Repair your mistakes in the fairest way possible

[Gary Novosielski]

On 12/31/2023 at 2:48 PM, Caryn Ann Harlos said:

The question literally says impossible.  I know the answer substitutes in impracticable, but the questioner asked about an impossible situation and the answer conflated the two.  It certainly was contemplating something beyond inconvenience like having to call a special convention (if allowed) or some other possible process, even if a PITA.  But why wouldn't you draw that out to a similarly impossible or impracticable situation?  I would though the bar would be pretty high.  I think I would set it higher than the two years in the original question actually.

The question does literally say impossible, but that's not literally correct.  Mathematically, it is not impossible for three-fourths of the membership to attend a meeting.  It's not even impossible for all of the membership to attend, although it is even less likely.

But I did say that the answer in PL was good guidance.  I'd just reserve an actual vote for an occasion where I had all the facts.  And it would have to be weighed against 25:7, which says:

 Rules contained in the bylaws (or constitution) cannot be suspended—no matter how large the vote in favor of doing so or how inconvenient the rule in question may be—unless the particular rule specifically provides for its own suspension, or unless the rule properly is in the nature of a rule of order as described in 2:14.

[Caryn Ann Harlos]

I hear you but that is precisely what Parliamentary Law seems to countenance, however rare.  Here is how I think of it, could be wrong.  If the choice is between the organization ceasing to exist and following the bylaws as closely as possible in spirit, you choose the latter.  

It is also not mathematically impossible for a monkey to type out shakespeare.  But it might as well be.  Now that is an extreme example but I think we all know a functionally impossible existential situation when we see one.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 12/31/2023 at 7:41 PM, Caryn Ann Harlos said:

I hear you but that is precisely what Parliamentary Law seems to countenance, however rare.  Here is how I think of it, could be wrong.  If the choice is between the organization ceasing to exist and following the bylaws as closely as possible in spirit, you choose the latter.  

It is also not mathematically impossible for a monkey to type out shakespeare.  But it might as well be.  Now that is an extreme example but I think we all know a functionally impossible existential situation when we see one.

Yes, and all I am saying is that no two functionally impossible existential situations are exactly alike.  I can imagine a situation where a vote was held on which the very existence of an organization might depend--and on which I might vote No.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 12/31/2023 at 3:21 PM, Wright Stuff said:

@Gary Novosielski Where did you get a copy of PL that allows you to cut and paste? OCR?

Try: https://archive.org/details/parliamentarylaw00robe/

[Shmuel Gerber]

I think the train of the topic has left the rails, if indeed there ever were any.