Comment by impendia | Hacker News Reader

Comment by impendia | Hacker News Reader

I'm a university professor, and I served on the Faculty Senate for several years. Our meetings were conducted by Robert's Rules.

I share the negative views expressed here by others. Following the rules amounted to a form of bikeshedding. For example:

"The Committee on Curriculum on Courses presents a list of 83 proposed changes to the Undergraduate Course Schedule. ... Is there a motion?"

And so we go through an elaborate procedure, to make sure that everything is discussed and voted on "correctly". In reality, usually nobody read any of the documents that were provided in advance, and there is neither any discussion nor any dissent. At most, someone from Department X will object to some proposal that their own department has "requested", and ask that it be stricken.

Occasionally the meetings get heated, in which case I agree that some sort of formal procedure is a good thing. But "following the rules" allows everyone in the room to believe that we've done our jobs. And when we've endured mysterious and unexplained budget cuts, at a time when tuition and enrollment are both at record highs, I'm not convinced we have.

You have the option to move to split the motion, so that that items 21 and 45 are voted on separately and all the noncontroversial items can be passed.

The rules are for a body that has the power to make binding decisions. That's sometimes time-consuming, but that's the nature of democracy.

The rules themselves on the subject:

> General Consent or Unanimous Vote. By general, or unanimous, or silent, consent the assembly can do business with little regard for the rules of procedure, as they are made for the protection of the minority, and when there is no minority to protect, there is little use for the restraint of the rules, except such as protect the rights of absent members, or the right to a secret vote. [1915 edition]

Don't forget that key that if there isn't a minority to protect, you don't need all the rules. Split the things that people actually need to discuss out of the stuff that is unanimous, move that the unanimous stuff be won by acclimation, and move on to the stuff that actually needs to be discussed. Even Robert's Rules says to do it. People like processes, and following processes to their logical extremes, but at the end of the day the process exists for a goal ("give minorities a voice", in this case), and outside of that goal/need becomes silly and overbearing, and it knows it which is why it has always had escape valves.

It reminds me of a saying about democracy which is something like "democracy is a terrible system except all other systems are worse".

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