do this, and indeed, by a literal reading
of RRO, you would think that there should *never* be a reason to do
this.  And that's the rub with RRO.  It's easy to think RRO is a
sufficient guide for how to run the "best" possible meeting, and it's
just not so.  It is *much* easier to tell people "we don't use RRO" then
borrow the parts that are useful, than it is to tell people "we use RRO"
and explain why we're being "creative" and breaking the rules.

response 20 of 41:

Dec 16 12:32 UTC 1998

   Rane, I agree that it might cause problems in the future.  Thats
why we didn't cast anything in stone.  Grex, at this stage in its
existence did not find rro needed.  But perhaps some other board
will--and while I would personally not be happy with it, that future
board needs to determine how it wants to do things.  At least we
haven't done anything to prevent that from happening.

response 22 of 41:

Dec 16 18:45 UTC 1998

   You know Rane, I find it interesting that you, a non-programmer type
(at least I don't think you are, are you?) has consistently pushed for
a precedural system like rro, when seemingly most of the techie types
who are or have been on the board aren't in favor of them.

   I'd like to think that the rules for a Grex board meeting (or any
other kind of meeting) are based on communications and a willingness
to express oneself, and a same willingness to listen to others.

   I think the board has done very well in its 6+ years of existence.
Could it be done better?  Well, yes.  There have been times when we're
able to distract ourselves with the most interesting tangents.  But that
is the curse of trying to herd cats, which is a discipline problem and
not any better controlled by a different set of governance systems.

response 24 of 41:

Dec 17 11:30 UTC 1998

Heh.  Yes, RRO is something a Fortran programmer might love.