RE: [wg-d] Robert's Rules

[Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>]

> I like your inquiry, because Roberts Rules are (a) well known, and (b) are
> something we can grow with.
> 
> I have two questions though:
> 
> 1. Does the use of electronic media impede or significantly change the
> perception of non-voting consensus - how can one, for instance, hum via
> email?

I believe that electronics very much does change how we perceive things.
In a face-to-face meeting we have so many human queues, body language, and
means to interact with one another with literally only a few tens of
milliseconds of delay.

In a face to face meeting, a chair can do a pretty good job of measuring
the group's feeling and operating, when there really is agreement, without
necessarily engendering too many calls for votes.

E-mail is, well, e-mail is a pool of gasoline waiting for a flame.

I expect that we are going to have to experiment in order to find how to
do this.  I wouldn't say that we are going to be really efficient for a
while.  Can we cross "efficiency" off of our expectations for at least the
first few months?

How do we hum in e-mail?  (Humming came out of the way we held the
SNMP working groups at the IETF.  It was originally intended to be a
humorous way to dissolving tension.)

The answer, at least in my mind, is a good chairman.  I've watched good
chairs in action and as long as they don't have their own agenda, or are
able to put it aside, they can often do a pretty good synthesis of how the
issues are shaping up.

A good chair can, at every point where a decision is needed, state his/her
perception of the issues and the degree of agreement or disagreement.  
The cool thing about Roberts rules is that if the chair says "I feel that
we are in agreement" there is a vehicle through which anyone can say "I
respectfully disagree and would like the matter put to a vote."

If the chair really does make a good faith effort at measuring things and
does not react personally to calls for an actual vote, then I think we can
make the electronic version work.

It has been mentioned that we are really in a more complicated situation
than simply e-mail.

At the San Jose DNSO NC meeting, we had people physically present, people
coming in via e-mail over the net, and people on a conference call.  It
was somewhat chaotic.  For example, during at least one vote a new person
arrived on the conference call.  Observers had a hard time, and I suspect
the chair did as well, figuring out how to tally the vote.


 
> 2. How does this process help when the chair him/her/itself is unfair or
> biased, refusing to see a consensus when there is one, or declaring one when
> there isn't?  Is the solution to then count votes, and get a new chair?

Oh my, that is a bad situation.

When the chair is highly biased, every action is going to be a fight and
the group will bog down.  It will be fairly obvious to outsiders that
something is remiss.

But is it any better when we have "consensus" based working groups and the
chair is biased?  I claim that that would be worse because that process
leaves a cadre of people who are determined to overturn the artificial
published result.

A good chairman is invaluable.

		--karl--