Re: Questions about the process rules

[Jon Bosak <bosak@boethius.eng.sun.com>]

[eve.maler@east.sun.com:]

| - If a PEOTCP can only attend part of a single meeting, how does
| that count towards their good standing?  Is the initial meeting a
| special case?  E.g., they attend the first hour of a two-hour
| telecon that serves as the initial meeting of a TC, are they a
| voting member?

I think so, based on the observation that initial attendance
usually gets one into the minutes.

| - The bylaws don't specify a particular revision of Robert's
| Rules.  Is there a favored one?  I'm studying both the
| Constitution Society's version (http://www.constitution.org) and
| Darwin Patnode's 1989 revision of the 1876 original, and so far I
| prefer the former.  If I get installed as chair, I'd like to be
| able to point to a particular revision up front to forestall
| arguments.

The bylaws actually do specify a particular version, though that's
not immediately apparent unless you're used to the wording used in
the boilerplate.  The formula

   Robert's Rules of Order, as such rules may be revised from time
   to time

is generally understood to reference the current (ninth) edition
of the series continuously published since 1876.  So if a matter
of procedure ever gets appealed to the OASIS board, this is the
edition I would expect to see used as the final authority.

As a practical matter, however, I think you should use the
electronic version of the 1915 edition that's available from the
Constitution Society.  See the excerpt below from an article I
published on xml.com last year for more on this.

Jon

==================================================================

-----------------------------
About Robert's Rules of Order
-----------------------------

General Henry M. Robert wrote four editions of the work that bears
his name.  The last of these, a complete overhaul of the 1876
original, was published in 1915 as Robert's Rules of Order
Revised, or RROR for short.  RROR went through two very minor
revisions (so minor that they kept the same page numbering), the
first appearing in 1943 and the second or "Seventy-fifth
Anniversary Edition" in 1951.  RROR was printed in a format small
enough to fit in a pocket, so it was truly the "Pocket Manual of
Rules of Order" that Robert originally intended.

To maintain copyright in what had become a family industry,
Robert's heirs completely revised the work in the seventh edition,
published in 1970 as Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised
(RRONR).  This edition could no longer fit in a pocket, but it was
still reasonably compact.  The family continued to add to the
book, however, and the current edition -- the ninth -- is over 700
pages of lawyerly, rambling prose.  To be fair, I should note that
some of this bulk is value added in the form of language that
specifies useful things like procedures for writing corporate
bylaws and rules for running political conventions, but I have to
confess that I cannot bring myself to read the current edition,
and refer to it only to consult sections pointed to from the
commendably thorough index.

Like most corporate constitutions that use Robert's as their
parliamentary authority, the OASIS bylaws contain a formula that
automatically makes each new edition of Robert's the normative
one, so in legal fact, it is the ninth edition that governs OASIS
business.  But while the ninth edition is the one that serves as
our final authority, it's not where I go to answer most practical
questions about procedure.  When I have a question, I go to my
copy of the 1951 edition.  Aided by its shorter scope and clearer
organization, I can find the answer to most ordinary procedural
questions in under a minute.

In addition to being shorter than RRONR, RROR is written in an
old-fashioned, no-nonsense, soldierly style that I personally find
a lot easier to take than the bland corporate prose of the later
editions.  This is, of course, a matter of taste, but for
committee use I would recommend ordering a copy of the 1915 RROR
(now in the public domain), which can be obtained as a paperback
reprint from Quill, ISBN 0-688-05306-8.  Unfortunately, the text
of the Quill reprint has been enlarged and printed on cheaper
paper than in the original, and as a result, even this old version
no longer fits in a pocket, but it is otherwise as good an
authority on parliamentary procedure as you will find.  Paperback
reprints of editions published before the major revision of 1915
are not faithful guides to current practice and should be avoided.

The 1915 RROR is also available over the Internet beginning at

   http://www.constitution.org/rror/rror--00.htm

This version has been reformatted to replace all the references to
page numbers with links to sections instead, which makes it much
easier to use online.  For convenience, I have downloaded the
entire book and put it in a single zip file at

   http://metalab.unc.edu/bosak/rror/rror.zip

Just unzip this into a directory and start with rror--00.htm,
taking care to preserve and abide by the copyright notice at the
top of the file.