[EM] Comments re Robert's Rules of Order

[Dave Ketchum]

On Thu, 4 Aug 2005 18:55:31 EDT RLSuter at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 8/4/05 5:23:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
> davek at clarityconnect.com writes:
> 
> << Lomax demonstrates familiarity with Robert's Rules (RONR).
>  
>  Suter writes a LOTTA words, for which I have general thoughts: >>
> 
> Some questions you need to answer.


> (1) assuming that Lomax is
> more familiar with RONR than Suter, does that disqualify Suter
> from commenting on RONR? That's what you seem to imply.
Anyone can comment.  You do not demonstrate the familiarity that Lomax does.


> (2) Lomax writes a lot more words than Suter. Are you saying
> that all of Lomax's words make sense and none of Suter's do?

See above.


> (3) Is it possible that you haven't read Suter's words very carefully?

RONR has interested me for many years, so I read both sets of words carefully.


> (4) Is it possible that your biases in favor of RONR are preventing
> you from carefully considering Suter's words?

You might claim bias in that I note that RONR is WIDELY used, such that 
any replacement would have to be noticeably better to deserve inflicting 
on the millions who have trouble keeping up with and using one set of 
rules, let alone two.

> (5) Is there any
> chance in hell that Suter may be at least partly rignt and you
> and/or Lomax may be at least partly wrong, or are you so
> absolutely certain about the near infallibility of RONR that you
> refuse to consider that any but very minor occasional revisions
> of RONR will ever ever be needed, no matter what voting method
> researchers and meeting process researchers and creative
> meeting organizers may ever discover?

Current edition of RONR is several times as thick as the first one I 
learned from.  Thus it certainly has been receiving more than "very minor" 
revisions.  As to voting methods, any set of bylaws can explicitly permit 
approval.  If I was into more bylaw writing I would consider adding 
Condorcet and proposing adding that to RONR.

> 
> -Ralph

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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