[1811] in APO News
A New Intro To Robert's Rules
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (dcctdw@mit.edu)
Mon Apr 29 00:44:57 1996
From: dcctdw@mit.edu
Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 15:16:45 -0400
To: apo-news@mit.edu
A New Intro To Robert's Rules
OK. Robert's Rules, like most things, can be summed up in three rules:
1. The underlying ideas are more important than the incantations.
2. It's meant to help make meetings run faster
3. There's a self-consistent model motivating all this
Let's start with Rule #1. It -really- doesn't matter if you say "Point of
Information" or if you say "Uhh, I have a question about this". Now, if
you -say- "point of information", then everyone else who knows Robert's
Language will know that you have a question about the current topic. So
having a common language is useful, but really, the underlying ideas are
more important. Now, if someone says "Point of Foo", it's OK to say "Uh,
what does that mean?" I mean, we're here at a university; we're here to
ask questions.
OK, on to number two. Number two is easy: we want a deterministic way for
meetings to run quickly. (No, really, we -like- bagazillion hour-long
meetings!) OK, this point was pretty easy.
And the last one is the self-consistent underlying model, which can be
summed up in three points:
1. Preserve the will of the majority.
2. Protect the rights of the minority.
3. Be nice to each other.
OK...
So, if you want to Have The Chapter Do Something, you submit a motion.
Whee! And if you want to change the wording, you amend it. So, you make a
motion to admend the current motion. Now, because we don't want to go off
into Silly-land, Robert's Rules arbitrarily states that you can only amend
an amendment to a motion. You can't have amendments to amendments to
amendments to motions, because, for starters, that's entirley too long to
type.
You also don't consider forty motions at once, because this is confusing.
So you only do things (motions) one at a time.
You don't interrupt people unless it's really important. So if you have
something to say in the debate, you wait your turn. But if something is
-really- important, you can interrupt. (Excuse me, Madame President, but
the room's on fire. Can we temporaily recess?)
And if you're #358 on the queue and you want to limit debate to five more
minutes, you can gently jump the queue. Technically speaking, you can
interrupt someone, but that's not very nice. Wait for them to finish, and
then as the Chair is calling on the next person, pipe up politely. Or if
you think the Chair is being fascist and you want to overturn their
decision, or want to ask a question about what the -heck- is going on, you
can pipe up. But you can't to, say, make an admendment. It's not that
critical, so you should wait your turn.
Do you need a second? Well, some things require a second. Motions require
a second. But asking a question doesn't.
Some motions are debatable. Main motions are. Admendments are. Asking if
people need to discuss this further doesn't require a second -- you're just
asking a simple question.
So that's the underlying principle. Questions can interrupt and don't need
seconds. Statements/arguments can't interrupt and do need seconds. And
people who twist these rules get thrown into the Charles.
