The 1893 version that is in public domain (and linked here above) of RRO is actually surprisingly short and readable. The version that has become such a big tome after all these years since, that is still held in copyright by Robert's heirs, hasn't diverged much and while it answers/fixes some edge cases and adds some procedures that may be of use to modern meetings, you can run meetings pretty well today with 1893 version and have everyone read it.
> (so large that you would rather do anything than separately ask everyone for their opinion or even their vote on a matter... the "voice vote" mechanisms are thereby designed to try to shortcut real votes)
My brief time as a parliamentarian for college meetings suggested the opposite is true: voice votes (yea/nay) on the question are a great shortcut for small meetings when you can trust volume is count rather than emotion (and only need to ask "all those in favor? [aye]" and "all those opposed? [nay]"), but gets unwieldy fast in larger meetings where you either have to the ask the question individually to each member in a voice count one at a time or switch to a hand or ballot count.
RRO, from my reading, was built to cover the gamut of small meetings and large meetings, it wasn't focused on one or the other, and most procedures (especially in later versions) are as much about splitting large meetings into smaller sub-meetings as anything else because smaller meetings will always be easier to manage and faster to run.
> (so large that you would rather do anything than separately ask everyone for their opinion or even their vote on a matter... the "voice vote" mechanisms are thereby designed to try to shortcut real votes)
My brief time as a parliamentarian for college meetings suggested the opposite is true: voice votes (yea/nay) on the question are a great shortcut for small meetings when you can trust volume is count rather than emotion (and only need to ask "all those in favor? [aye]" and "all those opposed? [nay]"), but gets unwieldy fast in larger meetings where you either have to the ask the question individually to each member in a voice count one at a time or switch to a hand or ballot count.
RRO, from my reading, was built to cover the gamut of small meetings and large meetings, it wasn't focused on one or the other, and most procedures (especially in later versions) are as much about splitting large meetings into smaller sub-meetings as anything else because smaller meetings will always be easier to manage and faster to run.