Chapter 9g
Formal Business Forums
'In Session' forums that are perpetually 'Called to Order'


The other type of interactive communications forum that we imagine every Local Group will maintain will be its ‘In Session’ forum, (as opposed to General Discussion Forums). These forums will be perpetually ‘called to order’, or ‘in session’, and will be conducted according to much more formalized rules of participation. The software technology through which these forums function will need to contain tools that are devised to conduct the Group’s proceedings and formal business in compliance with established formalized procedures.

It is within these ‘in session’ forums that the Local Groups’ democratic decision making will take place. Much thought will be required to create procedures that will adapt orderly ‘Robert’s Rules’ type democratic procedures to this interactive digital medium, with the goal of freeing proceedings from ‘real time’ constraints, to allow people to fully participate without meeting directly in either time or place.

Conducting the Groups’ business through interactive Internet communications frees citizen-members from the constraint of being required to be in one place in order to conduct business and make decisions. Properly devised procedures can free people from the constraint of having to come together at a specified time. This is where the real potential power of this entire proposed concept lies. People can communicate with the Group, to follow its proceedings and actively participate, at times of their own choosing, as their schedules allow.

Procedures for conducting business will have to evolve, as Groups grow larger. Provisions will likely be required to manage a Group’s agenda, for example, when it reaches a size that does not permit motions that introduce new agenda items being advanced directly ‘from the floor’ at will. In large Groups this might very well cause an unmanageable number of issues to flood and overwhelm the Group’s attention.

In small Groups this will not likely be a problem, but as any Group grows larger, means will likely be required to prevent an unmanageable number of agenda items being in front of the Group at any given time. This might involve agenda items being submitted to an ‘agenda committee’, for example, to be scheduled to be presented in an orderly priority and fashion, with limits being placed on the number of undecided agenda items that can be ‘on the floor’ at any one time.

Such formal procedures must be spelled out in painstaking detail, in order to ensure scrupulous fairness throughout all aspects of procedure. We must remember that Democracy is a means for sharing power between competing interests. One way to look at it is that Democracy provides the orderly means for people to disagree over their competing self-interests. We must remember that competition is always involved, and that in competing, people will always seek to manipulate established rules for any advantage to be gained. The better that established rules can anticipate the ways that they might be manipulated, the more successful they can be at preventing competing parties from gaining advantage through this kind of manipulation.

People who have experience in parliamentary rules and procedures, perhaps even people who have served in State legislatures, or the US Congress, could provide us with invaluable assistance in devising procedures that manage the orderly flow of a legislative body’s business, without prejudice to favor or hinder individual agenda items, or competing parties. (In some cases, this kind of experience might provide us with valuable insights into what NOT to do).

Let’s imagine a greatly simplified ‘prototype’ procedure, in order to try to illustrate how business could be conducted, (at least in a small Group), in a manner that allows participation at the convenience of citizen-members, (divorced from the constraints of ‘real time’).

Let’s posit that the organization’s constitution requires that Local Groups shall elect a small board of presiding officers, say three, or five. A very small Local Group might manage well with only one presiding officer, but having a board of cooperating presiding officers can allow that at least one presiding officer will be ‘present’ to manage proceedings a greater percentage of the time. Sharing these duties among a board can also help to prevent this office from becoming an undue burden on any one person. Let’s posit that the duties of presiding officers will include managing the number of items that are ‘on the floor’ at any one time.

In a real time meeting, only one person can be allowed to speak at a time, but in this medium, people can send their written ‘speeches’, concerning items that are open on the floor, at will, since recipients of these written ‘speeches’ can absorb them, at their convenience, over time.

Software tools can provide forms through which ‘speeches’ are made. These forms will require that the agenda items being addressed will be identified, and the ‘speeches’ from various members can be threaded together by the items they address.

When a ‘motion’ is presented by a citizen-member, it will be made on an ‘action proposal form’ provided by the software, (which will automatically generate an identifying number and name for the motion). A presiding officer will then either allow the motion to the floor, or else refer it to an ‘agenda committee’ for scheduling, if the allowable number of agenda items are already ‘open on the floor’.

These functions, of presiding officers and agenda committee, could actually be provided automatically by the software, which could be programmed to keep track of the number of open agenda items, and when the allowable limit has been reached, it could simply line up new motions in queue. This might present difficulties, however, since it might give anyone bent on deliberate disruption the ability to tie up the Group in a flurry of frivolous motions, so some means might likely be necessary to apply democratic discrimination between motions, to prioritize them according to merit. This is a good example of how rules must evolve over time, and anticipate possible unintended consequences. There are many creative ways that problems like these can be addressed.

When a motion is declared to be open on the floor, (whether automatically by the software, or by the actions of presiding officers), a set time limit, (say 24 hours), for receiving a ‘second’ will begin to count down. The software-generated notice of the motion coming to the floor, which is sent out to all members, can contain a provision, (a check box that the software will recognize), for any member to register a ‘second’. If the time for a second expires with no second having been received, the motion will be dismissed from the floor, and a new motion in queue (if any), will be introduced.

When a ‘second’ is registered for a motion, a ‘moved and seconded’ announcement will be automatically generated by the software, and the statutory period for discussion will begin to count down. Motions might be classified by their nature, with different time periods for discussion allowed for different classes of motions. Routine procedural motions, such as, “I move that we accept the Treasurer’s report for the current month to be complete, and accurate, and that it be entered into the record”, to be held open for a shorter period, (say 36 or 48 hours), while motions of more major import to the Group, motions that require deeper discussion and deliberation, (concerning major expenditures of resources, or motions for undertaking major projects, for example), would be held open for a commensurately longer time, say 168 hours, (one week), or 240 hours (ten days).

During this established period of discussion, citizen-members can post their opinions concerning the motion at will, within established average ppd (post per day) limits for each citizen-member on each motion. Comments will be made through forms that are specific to each motion, so the software can easily track each member’s ppd avg. concerning each individual motion, and automatically restrict posting for each member to allowable limits, as they are established for each motion.

The software can also automatically track the allowable time for discussion, counting down from the time that a ‘moved and seconded’ notice is posted, and when the time expires, the software can automatically issue a declaration that discussion on that motion is closed, and a vote is called.

Citizen-members can then vote on the motion through secure procedures that ensure that each can only cast one vote. Voting will be held open on a motion for an established period of time, (say 36 to 48 hours), which can be automatically tracked by the software, with the voting automatically closed at the appointed time. When the established time expires, votes will be automatically counted by the software, and the results automatically posted. A record of each citizen-member’s vote on each item can be published into the archival record, so that every citizen can have access to assure accuracy and oversight.

All this could be accomplished by the software technology through which the group functions. Human interventions will be required at key junctures, (such as those mentioned above), but many of these chores can be accomplished by allowing computer technology to do what it does best, which is to keep track of what happens, to count, and to cause things to happen when it is programmed to cause them to happen, thereby freeing humans from the burdens of these tedious and time consuming tasks.

These procedural ideas and examples, as outlined above, are only intended to be a simple outline for purposes of illustration. It should be obvious that a huge degree of consideration will be required to establish the actual parliamentary procedures that the organization will employ, with great thought put into the ways that any established procedures might be manipulated in such a way that will detract from the quality of the organization’s democratic functionality, in order to best devise procedures that will be consistently fair to all participants.


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