WSFS Rules: Postpone Indefinitely

[kevin_standlee]

Yesterday I wrote about Objection to Consideration and how it lands on new business like a 16-ton weight. It is particularly jarring to newcomers who haven't been to previous meetings and have a tendency to take it personally when a bunch of Usual Suspects jump up and yell "Objection" the moment their proposals come to floor, before they've even had a chance to make their opening argument. As I pointed out yesterday, that's because you must object at the very first chance or you can't do it at all, and we end up mis-using the motion (which really is supposed to only be used against personal attacks and issues that might be harmful to the organization to even debate) because it's the only tool left in the WSFS parliamentary bag for dealing with proposals that have little hope of ever passing and are likely to clutter the agenda needlessly.

Under the basic unmodified Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised (hereafter RONR), there are other ways of clearing things off the agenda. WSFS, however, has over the years changed its rules to make it very difficult to use them, and consequently has left itself with only the most obnoxious and possibly least-well-known way of killing no-hope motions. The easiest of the currently-prohibited methods is the subsidiary motion Postpone Indefinitely (PI). This motion isn't really a motion to "postpone" (unlike, say, a motion "To postpone consideration of Item 4.1 until no earlier than 11:05 AM"), but to kill the main motion. It can be applied to any main motion like a constitutional amendment, but only if there are no other motions pending. (For instance, you can't move PI when there's a motion to Amend or to Refer to Committee pending.) If it passes, the main motion is dead for the duration of this year's meeting. (It can, naturally, be reintroduced next year; you can't tie the hands of a future Business Meeting other than by amending the constitution.) It's debatable, so (unlike Objection to Consideration) you can say why you want to kill the motion, while the proposal's proponents can counter with why we should continue to consider it. If it passes, it can be Reconsidered (that is, one of the people who voted to kill the motion can later ask that we think about it again, and the motion to Reconsider is itself debatable), although WSFS almost never Reconsiders a motion, and doing so tends to be thought of as a "parliamentary trick," particularly inasmuch as it's a concept apparently unique to American parliamentary law. The motion to Postpone Indefinitely requires only a majority vote.

WSFS prohibits Postpone Indefinitely in two different ways: Standing Rule 1.2 says, in part:

The Preliminary Business Meeting may not postpone consideration of a Constitutional amendment beyond the last Preliminary Business Meeting.

Standing Rule 5.3 says:

The motion to Postpone Indefinitely shall not be allowed.

Now, because it's prohibited by a Standing Rule, not by the Constitution, you can Suspend the Rules and Postpone Indefinitely; however, that requires a 2/3 vote and is not debatable. In effect, it's exactly the same as Objection to Consideration, although it can be moved at any time instead of only just as the motion comes before the meeting.

So why does WSFS generally prohibit or hamstring this seemingly-useful procedural motion? Well, I wasn't there when the prohibition was first made, but I've heard at least two reasons, both of which are generally plausible:

• It's Too Easy: PI only requires a majority to kill a motion, and may appear to be "trickery."


• It Wastes Time: Because it's a question technically different from the motion it's trying to kill, people opposed to a motion who have exhausted their right to debate the motion can use it to "renew" the debate. Given how little time we have available for debate at the Business Meeting, this is generally seen to be a bad thing.

WSFS has occasionally used Suspend the Rules and Postpone Indefinitely, mainly when motions have come up and been briefly debated before people realized that the Business Meeting really didn't want to vote for or against the motion but would prefer to duck the issue entirely.

The higher-ranking (can be made when things like Amend or Refer are pending) motion To Lay On The Table is intended not to actually kill motions, but to set them aside temporarily without a specific time for taking them back up again. For example, you might Lay on the Table a pending constitutional amendment so that a representative of a past Worldcon with a requested financial report who has only a short time to address the meeting could give the report, then Take from the Table the laid-aside motion when the report is done.

In colloquial American speech, "to Table" has come to mean "to set aside indefinitely." That may be on account of the usage of the US House of Representatives, where motions that are Laid on the Table are almost impossible to recover. This colloquial usage leads to all sorts of confusion, because in British usage, "to table" means the exact opposite of the American usage: it means "To place before the body for consideration." Famously, this caused conflicts between American and British military planners in World War II, where both groups were using the same words to mean opposite things.

Motions that have been Laid on the Table and not taken back up (Take from the Table only requires a majority vote) by the end of the meeting die. WSFS apparently didn't like using Lay on the Table to kill motions and therefore requires a 2/3 vote on the undebatable motion Lay on the Table. We almost never use it, to the extent that it's often difficult to explain to the assembly what's going on when one of the few valid usages (I cited one above) comes up.

I have been persuaded that WSFS has gone overboard in its zeal to suppress business-killing motions, to its detriment. Consequently, I'm thinking of introducing a rules change to next year's Business Meeting to allow Postpone Indefinitely to be made once again, at least in a limited form.

First, strike out the restriction in Rule 1.2. Second, modify Rule 5.3 thusly:

Rule 5.3: Postpone Indefinitely. The motion to Postpone Indefinitely (Strike From the Agenda) shall not be allowed only be in order at the Preliminary Business Meeting, shall require a 2/3 vote, and debate on the motion shall be limited to 4 minutes.

This would permit the motion to Postpone Indefinitely in its debatable form, but only at the Preliminary Business Meeting, and would limit the debate to 4 minutes. That means the person moving to PI would have up to two minutes to explain why the proposal doesn't deserve to move on to the Main Business Meeting for debate, while the proponents of the proposal would have up to two minutes to defend the proposal and justify why it deserves at least a chance at debate. By the nature of such things, debate could go into the merits of the proposal, but with only two minutes, you would need to be very efficient. (Debate could be extended, but that requires a 2/3 vote.)

Using PI at the Main Meeting would still require Suspend the Rules and would thus be undebatable, which would continue to prevent it from being used to renew debate for those people who have exhausted their right to speak. (You can't speak to a motion more than twice, nor more than once if anyone else wants to speak to it.)

I do not think that giving proponents of a motion two minutes to make their basic case for the mere consideration of a proposal is going to cause WSFS to fall apart. Furthermore, there's a chance that if such a process had been in place this year, the proponents of the YA Hugo (who appear to have taken the most offense over being OTC'd) could have said, "We'd like to refer this to a committee to report back next year, but the rules won't let us do so until the Main Meeting, so could you please give us that much of a chance?" Having their motion killed without even being able to tell people, "We know this needs more work and would like to work with the rest of you to study it further" might have seemed a lot less intimidating and threatening than the FOAD way that Objection to Consideration appears to a newcomer. Veterans of the Business Meeting have come to understand that OTC is a standard hazard of new business and try not to take personal offense at it, but I'm not sure it's that reasonable to make an implicit assumption that you shouldn't even dare participate until you've attended four or five years' worth of Business Meetings.

Here's something else that my proposal would require, and it's not something that can easily be done by rule, but by persuasion and by the Chair clamping down on the misuse of OTC. If Postpone Indefinitely is once again legal at the Business Meeting, people who have gotten used to using OTC to kill motions would need to learn a new process and accept that proponents can have at least one chance to make the case for the consideration of their proposals. OTC would (and I think should) be restricted to reprehensible and personally objectionable proposals like the "Chris Carrier" motions I discussed yesterday. That's not easy to do, but I know that if this rule change passes this year in London, I would make it clear that as the 2015 Business Meeting Chair I will consider most OTC attempts to actually be motions to Postpone Indefinitely. The meeting could of course overrule me, but it's difficult to prevent "runaways" when the meeting is packed full of willful people.

I know that not all of you are WSFS rules geeks like I am. Did this explanation make sense? Does the proposal sound reasonable to you? I floated it yesterday on the List That Shall Not Be Named, and got a mixed reaction on both substantive and technical grounds. I mostly reject the technical grounds except to add the phrase "(Strike from the Agenda)" as an alternative name for Postpone Indefinitely the same way "Call the Question, Close Debate, or Vote Now" are all alternative names for the parliamentary term of art "Previous Question." Yes, it might take a little bit of time for the Usual Suspects to get used to new procedures, but they reacted badly to Filling Blanks and Serpentine Voting the first time those ideas were shown to them, whereas today we take such things for granted.

I think we can afford to concede people two minutes in return for not looking like a bunch of pompous, arrogant, hidebound conservatives with wax in our ears.

Comments

[billroper]

I like what you're trying to do, but I think you are going to need to legislate that OTC is only to be used for what you intend it to be used for, or you'll make the Chair's life unnecessarily difficult. Alternatively, you can just give the Chair the power to reclassify an OTC as PI at their discretion and trust the Chair to use that discretion (which I would not have a problem with).

In any case, I appreciate the effort!

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I think it's impossible to legislate. The Chair, in my opinion, already has the power to make such a reclassification, just as he has the power to reclassify a motion "That we Table this matter until 11:15" as "That we Postpone the Matter to 11:15," which is a different (and lower-ranking) motion.

[jcfiala.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good way to try and open things up. To be honest, it seems to me that the OTC could be dropped wholesale if this went through - if something is obviously that bad, then the possibility of spending 4 minutes more to get rid of it doesn't sound that horrible, and it prevents motions that should be PI from being floated as OTC.

But, it's not my meeting, and I certain could imagine that it would be easier to slide in PI first, and then possibly remove OTC later, anyway.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Go read my entry yesterday. Motions to censure people and motions that are implicitly libelous are things that I would prefer not even let the member get one shot at using WSFS's pulpit to promote. But these are rare — once a decade or less, in my experience — so I'd rather we try to retrain the Usual Suspects to be a little more polite and restrain using the bazooka for the really awful proposals as opposed to the merely unpopular ones.

[lindadee.livejournal.com]

I think your motion is very reasonable. The List that Shall Not Be Named spends hours debating a subject, but they forget that the list is not the meeting. And people not on the list are privy to all the arguments. Just because you hear something at the office water fountain doesn't make it official until you hear it from the boss.

[traveller42.livejournal.com]

That is at least worth discussion.

If there is a real alternative to OTC, some might be willing to defeat the OTC and sustain the PI. It also allow the group advancing the motion to "have a say" even if it isn't as much as they would want.

I also has the effect of allowing the possiblity of debate later if we find we have the time, and energy, to do so.

[buddykat.livejournal.com]

I would support this change in the rules.

[(Anonymous)]

I understand what reinstating the motion to Postpone Indefinitely is meant to do, but I don't think that the plan to treat most OTC attempts as motions to Postpone Indefinitely would have the desired effect, because, as you suggested, the meeting could overrule you. Since the Business Meeting regulars are used to the OTC, I could imagine the proceeding going something like this:

Chairman: "Next on the agenda, Item 4.1.7, constitutional amendment to create a Young Adult Hugo."
Member: "I object to consideration."
Other members: "Second!"
Chairman: "As I stated previously, the chair will consider the Objection to Consideration as a motion to Postpone Indefinitely, which is allowed 4 minutes of debate and requires a 2/3 vote."
Member: "Mr. Chairman, I appeal the ruling of the chair. I really do mean this to be an Objection to Consideration, not a motion to Postpone Indefinitely."
Other members: "Second!"
Chairman: "Those in favor of overturning the ruling of the chair and making this an Objection to Consideration, raise your hand. ..."

Besides, other Business Meeting chairs in the future might not want to treat OTCs as motions to Postpone Indefinitely. Thus, reinstating Postpone Indefinitely could wind up as just being another way to dump items from the agenda, not a way to enable more items to be heard.

I think reinstating Postpone Indefinitely could work if it were combined with a standing rules change to restrict OTCs against proposals that have a given number of supporters. Thus, you could say to the regulars, "Some of the proposals you might otherwise have OTC'd will be protected from that -- however, you will now be able to postpone them indefinitely which is another way to get rid of them." And you could say to newcomers introducing proposals, "If you have at least X number of supporters when you submit your proposal and/or at the preliminary business meeting, you won't get cut off entirely. Your proposal might be subjected to being postponed indefinitely, which would effectively kill it -- but before that happens, you'll get 2 out of 4 minutes of the debate to explain why your proposal ought to be heard."

--J. Kreitzer

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure you understand. If the Business Meeting regulars are going to overturn the Chair every time s/he rules that way, we're doomed in any event. Furthermore, they will presumably vote down the proposed rule anyway so we'll never even get as far as you suggest.

I believe that you and the others who assume that the Usual Suspects will just behave in the most evil way possible are missing a point here. The reason they're using OTC is that there's no other reasonable choice given the way the rules are written. Furthermore, it takes a 2/3 vote to sustain OTCs (and a majority to overturn the Chair). While there are always hotheads, I believe that if the meeting has a reasonable alternative to OTC (it does not have it right now), it will use it. There will be people who may behave the way you say they will, but I do not believe that a supermajority of the attendees will act as willfully stupid as you seem to think they will.

Now here's practical politics: While I can see in principle the value of "get enough co-signers and you're immune" path, I think, based on the feedback from The List That Shall Not Be Named, that the proposal will fail of passage. The reaction of selected influential people of sheer horror that you could override the Business Meeting just by getting a bunch of signatures is such that they'd do everything they could (which is considerable) to block it, whereas a loosening of the rules that makes it easier to kill no-hope motions but gives those people a "hail Mary" attempt to persuade the meeting to give them a chance anyway is more likely to pass.

When I craft proposals, I have to consider not only what is ideologically sound, but what has a reasonable chance of passing. I don't like making proposals that I think have less than a one-third chance of getting through the meeting.

In short, given a chance, I believe that the members of the Business Meeting will act more fairly than they have been acting now. Remember that most of the people shouting Objection to Consideration are all on The List That Shall Not Be Named and even some of the people with which I disagree have concluded that we're over-using OTC. That makes a big difference.

And here's how important I would make this: I'll stake my chairmanship on it. If someone acts as willfully stupid as you suggest, I'll put it in these terms when making my case to overturn the appeal (unlike all other motions, the Chair is allowed to debate an Appeal): "The Chair feels sufficiently strongly about the ethics of this situation that should the meeting overturn the ruling of the Chair, the Chair will interpret it as a motion of No Confidence and will resign." Essentially, if a meeting wants to be that stupid, I want them to go on the record that they did a "runaway." I don't think they'll do it.

[timill]

I think that, once we've got an alternative way of killing motions in place, OTC will be called a few times and will fail to get 2/3. Once that's happened a few times, people won't call it so frequently.

I think if we put the rule change as the first item of business, and then suspend the rules and implement immediately, we won't have any trouble, since the debate will be fresh in people's minds..

[nojay.livejournal.com]

Have there been a lot of OTCs being called and failing to reach the two-thirds majority? It's a powerful tool but it keeps the meeting moving forward -- call, second, Chair calls for vote, vote, that's it win or lose. I see the suggested replacements involving debate (How do they decide who gets to speak for and against? Do they have a vote and/or an election for the pro and anti speakers?) as something that will slow things down and implementing it will still be seen as part of the devious machinations of the Smoffy Cabal because they get to choose the speakers, set the terms of the debate, scowl at easily-frightened newbies etc.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

No, there have not been a lot of OTCs failing of 2/3rd. You're missing the point: We look like a bunch of callous old pharts who won't let people even have a chance to make their initial point.

Picking the speakers is trivially easy: The person who makes the motion to PI is giving preference in debate anyway. The logical person to be given the opportunity to rebut the argument is the maker of the motion being killed. With only four minutes of debate, there's not going to be much back and forth.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

I would be careful of being absolute in that promise.

[timill]

And moreover...

I'd rather do this as a new standing rule for the introduction of motions at the BM: roughly
Chairman states motion
Proposer has a minute
An opposer has a minute
Vote to continue debate: requires 2/3 to kill motion
Carry on.

This way it's up front in the Standing Rules, not "hidden in the back pages of Robert's", which is a defence against a lack of transparency.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I could live with that procedure as well.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

I presume the people proposing a motion can preselect their single candidate to speak for it in this scenario assuming they've made some basic plans before the meeting starts. How do the multiple folks objecting to the motion get to choose their one representative beforehand, unless they form a shadowy secret Cabal via, say, a mailing list on the internet {CARRIER LOST}

Hmmm, back again. I dropped out there for a second, weird... The fourteen other people who wanted to speak against the motion but weren't recognised by the Chair are going to feel rightly peeved under this rule. Alternatively if the OTC fails then they get their chance in the regular debate that will follow under consideration of the motion in question, balanced by that number of supporters if available or until time runs out.

[timill]

Indeed - if the OTC succeeds, all the other opposers got their way, so they're happy. If it fails, they still get to speak. So no problem there.

I imagine the Chair would ask the proposer to speak first, as a matter of courtesy if nothing else.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Whoever the chair recognizes as the maker of the motion to Postpone Indefinitely is, by existing rule, given precedence in speaking. (This isn't a special WSFS rule; it's built into the system. Any person making a debatable motion has the right to be the first person to speak to it, even if other people want the floor.) Therefore, it doesn't matter if fourteen people leap to their feat screaming "Postpone!" The Chairman isn't going to recognize fourteen people simultaneously, only one of them.

The fact that the other people who wanted to kill the motion are unhappy doesn't bother me that much. They are almost all certainly Usual Suspects, and they should have more understanding of business. If the motion to Postpone Indefinitely fails, then the proposal goes onto the Main Meeting and you can debate it there. Remember that the question on PI is not whether you actually favor the main motion; it's whether you think we should spend any time discussing it.

I'm not recommending making Objection to Consideration debatable; it's a useful motion about once a decade when a real crackpot shows up with a personal axe to grind, and such people do not deserve consideration. I'm recommending that we stop using sledgehammers on things where a broom would be more useful. In return for giving up a tiny bit of floor debate at the Preliminary Business Meeting (whose main purpose is to keep the Main Meeting agenda manageable anyway), we as Worldcon runners give ourselves a bit more credibility with the rest of fandom and stop looking like we never want to hear any new ideas, never, no way, no how.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

This sounds reasonable as you explain it. No doubt someone will try to misunderstand it before the 2014 Business Meeting! But you make a good case for having a small caliber anti-motion gun.

I believe most people who are trying to introduce things deserve 120 seconds to explain why their idea isn't totally stupid before it's tossed out (okay, some ideas are stupid, but the cost of politeness isn't that high). If nothing else, the well intentioned fan who shows up one year with the Stupid Hugo Revision can learn something relatively painlessly and maybe return in a few years with a Somewhat Plausible Hugo Revision.