B-Sides: Reading, Race, and “Robert’s Rules of Order” | Hacker News Reader

B-Sides: Reading, Race, and “Robert’s Rules of Order”

publicbooks.org

The professor of non-profit organizations class in law school cautioned us to avoid Robert's Rules warning us that it would lead to discord and overbearing majority rule, preferring Thomas Jefferson's Manual [0] for peaceable and practical reasons. Having used Robert's before attending law school and seeing how its use tore up a club I tend to agree.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson%27s_Manual

Relatedly, it's incredible how thick of a tome "modern" editions of Robert's Rules have become to elucidate every single edge case and complex trivia of nearly every state of the described finite state machine. As a programmer, I laud that kind of detail in the specifications of something I need to build, but meetings aren't run on computers, they run on a group of people, and if the finite state machine can't be easily visualized and shared by everyone in the meeting then it isn't doing its job properly.

The editions in the public domain are so much smaller and faster to read by comparison, though still suffer most of the problems the article points out. It gets the raw gist across without getting lost in trivia. (The 1915 edition is often the most commonly recommended. [1]) There are "bugs" fixed in later editions, but the answer is more often YAGNI (you aren't going to need it) and if you do, you are a) in deep, possibly with too many "rules lawyers" trying to D&D min/max your meetings, or b) the edition is public domain so DIY hack your own bug fix.

There is a certain satisfaction to only running meetings on public domain editions of Robert's Rules, including that it is free as in beer and speech to do so, and it can be worth throwing out some of the bathwater from "modern" editions (including in spite of if you think there's a baby in there in some of the "bug fixes").

I knew someone whose favorite "edition" was the Robert's Rules Simplified of 1937 that is also mentioned in the first paragraph of the article. I think it will be a big day for meeting governance once that is finally in the public domain as well.

(I think procedures manuals such as Robert's Rules are a strong case against how absurdly long copyright has become. Finite state machines for controlled meeting operation should be easy to hack and share. Everyone has meetings in their lives. Good shared FSMs make meetings run smoother. Access to the "source code" of those FSMs shouldn't be limited to a cabal of people buying expensive books and/or planning to use rules trivia to bludgeon meetings into shapes they enjoy or think they control.)

[1] One PDF source: https://robertsrules.org/robertsrules.pdf

I've read it, multiple times.

Yes I think some rules could be cleaned up and improved for the modern age.

But when it's actually followed, meetings flow very well. I know because I did it for 4 years with weekly meetings.

The problem is most people don't want to follow the rules and don't want to listen that they actually help, so meetings are run terribly and ROR gets blamed.

If you end up concluding "the problem is most people", then you are likely missing the point. Rules need to work for everyone. Including those who are newcomers, those who don't have the time to study them, or who aren't educated enough to understand them fully. If "most people" refuse to use them, then clearly there's an underlying problem and blaming it on them simply sweeps it under the carpet.

I took part in a non-profit with monthly meetings that were supposed to be governed by Robert's Rules, or at least some formal parliamentary procedures. We were all 100% ignorant of those rules and so the meetings were chaotic free-for-alls. I myself, having never been a party to regular work meetings or any well-run organization that went "by the book", I was dismayed at how inefficient and disorganized we were.

In community college I ran into a fellow (who coincidentally happened to be a member of that aforementiond org) and was also a hard-core Parliamentarian, i.e. he was a club member and attended their regular meetings on PP itself. He stressed how important it was for me to learn PP, and that if I didn't, "others will take advantage of you." And that's correct, because if meetings are to be run by PP, then the ones who know the rules will dominate; never mind the majority's wishes.

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