Skip to content
This repository has been archived by the owner on May 19, 2023. It is now read-only.

governance.md: Specify Robert's Rules of Order as the default rule set #22

Merged
merged 1 commit into from Mar 12, 2015

Conversation

wking
Copy link
Contributor

@wking wking commented Mar 10, 2015

Katy Huff pointed out that these are the existing rules used by the
committee 1. This commit just makes that explicit.

I chose the 1921 edition (linked from the new text), because I wanted
the rules to be freely available, and the 1921 edition is out of
copyright in the United States (published in the U.S. before 1923
2). I'm not sure about global copyright laws, but the U.S. is
fairly restrictive, so I expect the 1921 edition is in the public
domain in most other countries as well. John Mark Ockerbloom says
Mexico recently extended their copyrights to lifetime of the author
plus 100 years 3, which would be 2024 (rounding up from May 1923 +
100) for Henry Martyn Robert 4. Ockerbloom was unsure if that term
applied retroactively to older books.

The text I added is suggested by Robert on page 268 of the 1923
edition, except that I replaced "society" with "Foundation" to match
the rest of our constitution.

Among other things, these rules define a quorum for our steering
committee (p258):

The quorum of a body of delagates, unless the by-laws provide for a
smaller quorum, is a majority of the number enrolled as attending
the convention, not those appointed.

He defines a majority vote (p24):

A majority vote when used in these rules means a majority of the
legal votes cast, ignoring blanks, at a legal meeting, a quorum
being present.

And then says that a majority vote is the default (p43):

Motions, as a general rule, require for their adoption only a
majority vote—that is, a majority of the votes cast, a quorum being
present; ...

Note that that's a majority of votes cast, not a majority of the
members. There is an explicit example for a two-thirds vote on p204:

A two-thirds vote means two-thirds of the votes cast, ignoring
blanks which should never be counted. This must not be confused
with a vote of two-thirds of the members present, or two-thirds of
the members, terms sometimes used in by-laws. To illustrate the
difference: Suppose 14 members vote on a question in a meeting of a
society where 20 are present out of a total membership of 70, a
two-thirds vote would be 10; a two-thirds vote of the members
present would be 14; and a vote of two-thirds of the members would
be 47.

Applying that to our seven-member steering committee, the quorum is
four members, and a meeting of four members with all members voting
can pass both majority and two-thirds votes with three members voting
for a motion.

Katy Huff pointed out that these are the existing rules used by the
committee [1].  This commit just makes that explicit.

I chose the 1921 edition (linked from the new text), because I wanted
the rules to be freely available, and the 1921 edition is out of
copyright in the United States (published in the U.S. before 1923
[2]).  I'm not sure about global copyright laws, but the U.S. is
fairly restrictive, so I expect the 1921 edition is in the public
domain in most other countries as well.  John Mark Ockerbloom says
Mexico recently extended their copyrights to lifetime of the author
plus 100 years [3], which would be 2024 (rounding up from May 1923 +
100) for Henry Martyn Robert [4].  Ockerbloom was unsure if that term
applied retroactively to older books.

The text I added is suggested by Robert on page 268 of the 1923
edition, except that I replaced "society" with "Foundation" to match
the rest of our constitution.

Among other things, these rules define a quorum for our steering
committee (p258):

  The quorum of a body of delagates, unless the by-laws provide for a
  smaller quorum, is a majority of the number enrolled as attending
  the convention, not those appointed.

He defines a majority vote (p24):

  A majority vote when used in these rules means a majority of the
  legal votes cast, ignoring blanks, at a legal meeting, a quorum
  being present.

And then says that a majority vote is the default (p43):

  Motions, as a general rule, require for their adoption only a
  majority vote—that is, a majority of the votes cast, a quorum being
  present; ...

Note that that's a majority of votes cast, not a majority of the
members.  There is an explicit example for a two-thirds vote on p204:

  A two-thirds vote means two-thirds of the votes cast, ignoring
  blanks which should never be counted.  This must not be confused
  with a vote of two-thirds of the members present, or two-thirds of
  the members, terms sometimes used in by-laws.  To illustrate the
  difference: Suppose 14 members vote on a question in a meeting of a
  society where 20 are present out of a total membership of 70, a
  two-thirds vote would be 10; a two-thirds vote of the members
  present would be 14; and a vote of two-thirds of the members would
  be 47.

Applying that to our seven-member steering committee, the quorum is
four members, and a meeting of four members with all members voting
can pass both majority and two-thirds votes with three members voting
for a motion.

[1]: swcarpentry#10 (comment)
[2]: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf
[3]: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/okbooks.html#whatpd
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Martyn_Robert
@katyhuff
Copy link
Contributor

Thank you so much for this @wking ! Our next steering committee meeting is Thursday. Assuming we get to this agenda item, we'll handle this pull request accordingly thereafter.

@katyhuff
Copy link
Contributor

@wking ! Thanks so much for this pull request. The Steering Committee appreciates your attention to detail in this matter and are have voted to approve this PR. We are thrilled to officially record our adoption of roberts rules. Thanks.

katyhuff added a commit that referenced this pull request Mar 12, 2015
governance.md: Specify Robert's Rules of Order as the default rule set
@katyhuff katyhuff merged commit b2759e9 into swcarpentry:master Mar 12, 2015
wking added a commit to wking/board that referenced this pull request Mar 12, 2015
On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 12:54:44PM -0700, Katy Huff wrote [1]:
> Suggestion of more concise rephrasing:
>
> "An early election must be immediately scheduled if (1)the steering
> committee passes a motion of no confidence or (2) the Foundation
> Membership submits a petition signed by over half of the Foundation
> Members."

I'm happy dropping "following their usual voting rules" now that [2]
has landed upstream with an explicit default to Robert's Rules.

I've tweaked Katy's suggested capitalization a bit (keeping only
'Foundation' title-cased).  I'm not sure about the purpose of such
capitalization.  A quick search turned up Kathy Sieckman saying [3]:

  The Gregg Reference Manual says there is no uniform style for
  capitalization in legal documents, but common practice is to
  capitalize key terms such as the parties and the type of document
  you are working on.

She goes on to say:

  As for other defined terms in legal documents, I personally think it
  is much clearer if a term is defined and then capitalized
  throughout...

Personally, I think its more readable to stick to the usual non-legal
capitalization conventions.  I consider 'Software Carpentry
Foundation', which I consider a proper name [4].  Maybe folks who read
more CamelCase like the extra capitalization more ;).

[1]: https://github.com/swcarpentry/board/pull/24/files#r26338054
[2]: swcarpentry#22
[3]: http://proofthatblog.com/2014/02/12/capitalization-in-legal-documents/
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_noun#Proper_names
wking added a commit to wking/board that referenced this pull request Mar 12, 2015
On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 12:54:44PM -0700, Katy Huff wrote [1]:
> Suggestion of more concise rephrasing:
>
> "An early election must be immediately scheduled if (1)the steering
> committee passes a motion of no confidence or (2) the Foundation
> Membership submits a petition signed by over half of the Foundation
> Members."

I'm happy dropping "following their usual voting rules" now that [2]
has landed upstream with an explicit default to Robert's Rules.

The "steering committe" capitalization Katy references is from an
earlier version of my branch (since rebased away).  I've updated the
capitalization in her suggested text (and the rest of my earlier work)
to follow her subsequent suggestion:

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 12:57:12PM -0700, Katy Huff wrote [3]:
> - All instances of "committee" or "steering committee" should be
>   "Steering Committee"

I'm not sure about the purpose of such capitalization.  A quick search
turned up Kathy Sieckman saying [4]:

  The Gregg Reference Manual says there is no uniform style for
  capitalization in legal documents, but common practice is to
  capitalize key terms such as the parties and the type of document
  you are working on.

Kathy goes on to say:

  As for other defined terms in legal documents, I personally think it
  is much clearer if a term is defined and then capitalized
  throughout...

Personally, I think its more readable to stick to the usual non-legal
capitalization conventions, but both Katy and Kathy agree, so we're
going with the legal convention.

[1]: https://github.com/swcarpentry/board/pull/24/files#r26338054
[2]: swcarpentry#22
[3]: swcarpentry#24 (comment)
[4]: http://proofthatblog.com/2014/02/12/capitalization-in-legal-documents/
@wking wking deleted the committee-rules branch March 12, 2015 21:58
wking added a commit to wking/board that referenced this pull request Mar 12, 2015
On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 12:54:44PM -0700, Katy Huff wrote [1]:
> Suggestion of more concise rephrasing:
>
> "An early election must be immediately scheduled if (1)the steering
> committee passes a motion of no confidence or (2) the Foundation
> Membership submits a petition signed by over half of the Foundation
> Members."

I'm happy dropping "following their usual voting rules" now that [2]
has landed upstream with an explicit default to Robert's Rules.

The "steering committe" capitalization Katy references is from an
earlier version of my branch (since rebased away).  I've updated the
capitalization in her suggested text (and the rest of my earlier work)
to follow her subsequent suggestion:

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 12:57:12PM -0700, Katy Huff wrote [3]:
> - All instances of "committee" or "steering committee" should be
>   "Steering Committee"

I'm not sure about the purpose of such capitalization.  A quick search
turned up Kathy Sieckman saying [4]:

  The Gregg Reference Manual says there is no uniform style for
  capitalization in legal documents, but common practice is to
  capitalize key terms such as the parties and the type of document
  you are working on.

Kathy goes on to say:

  As for other defined terms in legal documents, I personally think it
  is much clearer if a term is defined and then capitalized
  throughout...

Personally, I think its more readable to stick to the usual non-legal
capitalization conventions, but both Katy and Kathy agree, so we're
going with the legal convention.

[1]: https://github.com/swcarpentry/board/pull/24/files#r26338054
[2]: swcarpentry#22
[3]: swcarpentry#24 (comment)
[4]: http://proofthatblog.com/2014/02/12/capitalization-in-legal-documents/
Sign up for free to subscribe to this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in.
Labels
None yet
Projects
None yet
Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

None yet

2 participants