[EM] Comments re Robert's Rules of Order

[RLSuter at aol.com]

A few quotes from the latest Lomax post then a few comments. I'm
sorry but I really don't have time for more. Meetings rules and
parliamentary procedure, especially in light of modern day
research on voting methods and other research on group
communication and decisionmaking, is a subject I would love
to have much more time to devote to.

#1
> I'll stand with what I wrote: Mr. Suter does not understand Robert's Rules, 
> so his criticism of the Rules is ... off. For one thing, Robert's Rules are 
> simply a default set of rules developed over a very long period of 
> experience with deliberative bodies. Robert did not invent the rules, in 
> general, he codified them, as I understand the history.

#2
> What Mr. Suter does not realize is that he is debating this with someone 
> who has been doing [research regarding better meeting rules and
> methods] for forty years.

#3
> Voting method, under Robert's Rules, is certainly at the discretion of the 
> assembly. I really don't remember much in the Rules about voting methods, 
> it is not a primary concern of the rules. I'd have to look it up.

I'm puzzled. You say you've been doing such research for forty years,
yet you admit to having only a fairly sketchy understanding of the
history of Robert's Rules, even though a lot has been written about
that history. I'm curious what sort of research you have been doing?
Are you an academic who has been doing this in relation to your
academic field? I don't mean to challenge your credentials. I just
would like to know more about what they are.

The history of Robert's rules is pretty simple and widely known.
Henry M. Robert (1837-1923) was an Army officer who decided to
research rules of order after having an embarrassing experience
conducting a church meeting and realizing he didn't know very
well what he was doing. He put together his rules after studying
previously written works on parliamentary procedure, and he
wrote them especially for the benefit of civic organizations as
opposed to legislative bodies. The first edition came out in 1876.

That, as I said earlier, was almost exactly 100 years before the
invention of approval voting by several American academics. So
as well thought out as Robert's Rules are, they clearly were written
by someone whose knowledge of alternative voting methods was
much more limited than that of most people on this list. Much else
has been learned about collective decisionmaking and group
processes in recent years, including things that I suspect could
usefully be incorporated into systems and rules for conducting
meetings of different kinds involving different numbers of people.

One thing I want to make clear. You say you are debating with me,
but I definitely am not debating with you. I don't like debates and refuse
to participate in them. I prefer dialogues, with the goal being mutual
learning. Now maybe I have a lot more to learn about this subject than
you do, though at this point I'm far from persuaded of that. In any case,
I have a fairly extensive though also very unusual range of knowledge
regarding decisionmaking problems and processes of different kinds,
including but not limited to meeting processes. So I think I may
actually know a few things you don't know. I'm not an academic,
but I am a very serious independent scholar and activist and
have been for about 35 years.

But I'm not interested in even dialoguing with someone who relies
on a form of argument that begins with "Mr. Suter does not understand
Robert's Rules" and concludes that therefore "his criticism of the
Rules is ... off" If you knew the rules as well as you claim to, and
If I was a badly informed about them as you have said, you would
not have made the third comment above, and I would not be sitting
here wondering how you could claim to be so knowledgeable about
the rules yet be so uncertain about what they say about voting
methods that you would have to look it up. You're right that they
don't say very much. That is arguably the single most serious
omission of Robert's Rules, and it's an omission that I would think
subscribers to this list would regard as worth noting and dicussing
much more seriously than you have been willing to do.

-Ralph Suter