A few years ago, a rash of articles were published in the National Parliamentarian and the Parliamentary Journal concerning how parliamentary procedure could be applied to electronic meetings. In particular, the focus was on asynchronous electronic meetings, wherein the participants would make, debate, and vote on motions via e-mail over a period of days and weeks, rather than all together via IRC or teleconference.

The ultimate consensus was that the rules could be applied relatively faithfully, after accounting for certain fundamental differences in the logical definition of words and concepts like “meeting” and “present in person”. That said, a number of important exceptions were also noted, and a number of other interesting points raised and addressed.

These articles were reprinted together in a joint publication called Electronic Meetings, to which I have also made a link on my parliamentary resources page. I don’t agree 100% with the conclusions reached by the authors, but I’ve always found this set of articles to be an interesting read. Perhaps one day I will write my own response to this prior work, drawing on my interdisciplinary background as a former computer software professional and a current professional parliamentarian.