text:
Talk:Ethernet

reduced panel space
Currently this article says "Due to ... the reduced panel space needed by twisted pair Ethernet, most manufacturers now build Ethernet interfaces directly into PC motherboards, eliminating the need for installation of a separate network card."

Reduced compared to what? Is the panel space required by modern twisted pair Ethernet less than the panel space require by earlier twisted pair Ethernet?

What does the panel space used by Ethernet in a 19-inch rack panel have anything to do with Ethernet interfaces on PC motherboards? What other kind of panel could this be alluding to? --DavidCary (talk) 02:51, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

 * Possibly, the article refers to the reduced back panel footprint of 8P8C compared to Ethernet's initial DA-15 AUI port (for coax or an external transceiver) – twisted-pair Ethernet has used 8P8C from the start, so there's no difference there. The required back panel space isn't the only reason for ubiquity (the others being decreasing cost and increasing demand), so we should rephrase or maybe remove that sentence. --Zac67 (talk) 05:13, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

 * The cited source (from 2004—wow) says nothing about "panel space", and the term really doesn't make sense here. I agree with that "back-panel space" may be the intended meaning. Nevertheless, it's unsourced, and far from clear to the average WP reader. I changed the sentence to read:  This section is starting to show some age, so more editing is probably a good idea. Good catch, ! — UncleBubba ( T @ C ) 11:55, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Alternate units

 * This is copied from my talk page and answered here per WP:BRD ~Kvng (talk) 14:51, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi,

Please let me know why you reverted my edit for the page Ethernet. Generally, people are used to seeing representations of data (and their rates) in bytes, not bits. I felt that adding the speeds in bytes as notes was a good compromise.

Thanks.

DesertPipeline (talk) 07:34, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

 * While computer and storage performance is often specified in byte/s, network engineers work most frequently in bit/s. The alternate units with similar-sounding names can be confusing and are not frequently used in the field. Your casting them as notes will exasperate those who have criticized this article for having too many notes. ~Kvng (talk) 14:51, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

 * Generally it has seemed to me that the only usage of bits has been by ISPs. Am I incorrect? As a few examples of networking speeds measured in bytes, the proprietary game distribution program Steam uses bytes when measuring download speed, as does Speedtest.net (I believe?) . (Edit: It does not use bytes). Regarding 'too many notes', I can understand that sentiment, but if notes provide useful explanations not exactly necessary to understand the article proper, it's better to have 'too many' of them rather than dumping the information directly into the article body or simply getting rid of them. I would be fine with the speeds in bytes being in brackets after each speed in bits, but because it isn't strictly necessary information, I don't want to clutter the article body with them, but I do feel that they are helpful additions. Your thoughts?

 * Thanks.

 * DesertPipeline (talk) 17:31, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

 * Against byte/s – Seconding Knvg here – in networking, only bit/s is used generally and throughout. Our aim should be to provide clear and useful information for the reader, and since professionally only bit/s is ever used, references to byte/s wouldn't do much good there. --Zac67 (talk) 18:28, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Against byte/s – Section 1.2.3 "Physical Layer and media notation" of IEEE Std 803.3-2018 says:
 * Users of this standard need to reference which particular implementation is being used or identified. Therefore, a means of identifying each implementation is given by a simple, three-field, type notation that is explicitly stated at the beginning of each relevant clause. In general, the Physical Layer type is specified by these fields:
 * The data rate, if only a number, is in Mb/s, and if suffixed by a “G”, is in Gb/s. The modulation type (e.g., BASE) indicates how encoded data is transmitted on the medium. The additional distinction may identify characteristics of transmission or medium and, in some cases, the type of PCS encoding used (examples of additional distinctions are “T” for twisted pair, “B” for bidirectional optics, and “X” for a block PCS coding used for that speed of operation). Expansions for defined Physical Layer types are included in 1.4.
 * and the sections on various PHY laters give speeds in bits/s or multiples thereof.
 * (This is not unique to Ethernet. 802.11, for example, also gives PHY bit rates rather than byte rates.)
 * There's no "125 megabyte Ethernet" page; instead, there's a Gigabit Ethernet page.
 * So, yes, you are incorrect when you say that bit rates are used only by ISPs; bits are used when discussing LANs, for example. Guy Harris (talk) 19:54, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * For networking hardware, and it seems ISP advertizing, it does seem that bits are used. For user software though, such as ftp and wget, in bytes/second. Since this article is on the hardware level it does seem that bits are appropriate, but it might also be worth noting the difference and when people should know to multiply/divide by 8. Gah4 (talk) 20:00, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * At the physical layer, rates are generally in bits/second. User software generally runs atop a transport layer; that layer, or layers below it, generally provide a physical-layer independent service and, in practice, are transferring data a byte at a time, so they tend to give the rates in bytes/second. Guy Harris (talk) 20:09, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Directories for most OS give file size in bytes, or sometimes blocks. As far as I know, the places where software gives rates, it knows bytes (because that is how OS keep track of things) and divides by the time needed. Gah4 (talk) 23:40, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Have a look at OSI model. Ethernet covers layers 1 and 2. Bits are the commonly used unit at those layers. FTP, HTTP via wget, and so on are at layer 7, where different terminology tends to be used. MrOllie (talk) 00:02, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * With notably rare exceptions, CPU instruction sets these days work in octets; working in bits would be a real stretch. :-) As such, OSes keep track of file sizes and the like in octets.
 * However, at the link layer, Linux "ethtool " shows the interface speed in Mb/s, for example, as does Windows 10's network settings GUI.
 * So, again, it's a function of the layer you're at, as per what MrOllie said. Guy Harris (talk) 00:45, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Some link layer tools also give the total bytes sent/received ... not bits. Gah4 (talk) 01:40, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * However, at the link layer, Linux "ethtool " shows the interface speed in Mb/s, for example, as does Windows 10's network settings GUI.
 * So, again, it's a function of the layer you're at, as per what MrOllie said. Guy Harris (talk) 00:45, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Some link layer tools also give the total bytes sent/received ... not bits. Gah4 (talk) 01:40, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Some link layer tools also give the total bytes sent/received ... not bits. Gah4 (talk) 01:40, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Which link-layer tools are those? The BSD netstat, when given an interval argument of n in seconds, reports "bytes" in and out every n seconds - but I'm not sure that's "bytes" counting link-layer headers, so it may just be a count of the number of bytes that the IPv4/IPv6/ARP/etc. layers handed to it or that were handed to those layers, in which case that'd be above the data link protocol layer. Guy Harris (talk) 01:53, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, regardless of what the standards are when it comes to data transfer rates and how we measure them, it's worthwhile information for the article to mention what the speeds are in bytes. Recently I used a search engine to determine how many people get confused by the usage of bits rather than bytes by ISPs, and I found quite a few results where people wondered why they were not getting the speed they were paying for (because it was in bits and they did not know the difference between bits and bytes, especially because the ISPs did not specify bits, only using "Mb" or "Gb" which to the untrained user who has only ever heard of "megabytes" and "gigabytes" might assume it means that, despite being written MB and GB respectively in that case). Perhaps the article doesn't strictly need the information, because conversion is relatively easy, but some readers might not be aware that conversion is even necessary, or what the conversion rate is. Perhaps my logic is flawed here, but I don't think it does any harm to have the information in the article. I'm probably biased because I made the edit, but I do consider it to be "useful" myself. Of course, if consensus is that it is not useful, then I'll accept that. DesertPipeline (talk) 02:38, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Reminds me, before the Hz unit frequencies were commonly in megacycles (or kilocycles), with the "per second" implied. But yes, this is common in networking where there is 10 megabit ethernet, also leaving off the "per second". Seems to me that we don't need to put conversions on the units, but an explanation of the difference and the confusion it causes might be nice. Gah4 (talk) 03:57, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The only guarantee offered by the speed of most if not all PHY layers is "guaranteed not to exceed". :-) And even if you're lucky enough to get the full link-layer speed, there may be network-layer and transport-layer that will eat some of that bandwidth, plus, if there are any routers/switches/bridges involved, those may slow things down, and the host from which you're fetching the data may not be able to provide data at full speed.
 * My DSL modem is currently reporting a download bandwidth of 5984 Kb/s, which is 748 KB/s, but I never see that much when downloading.
 * So the best way to fix that confusion may be to have ISPs provide an explanation that mentions not only b/s vs. B/s, but also all the other overheads, and "by the way, the server from which you're downloading might not be able to run at full network speed". (And if you're directly connected to the modem by Ethernet, the Ethernet's speed is probably not going to be the limiting factor for downloads, so this page might not be the best place to address an issue with people understanding the data rate their ISP is offering.) Guy Harris (talk) 04:08, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * My DSL modem is currently reporting a download bandwidth of 5984 Kb/s, which is 748 KB/s, but I never see that much when downloading.
 * So the best way to fix that confusion may be to have ISPs provide an explanation that mentions not only b/s vs. B/s, but also all the other overheads, and "by the way, the server from which you're downloading might not be able to run at full network speed". (And if you're directly connected to the modem by Ethernet, the Ethernet's speed is probably not going to be the limiting factor for downloads, so this page might not be the best place to address an issue with people understanding the data rate their ISP is offering.) Guy Harris (talk) 04:08, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

 * So is the consensus here not to make the change to list the speed in bytes as well? DesertPipeline (talk) 15:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

 * Either that or we can call this no consensus in which case we also don't make the change. ~Kvng (talk) 17:14, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

User:Kvng Hi again. I have two different proposals for the different measurement units that I just thought up. If neither are to your liking, no problem, we can leave it at that. Obviously, these proposals only solve the issue of having two many notes, and they don't solve the issue of 'we don't need to say it in the first place'. Personally I feel the information would be useful, but if everyone else is of the opinion that it's not necessary, I understand. At the very least with proposal two it doesn't have to be implemented here but could be implemented generally for other purposes.

Proposal 1: Tooltip template
With this proposal we'd add the tooltip template to the numbers, like so:

2.94 megabits per second 400 gigabits per second

There may be a way to make it so "2.94 megabits per second" has the tooltip while only "megabits per second" has the wikilink, but I'm not sure how.

Proposal 2: New template
With this proposal we'd make a new conversion template suitable for all types of measurement units. Usage would be inserting something into the template and specifying what unit of measurement it is, then the template automatically converts it and gives readers a small [convert] button to click, which produces a box similar to what you'd see when mousing over a reference, which shows corresponding conversions. Ideally this could be used all over Wikipedia for other purposes as well, such as distance.

Please let me know if either of these are to your liking.

Thanks, DesertPipeline (talk) 17:03, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

 * I personally don't think conversions of any type are needed where you placed them in this article. I'm not sure what the WP:MOS has to say about the tooltip proposal. Often clever ideas like this get shot down because of WP:ACCESSIBILITY concerns. It is possible bit-to-byte conversions may be useful somewhere else and, if so, a Category:Convert-like templates might be helpful. I would identify where it would be used before going to the trouble of creating it. ~Kvng (talk) 20:16, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you have any suggestions as to where else in the article it could go? (Off-topic) By the way, speaking of accessibility, I think this talk section might not be conforming to an accessibility guideline, although I can't remember what it is. Something to do with each list item (the colon symbol making a list) needing to be 'attached' to the last one. We have gaps between our comments sometimes here. Is that something we need to fix? DesertPipeline (talk) 05:53, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , these conversions are covered in Bit rate which is linked in the first paragraph of the lead here. I think this is adequate treatment of the issue.
 * I haven't seen anyone try to apply WP:ACCESSIBILITY to talk pages. ~Kvng (talk) 14:18, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I'll concede the non-inclusion of my changes then. Also, what I read is on the page you linked: WP:Accessibility. I think if I do it this way (putting the list item indicators in the whitespace as well) that prevents accessibility issues for screen readers. I'm not sure if I'm actually supposed to be placing a gap between my comments and yours though. Can you advise me on the matter? DesertPipeline (talk) 17:03, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I'll concede the non-inclusion of my changes then. Also, what I read is on the page you linked: WP:Accessibility. I think if I do it this way (putting the list item indicators in the whitespace as well) that prevents accessibility issues for screen readers. I'm not sure if I'm actually supposed to be placing a gap between my comments and yours though. Can you advise me on the matter? DesertPipeline (talk) 17:03, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I'll concede the non-inclusion of my changes then. Also, what I read is on the page you linked: WP:Accessibility. I think if I do it this way (putting the list item indicators in the whitespace as well) that prevents accessibility issues for screen readers. I'm not sure if I'm actually supposed to be placing a gap between my comments and yours though. Can you advise me on the matter? DesertPipeline (talk) 17:03, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

ethertype
Can we mention which other protocols do, and don't, use Ethertype as the first field? Gah4 (talk) 04:01, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * IEEE 802.3 Ethernet is not such a protocol. :-)
 * The third field of the 802.3 header, at least as of 802.3y-1997, is a type/length field. (Prior to that, it was a type field in D/I/X Ethernet and a length field in 802.3; in practice, most Ethernet packets that had an Ethertype value used it as a type field, and others used it as a length field - 802.3y-1997 merely acknowledged reality.)
 * FDDI has no type field; instead, data frames begin with an {IEEE 802.2, ISO/IEC 8802-2} LLC header, and if both DSAP and LSAP were 0xAA, have a SNAP header following them.
 * Most non-802.3 technologies work/worked similarly.
 * 802.11 always did so until recently; as of 802.11-2016, it's not that simple....
 * IEEE Std 802-2014 (802, with no .anything) introduced, in section 5.2.2 "LLC sublayer", two different forms of "protocol discrimination" - EPD, for "Ethertype protocol discrimination", and LPD, for "LLC protocol discrimination".
 * With LPD, packets have an 8802-2 LLC header, with DSAP and SSAP, and if both DSAP and SSAP are 0xAA, they have a SNAP header following it, with an OUI and a per-OUI protocol ID, and with an OUI of 0 meaning the protocol ID is an Ethertype.
 * With EPD, packets have an Ethertype, and, if the Ethertype is the the OUI Extended EtherType (0x88b7), the Ethertype is followed by... an OUI and a PID, interpreted the same way that they're interpreted in the SNAP header. (And presumably the OUI can be 0, in which case the PID would presumably be an Ethertype.)
 * (And, yes, you could have a packet with an 8802-2 LLC header with 0xAA as the DSAP and SSAP, followed by a SNAP header with an OUI of 0 and a PID of the OUI Extended EtherType, followed by an OUI, followed by a PID; 802-2014 gives that as an example in Figure 14 in Chapter 9.)
 * 802.11 uses LPD, unless either 1) the traffic is in the 5.9 GHz band or 2) the IEEE Standard for Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE) is in use, in which case it uses EPD. (Added: ISO 21215, "Intelligent transport systems — Localized communications — ITS-M5", says "Different to the information in IEEE Std 802.11TM-2016, 5.1.4, EPD is applicable in all frequency bands as long as dot11OCBActivated is set to true, i.e. activating the operation mode "outside the context of a BSS" (OCB).")
 * 802.3 can now be described as using EPD for frames where the type/length field value is >= 1536 and using LPD for frames where the type/length field is <= 1500. (Frames where the type/length field value is > 1500 and < 1536 are invalid.)
 * I don't know whether any other 802.x link layers ever use EPD.
 * As for where that belongs in the Wikipedia, the general concepts of EPD and LPD probably belong in Logical link control, the way the choice between them is made in Ethernet would belong in Logical link control and various Ethernet-related pages, the way the choice between them is made in 802.11 would belong in IEEE 802.11. Guy Harris (talk) 06:03, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Definition of Ethernet
This is not really covered - Why isn't WiFi considered to be Ethernet? Where is it defined that only cabled technologies are considered to be Ethernet? Ethernet is not defined purely at layer 1. So if WiFi uses the same layer 2 frames over a different layer 1 media, why is itnot Ethernet? Commking (talk) 09:12, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "So if WiFi uses the same layer 2 frames over a different layer 1 media," Define "same layer 2 frames".  The Ethernet and 802.11 MAC headers are not the same, for example. Guy Harris (talk) 09:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

 * Ethernet is what is defined by the IEEE 802.3 work group with the data link layer defined/expanded in IEEE 802.1 (which is similarly used by multiple 802 PHY families). Wi-Fi is defined in 802.11. --Zac67 (talk) 10:44, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

 * WiFi has been referred to as Wireless Ethernet so I wouldn't rule it out as a type of Ethernet. We don't have a definition for Ethernet here because this is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary and I don't think we'd find a consensus of sources that agree on a definition. ~Kvng (talk) 16:39, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * If Wi-Fi is a type of Ethernet, why isn't Token Ring a type of Ethernet? The physical layer and MAC layer are different from those of Ethernet, but the same is true of Wi-Fi. Guy Harris (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * We should probably not do this. Just because Wikipedia thinks ASCII is a form of Morse Code, doesn't make it so. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:49, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , strong point ~Kvng (talk) 22:29, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I can put WiFi and wired ethernet in the same layer 2 broadcast domain and communicate directly without routing - and yet the frames are different? Learning all the time. Commking (talk) 23:43, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, bridges between link layers always using 802.2 LLC (most non-Ethernet link layers) and link layers not always using 802.2 LLC (mainly Ethernet) have to do some frame translation (adding or removing an 802.2 LLC header), and bridges between any two non-identical link layers have to deal with non-data frames (which generally means "don't forward them if they don't have an equivalent on the other link layer") and other link-layer dependent header information. Guy Harris (talk) 00:56, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

 * 802.11_frame.png
 * Yup, among other differences the Wi-Fi frame structure has no less than four address fields.
 * GliderMaven (talk) 00:58, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Even though you can read "Wireless Ethernet" here and there, it's not a thing. Ethernet is generally wired. Wi-Fi uses a distinctive frame format and is vastly different from Ethernet at a low level. There's actually not too much in common, apart from both being MAC-based IEEE 802 standards. --Zac67 (talk) 21:27, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

 * Arguably Ethernet and Wi-Fi are both types of ALOHAnet ;) GliderMaven (talk) 22:18, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Used as appropriate, not replaced or superseded.
As regarding recent edits and edit summaries. 10base5 was mostly used across campuses, and for larger buildings. 10base2 for small workgroups and labs. In that way, they weren't alternatives. Especially since they are electrically the same, but no-one would use 10base2 across a campus, or 10base5 within a (small) room. The early 10base2 transceivers were 10base5 transceivers with N to BNC adapters on them. I suspect that was done some time before it was official. Well, there were some other choices for campus networks, FDDI being one of them. You won't see the campus network unless you go down in the tunnels were wires go between buildings. That is why I am against replaced or superseded. They were each used as appropriate. Gah4 (talk) 17:33, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Before 10BASE2 existed, 10BASE5 was used in small workgroups and labs; I have old memories of yellow cables in at least one non-campus setting. In that way, 10BASE2 was an alternative to 10BASE5. Guy Harris (talk) 20:52, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

 * There were many installations and pretty much all above is true. I was trying to convey the (perceived) fact that Ethernet pretty much exploded with 10BASE2 and installations increased more than tenfold. On the other hand, 10BASE5 installations were very rarely replaced, they just continued or might have been augmented with 10BASE2. FDDI came a bit later but I remember ARCNET being used for smallish installations quite a bit. --Zac67 (talk) 08:07, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, it pretty much exploded when the price came down. I was recently remembering the story, about a conference years ago, when IBM had a talk about their newest Token-ring card, I suspect for the IBM PC. At question time, someone asked about Ethernet. The reply was that when Ethernet got below $1000, they should buy it. The next talk was 3Com announcing their $999 Ethernet card. It is hard to imagine now $999 being cheap. (Without inflation adjustment!)   In any case, it is the economy of scale as production went up, and then people buy more as the price goes down.   Now, part of the price comes down was due to the ease of use of 10base2. AUI cables were expensive. Especially plenum rated cables. 10base5 transceivers weren't all that bad, thought we used to by two-port and four-port versions to keep the price down. FOIRL and then 10baseFL would have been more competition for campus wide networks. And repeater costing thousands of dollars, in big boxes. Gah4 (talk) 21:53, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, it pretty much exploded when the price came down. I was recently remembering the story, about a conference years ago, when IBM had a talk about their newest Token-ring card, I suspect for the IBM PC. At question time, someone asked about Ethernet. The reply was that when Ethernet got below $1000, they should buy it. The next talk was 3Com announcing their $999 Ethernet card. It is hard to imagine now $999 being cheap. (Without inflation adjustment!)   In any case, it is the economy of scale as production went up, and then people buy more as the price goes down.   Now, part of the price comes down was due to the ease of use of 10base2. AUI cables were expensive. Especially plenum rated cables. 10base5 transceivers weren't all that bad, thought we used to by two-port and four-port versions to keep the price down. FOIRL and then 10baseFL would have been more competition for campus wide networks. And repeater costing thousands of dollars, in big boxes. Gah4 (talk) 21:53, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ethernet


text:
Senate

A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: Senatus), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: senex meaning "the elder" or "old man") and therefore considered wiser and more experienced members of the society or ruling class. However the Roman Senate was not the ancestor or predecessor of modern parliamentarism in any sense, because the Roman senate was not a de jure legislative body.

Many countries have an assembly named a senate, composed of senators who may be elected, appointed, have inherited the title, or gained membership by other methods, depending on the country. Modern senates typically serve to provide a chamber of "sober second thought" to consider legislation passed by a lower house, whose members are usually elected. Most senates have asymmetrical duties and powers compared with their respective lower house meaning they have special duties, for example to fill important political positions or to pass special laws. Conversely many senates have limited powers in changing or stopping bills under consideration and efforts to stall or veto a bill may be bypassed by the lower house or another branch of government.

Overview

The modern word senate is derived from the Latin word senātus (senate), which comes from senex, 'old man'. The members or legislators of a senate are called senators. The Latin word senator was adopted into English with no change in spelling. Its meaning is derived from a very ancient form of social organization, in which advisory or decision-making powers are reserved for the eldest men. For the same reason, the word senate is correctly used when referring to any powerful authority characteristically composed by the eldest members of a community, as a deliberative body of a faculty in an institution of higher learning is often called a senate. This form of adaptation was used to show the power of those in body and for the decision-making process to be thorough, which could take a long period of time. The original senate was the Roman Senate, which lasted until at least CE 603, although various efforts to revive it were made in Medieval Rome. In the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Senate continued until the Fourth Crusade, circa 1202–1204.

Modern democratic states with bicameral parliamentary systems are sometimes equipped with a senate, often distinguished from an ordinary parallel lower house, known variously as the "House of Representatives", "House of Commons", "Chamber of Deputies", "National Assembly", "Legislative Assembly", or "House of Assembly", by electoral rules. This may include minimum age required for voters and candidates, one house employing a proportional voting system and the other being elected on a majoritarian or plurality basis, and an electoral basis or collegium. Typically, the senate is referred to as the upper house and has a smaller membership than the lower house. In some federal states senates also exist at the subnational level. In the United States, most states and territories have senates, with the exception of Nebraska, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (whose legislatures are unicameral bodies called the "Legislature" but whose members refer to themselves as "senators") and the District of Columbia (whose unicameral legislature is called the Council). There is also the US Senate at the federal level. Similarly in Argentina, in addition to the Senate at federal level, eight of the country's provinces, Buenos Aires, Catamarca, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Mendoza, Salta, San Luis (since 1987) and Santa Fe, have bicameral legislatures with a Senate. Córdoba and Tucumán changed to unicameral systems in 2001 and 2003 respectively.

In Australia and Canada, only the upper house of the federal parliament is known as the Senate. All Australian states other than Queensland have an upper house known as a Legislative council. Several Canadian provinces also once had a Legislative Council, but these have all been abolished, the last being Quebec's Legislative council in 1968.

In Germany, the last Senate of a State parliament, the Senate of Bavaria, was abolished in 1999.

Senate membership can be determined either through elections or appointments. For example, elections are held every three years for half the membership of the Senate of the Philippines, the term of a senator being six years. In contrast, members of the Canadian Senate are appointed by the Governor General upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Canada, holding the office until they resign, are removed, or retire at the mandatory age of 75.

Alternative meanings
The terms senate and senator, however, do not necessarily refer to a second chamber of a legislature:
 * The Senate of Finland was, until 1918, the executive branch and the supreme court.
 * The Senate of Latvia (lv) fulfilled a similar judicial function during the interbellum (1918–1940).
 * In German politics:
 * In the Bundesländer (Federated States) of Germany which form a City State (in German: Stadtstaat), i.e. Berlin (Senate of Berlin), Bremen (Senate of Bremen) and Hamburg (Senate of Hamburg), the senates (Senat in German) are the executive branch, with senators (Senator) being the holders of ministerial portfolios.
 * In a number of cities which were former members of the Hanse (a medieval confederacy of port cities mainly at the shores of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea), such as Greifswald, Lübeck, Rostock, Stralsund, or Wismar, the city government is also called a Senate. However, in Bavaria, the Senate was a second legislative chamber until its abolition in 1999.
 * In German jurisprudence:
 * The term Senat (senate) in higher courts of appeal refers to the "bench" in its broader metonymy meaning, describing members of the judiciary collectively (usually five judges), often occupied with a particular subject-matter jurisdiction. However, the judges are not called "senators". The German term Strafsenat (literally "Penal Senate") in a German court translates to Bench of penal-law jurisdiction and Zivilsenat (literally "Civil Senate") to Bench of private-law jurisdiction. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany consists of two senates of eight judges each. In its case the division is mostly of an organizational nature, as a matter of dividing the work load; both senates handle the same kind of constitutional cases. At some points in the past, one senate was considered more conservative and the other more liberal, but that is not the case as of 2011.
 * In Scotland, judges of the High Court of Justiciary are called Senators of the College of Justice.
 * In some, mostly federal countries with a unicameral legislature, some of the legislators are elected differently from the others and are called senators. In federal countries, such senators represent the territories, while the other members represent the people at large (this device is used to allow a federal representation without having to establish a bicameral legislature); this is the case with St. Kitts and Nevis, Comoros and Micronesia. In other, non-federal countries, the use of the term senator marks some other difference between such members and the rest of the legislators (such as the method of selection); this is the case with Dominica's House of Assembly and the Saint Vincent House of Assembly. Until 2022, this was also the case in the States of Jersey.
 * In Wales, there is a translation of the word Senatus into the Welsh language (equivalent to 'Senate' in English) as the word "Senedd". The word was used first to refer specifically to what is now referred to as the Senedd building, but the name later became a metonym for the devolved unicameral legislature it hosts, the "National Assembly for Wales", which in May 2020 adopted the name "Senedd Cymru" or "the Welsh Parliament" with the term "Senedd" becoming the common short name for the institution in both languages of Welsh and English. There is no direct translation of the word "Parliament" in Welsh, with Senedd (being a cognate of Senate) meaning both "Senate" and "Parliament".
 * An academic senate is the governing body of some universities.
 * In Greece during the early stages of the Greek War of Independence, various local legislative and executive bodies were established by the Greek rebels. Two of them were styled "senate": the Peloponnesian Senate and the Senate of Western Continental Greece.

List of national senates
• Antigua and Barbuda

• Argentina

• Austria

• Australia

• Bahamas

• Barbados

• Belgium

• Belize

• Bolivia

• Brazil

• Burundi

• Cambodia

• Cameroon

• Canada

• Chile

• Colombia

• Democratic Republic of the Congo

• Republic of Congo

• Czech Republic

• Dominican Republic

• Egypt

• Eswatini

• France

• Gabon

• Germany

• Grenada

• Haiti

• India

• Indonesia

• Ireland

• Italy

• Ivory Coast

• Jamaica

• Japan

• Jordan

• Kenya

• Kazakhstan

• Lesotho

• Liberia

• Madagascar

• Malaysia

• Mexico

• Nepal

• Netherlands

• Nigeria

• Palau

• Pakistan

• Paraguay

• Philippines

• Poland

• Romania

• Russia

• Rwanda

• Saint Lucia

• Somalia

• Spain

• Switzerland

• Thailand

• Trinidad and Tobago

• United States

• Uzbekistan

• Uruguay

• Wales

• Zimbabwe

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Senate


text:
Deliberative assembly

A deliberative assembly is a meeting of members who use parliamentary procedure.

Etymology
In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the British Parliament as a "deliberative assembly", and the expression became the basic term for a body of persons meeting to discuss and determine common action. Merriam-Webster's definition excludes legislatures.

Characteristics
Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised by Henry Martyn Robert describes the following characteristics of a deliberative assembly:
 * A group of people meets to discuss and make decisions on behalf of the entire membership.
 * They meet in a single room or area, or under equivalent conditions of simultaneous oral communication.
 * Each member is free to act according to their judgement.
 * Each member has an equal vote.
 * The members at the meeting act for the entire group, even if there are members absent.
 * A member's dissent on a particular issue constitutes neither a withdrawal from the group, nor a termination of membership.

Types
Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised identifies several types of deliberative assemblies.

Mass meeting
A mass meeting, which is an unorganized group meeting open to all individuals in a sector of the population who are interested in deliberating about a subject proposed by the meeting's sponsors. Examples include meetings to discuss common political concerns or community interests, or meetings to form a new society.

Local assembly of an organized society
A local assembly of an organized society, which is a membership meeting of a local chapter or branch of a membership organization. Examples include local chapter meetings of organizations like the Sierra Club.

Convention
A convention, which is a meeting of delegates who represent constituent units of a population. Conventions are not permanently established bodies, and delegates are normally elected for only one term. A convention may be held by an organized society, where each local assembly is represented by a delegate.

Legislative body
A legislative body, which is a legally established public lawmaking body. It consists of representatives chosen by the electorate. Examples include national legislatures such as parliaments, and local government councils such as state legislatures, regional assemblies and city councils.

Board
A board, which is an administrative, managerial, or quasi-judicial body. A board derives its power from an outside authority that defines the scope of its operations. Examples include an organized society's or company's board of directors and government agency boards like a board of education.

Rights of members
A member of a deliberative assembly has the right to attend meetings and make and second motions, speak in the debate, and vote. Organizations may have different classes of members (such as regular members, active members, associate members, and honorary members), but the rights of each class of membership must be defined (such as whether a "member" in a class has the right to vote). There may also be ex officio members or persons who are members under some other office or position they hold. Ex officio members have the same rights as other members.

title: Deliberative assembly


text:
Robert's Rules of Order

Robert's Rules of Order, often simply referred to as Robert's Rules, is a manual of parliamentary procedure by U.S. Army officer Henry Martyn Robert. "The object of Rules of Order is to assist an assembly to accomplish the work for which it was designed [...] Where there is no law [...] there is the least of real liberty." The term Robert's Rules of Order is also used more generically to refer to any of the more recent editions, by various editors and authors, based on any of Robert's original editions, and the term is used more generically in the United States to refer to parliamentary procedure. It was written primarily to help guide voluntary associations in their operations of governance.

Robert's manual was first published in 1876 as an adaptation of the rules and practice of the United States Congress to suit the needs of non-legislative societies. Robert's Rules is the most widely used manual of parliamentary procedure in the United States. It governs the meetings of a diverse range of organizations—including church groups, county commissions, homeowners associations, nonprofit associations, professional societies, school boards, and trade unions—that have adopted it as their parliamentary authority. Robert published four editions of the manual before his death in 1923, the last being the thoroughly revised and expanded Fourth Edition published as Robert's Rules of Order Revised in May 1915.

History
A U.S. Army officer, Henry Martyn Robert (1837–1923), saw a need for a standard of parliamentary procedure while living in San Francisco. He found San Francisco in the mid-to-late 19th century to be a chaotic place where meetings of any kind tended to be tumultuous, with little consistency of procedure and with people of many nationalities and traditions thrown together.

The first edition of the book, whose full title was Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies, was published in February 1876 by the then-Major Robert, with the short title Robert's Rules of Order placed on its cover.

The procedures prescribed by the book were loosely modeled after those used in the United States House of Representatives, with such adaptations as Robert saw fit for use in ordinary societies. Although he was in the military, the rules in his book were not based on military rules. The author's interest in parliamentary procedure began in 1863 when he was chosen to preside over a church meeting and, although he accepted the task, he felt that he did not have the necessary knowledge of proper procedure.

In his later work as an active member of several organizations, Robert discovered that members from different areas of the country had very different views regarding what the proper parliamentary rules were, and these conflicting views hampered the organizations in their work. He eventually became convinced of the need for a new manual on the subject, one which would enable many organizations to adopt the same set of rules.

Henry M. Robert himself published four editions of the manual before his death in 1923, the last being the thoroughly revised and expanded Fourth Edition published as Robert's Rules of Order Revised for Deliberative Assemblies in May 1915. By this time Robert had long been retired from the Army with the rank of brigadier general. The revisions were based on the feedback from hundreds of letters that Robert had received through the years. In addition, to explain the rules in Robert's Rules of Order Revised (abbreviated ROR), Robert published an introductory book for beginners titled Parliamentary Practice: An Introduction to Parliamentary Law in 1921 and a full book of explanations titled Parliamentary Law in 1923.

Special rules
In those cases in which the bylaws or other governing documents of an organization refer to "Robert's Rules of Order", certain rules in the book may be subordinate to other specified rules, including any conflicting provisions in applicable law, the corporate charter, the constitution or bylaws, and special rules of order.

Even if an organization has adopted Robert's Rules of Order, it can still adopt its own rules which supersede any rules in this book. The only limitations might come from the rules in a parent organization or from national, state, or local law. An example of a rule that organizations sometimes adopt is one that allows the use of proxy voting. Such a rule is not allowed unless the organization specifically provides for it in its bylaws.

Concise editions
Since the copyrights for several of the original editions (1915 or earlier) have expired, numerous other books and manuals have been published incorporating "Robert's Rules of Order" as part of their titles, with some of them based on those earlier editions (see List of books with Robert's Rules in the title). Some examples are
 * Robert's Rules of Order (1989) by Darwin Patnode, PhD, past President of the American Institute of Parliamentarians. Simplified and updated based on the original 1876 edition, Thomas Nelson, ISBN 978-0840771995
 * The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure
 * Robert's Rules in Plain English, Second Edition (2005) by Doris P. Zimmerman, HarperCollins, ISBN 978-0060787790
 * Robert's Rules Simplified (2006), by Arthur T. Lewis and Henry M. Robert, Dover Publications, ISBN 978-0486450964
 * In Brief

Henry M. Robert III, grandson of the original author and Trustee for the Robert's Rules Association, had acknowledged that "there has been controversy among parliamentarians concerning the length of Robert's Rules in its various editions and the complexity of the rules it describes." As a result, a supplemental book was developed.

In 2005, a shorter reference guide, Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised In Brief (abbreviated RONRIB), was published by the same authorship team and publisher as the Tenth Edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR) and was made to be in accord with that edition of RONR. A third edition of this shorter guide was published in 2020 to conform with the current Twelfth Edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised.

The In Brief book is the only concise guide for Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised authorized by the Roberts Rules Association, and is intended as an introductory book for those unfamiliar with parliamentary procedure. The authors say, "In only thirty minutes, the average reader can learn the bare essentials, and with about ninety minutes' reading can cover all the basics." It is meant to be an introductory supplement to the current edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised and is not suitable for adoption as a parliamentary authority in itself.

Comprehensive editions
Through a family trust, and later through the Robert's Rules Association (which is made up of descendants of Henry M. Robert), several subsequent editions of Robert's Rules of Order have been published, including another major revision of the work. The Seventh Edition, published in February 1970 on the 94th anniversary of the publication of the First Edition, was the first under the title Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR). The subsequent editions were based on additional feedback from users, including feedback received by electronic means in recent years. These later editions included material from Robert's Parliamentary Practice and Parliamentary Law.

The current edition of the series became effective on September 1, 2020, under the title Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, Twelfth Edition. This edition states that it:

"supersedes all previous editions and is intended automatically to become the parliamentary authority in organizations whose bylaws prescribe "Robert's Rules of Order", "Robert's Rules of Order Revised", "Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised", or "the current edition of" any of these titles, or the like, without specifying a particular edition."

The authorship team of the current Twelfth Edition consists of a grandson of General Robert, an attorney, a lobbyist and legislative analyst, a mathematics professor, and a copy editor, all of them being experienced parliamentarians.

More than six million copies have been printed (which is a total of all editions).

The following table lists the official versions of the body of work known as Robert's Rules of Order developed by Henry M. Robert and maintained by his successors.

Purpose
Generally, Robert's Rules of Order is a guide for conducting meetings and making decisions as a group. The purpose of the book is "to enable assemblies of any size, with due regard for every member's opinion, to arrive at the general will on the maximum number of questions of varying complexity in a minimum amount of time and under all kinds of internal climate ranging from total harmony to hardened or impassioned division of opinion".

The book is designed for use in ordinary societies rather than legislative assemblies, and it is the most commonly adopted parliamentary authority among societies in the United States. It is also recognized as "the most widely used reference for meeting procedure and business rules in the English-speaking world".

The book states that it is "a codification of the present-day general parliamentary law". "General parliamentary law" refers to the common rules and customs for conducting business in organizations and assemblies. It does not refer to statutory legal requirements nor to common-law precedent derived from court judgments. In other words, the book is about procedures for meetings and not about what is "legal" (i.e. it is not a law book).

As a reference, it is designed to answer, as nearly as possible, any question of parliamentary procedure that may arise. The Twelfth Edition contains 633 pages of text, and all of its original content was included because it "has at some time come up as a question of procedure somewhere". The completeness of the book was made so that organizations would not have to write extensive rules for themselves. In addition, members of different organizations could refer to the same book of rules.

Henry M. Robert III responded to the simplification by saying the following:

"In an effort to make parliamentary procedure more widely accessible, known, and employed, the approach of "simplification" unfortunately resurrects the very problem that Robert's Rules first emerged to solve. When there are large gaps in the rules, one or more of three major problems occur: much time is spent in debating what the rules are or should be, the chair unilaterally imposes a result, or the majority imposes a result that frequently disregards the rights of the minority. When virtually everyone agrees, an assembly may be able to get by without resort to elaborate rules. When there is serious division, however, it is in human nature that each side will attempt to construe any ambiguity in the rules in such a way as to foster its substantive objectives. The ideal is that the rules applicable to a contentious subject are so clear that the contending sides cannot plausibly differently interpret them to their own advantage. Only then does parliamentary law fully play its role as the neutral arbiter that channels disputes into productive debate over substance, instead of time-wasting and manipulative maneuvering over procedure."

Contents of current (12th) edition
The contents of the current (12th) edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR), published in 2020, include details on the types of groups that use the book, the ways that decisions could be made, and the various situations in which decisions are made.

Basics
The Introduction in the book provides a history of parliamentary procedure and includes the background and history of Robert's Rules of Order. Rules in the book are based on the rights of the majority, of the minority (especially a strong minority that is greater than one third), of individual members, of absentees, and of all these together. Some fundamental principles upon which the book is based include: one question at a time; one person, one vote; and a vote being limited to members present.

A group that uses the book is called a deliberative assembly. The types of deliberative assemblies are a mass meeting, a local assembly of an organized society (local club or local branch), a convention, a legislative body, and a board. An organization may have rules which could include a corporate charter, a constitution or bylaws, rules of order (special rules of order and parliamentary authority), standing rules, and customs. To conduct business, groups have meetings or sessions that may be separated by more than or be within a quarterly time interval. The types of meetings are a regular meeting, a special meeting, an adjourned meeting, an annual meeting, an executive session, a public session, and electronic meetings.

A member of a deliberative assembly has the right to attend meetings, make motions, speak in debate, and vote. The process of making a decision is done through a motion, which is a proposal to do something. The formal steps in handling a motion are the making of a motion, having a second, stating the motion, having debate on the motion, putting the motion to a vote, and announcing the results of the vote. Action could be taken informally without going through these steps by using unanimous consent. When making a choice, the basic principle of decision is majority vote. In situations when more than majority vote is required, the requirement could include a two-thirds vote, previous notice, or a vote of a majority of the entire membership.

Motions
The book provides details about main motions including the motion to ratify. In addition, the book lists other motions and provides details (including explanations, forms, and examples) on these motions which include:
 * Subsidiary motions – postpone indefinitely, amend, commit or refer, postpone to a certain time, limit or extend limits of debate, previous question, and lay on the table
 * Privileged motions – call for the orders of the day, raise a question of privilege, recess, adjourn, and fix the time to which to adjourn
 * Incidental motions – point of order, appeal, suspend the rules, objection to the consideration of a question, division of a question, consideration by paragraph or seriatim, motions relating to methods of voting and the polls, motions relating to nominations, request to be excused from a duty, and requests and inquiries (parliamentary inquiry, request for information, request for permission (or leave) to withdraw or modify a motion, request to read papers, and request for any other privilege)
 * Motions that bring a question again before an assembly – take from the table, rescind/amend something previously adopted, discharge a committee, and reconsider

Details for each motion include its purpose, when it could be made, if it is debatable, if it is amendable, the vote required for adoption, and if it could be reconsidered. The "order of precedence", or rank, of the motions is also described in detail.

Various topics
The second half of the book covers various topics in detail. Brief summaries of these topics are as follows:

Depending on the situation, motions could be renewed, or made again. On the other hand, members should not use legitimate motions for dilatory and improper purposes to waste time.

A quorum, or minimum number of members, is required to be present at a meeting in order to validly conduct business. The business that is to come up in a meeting could be listed in an order of business or an agenda.

Each member could get a chance to speak through assignment of the floor and debate. Debate may be limited in the number of speeches and time and should be respectful to others at all times. Voting takes place to decide the course of action and it could be done in a multitude of ways, such as voice vote, standing vote, and ballot vote.

Officers in an organization could be elected through the process of nominations and elections. Each organization decides for itself which officers to have, but the minimum officers in a deliberative assembly are a presiding officer (usually "president" or "chairman") and a secretary. The secretary keeps the minutes, or the official records of the proceedings, for each meeting. As part of their duties, the officers may have reports to give, such as a financial report given by the treasurer. In addition, an organization may have a board to handle business on behalf of the organization. Officers and boards only have such authority and powers that are given to them in the governing documents of the organization. There may also be committees that are formed to assist the organization. The boards and committees may have reports to give as well.

People may gather in mass meetings for a specific purpose or cause. One such purpose of the mass meetings could be for the intent of organizing a permanent society.

Each organization has its basic rules contained in its bylaws. The bylaws could describe the name of the organization and its purpose, the requirements to be a member or an officer, how meetings are scheduled, if there are boards or committees (or both), its parliamentary authority, and how to amend the bylaws.

Representatives from constituent groups may gather as delegates in conventions to conduct business on behalf of the organization. Conventions may consist of several meetings and may last for several days or more on an annual basis or other such infrequent interval.

If members do not act according to the organization's rules, they could be subject to disciplinary procedures. Such action could range from censure to the extreme of expulsion from the organization. Officers could be disciplined by removal from office.

Charts, tables, and lists
The tinted pages (pages marked by a gray band along the outer edge) in the rear of the book contain the following charts, tables, and lists: (1) "Chart for Determining When Each Subsidiary or Privileged Motion Is In Order", (2) "Table of Rules Relating to Motions", (3) "Sample Forms Used in Making Motions", (4) and (5) "Motions and Parliamentary Steps", (6) "Motions Which Require a Two-Thirds Vote", (7) "Motions Whose Reconsideration Is Prohibited Or Limited", and (8) "Table of Rules for Counting Election Ballots".

Additional information related to current edition
In addition to containing a summary of basic points from the current (12th) edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR), the following contents are unique to the current (3rd) edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised In Brief (RONRIB): an example of an agenda, additional sample dialogues, frequently asked questions, an example of a call of a meeting, an example of a memorandum listing the order of business, and the following tables: (A) "Handling Motions as chair", (B) "When Chair Stands and Sits", (C) "Conducting a Meeting as chair", (D) "Table of Rules Relating to Motions", and (E) "Words to Use as a Member".

The Robert's Rules Association has also made the Eleventh Edition available in CD-ROM format (designed for installation on Windows PCs) through American Legal Publishing. The CD contains the current editions of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised and Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised In Brief as well as a "Timekeeper's Guide", "Teller's Report", "Sample Rules for Electronic Meetings", various forms, and resources for "Ballot Voting and Understanding Secondary Amendments".

For the first time, an e-book version of the current Twelfth Edition was released by the Robert's Rules Association. Any copy of Robert's Rules of Order that is downloaded online is likely an older edition (1915 or earlier) that is available in the public domain.

Translations of any edition of Robert's Rules of Order into other languages have not been published by the Robert's Rules Association. Any translated copy of Robert's Rules of Order done by a third party may not accurately reflect the correct meaning in the target language.

Changes between editions
The following table lists some of the changes that were made between the editions of Robert's Rules of Order. The numbered pages may not correspond to the total number of pages in the edition due to additional material in the preface, introduction, and other miscellaneous pages that were not included in the numbering system.

Generally, a fuller list and more details of the changes are found in the preface of each edition. A detailed list of changes for the current (12th) edition is provided on the website maintained by the Robert's Rules Association. All the changes were a result of questions and comments received from users.

Rule explanations
Starting in the period between the Tenth Edition and the Eleventh Edition, the authors released official interpretations of rules in the book onto the website maintained by the Robert's Rules Association. The interpretations from that period were later incorporated into the Eleventh Edition.

In addition, the authors addressed common misunderstandings of the rules coming from frequently asked questions. Some of the misunderstandings involve: when the president can vote, whether ex-officio members can vote, the definition of majority, how abstentions affect the vote, a "friendly amendment", "calling the question", "tabling" a motion, getting items on the agenda, and the contents of minutes. While these misunderstandings are of the rules in the current edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, the organization may be governed by other rules which supersede these "default" rules.

The official interpretations and addressed common misunderstandings were a result of questions posted in the Question & Answer Forum at The Robert's Rules Association website. This forum is actively moderated by members of the authorship team.

Law-making bodies
Generally, Robert's Rules of Order is designed for ordinary societies. However, law-making bodies at the local level (such as a city council or a county commission) function similarly to boards of societies. The book has found application to such bodies. Such bodies are also subject to open meeting laws (Sunshine laws) and other applicable laws, all of which supersede any conflicting provisions in the book.

On the other hand, legislative bodies at the state or national level have their own well-defined set of rules (such as Mason's Manual of Legislative Procedure). However, a survey found that four state legislative chambers in the United States still use Robert's Rules of Order.

Corporations
Robert's Rules of Order is based on each member of a group having equal weight as expressed by vote. This book has found application in the corporate world, such as in shareholder meetings and in board of director meetings. However, the rules have to be modified to account for when some individuals within the group have more power than others.

Parliamentarians
A parliamentarian is an expert on parliamentary procedure. To be effective consultants for the organizations they work for, parliamentarians are expected to be knowledgeable on Robert's Rules of Order.

The National Association of Parliamentarians (NAP) is the largest non-profit association of parliamentarians in the world. This organization bases its opinions and instruction upon Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (12th ed.). Membership in this organization requires passing an exam which is based on the first half of the concise guide, Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised In Brief (3rd ed.).

The American Institute of Parliamentarians is another non-profit association of parliamentarians. This organization stresses proficiency and familiarity with a variety of parliamentary authorities, although it states on its website that "Robert's Rules of Order is the most frequently used parliamentary authority". The website also states that it "is the premier manual on parliamentary authority" and "a 'must-have' text for every parliamentarian".

Youth organizations
Youth organizations, such as Business Professionals of America (BPA), Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), Future Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda (FBLA-PBL), HOSA-Future Health Professionals, the National FFA Organization, SkillsUSA, and the Technology Student Association (TSA), sponsor parliamentary procedure competitions (such as Parli Pro) as part of their programs for their student members. These competitions are based on Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised. The National Association of Parliamentarians have partnered with some of these organizations.

Robert's Rules of Order are used in Congressional Debate (also referred to as Student Congress), an event put on by the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA).

Robert's Rules of Order is also used during American Legion and American Legion Auxiliary Boys/Girls State programs and in Model United Nations conferences. While the chair of each committee in an MUN conference may sometimes deviate from the written rules for educational purposes, the format of the rules in the specific committees is mostly based on Robert's Rules of Order. Another program in which Robert's Rules of Order may be used is Model Congress, although the rules in these programs may more closely resemble those in the legislative assemblies that the programs simulate.

Robert's Rules of Order are also used during National Association of College and University Residence Halls (NACURH) Residence Hall Association meetings, regional conferences, and national conferences.

Other parliamentary authorities
Parliamentarians have estimated that about 85 to 95 percent of organizations in the United States use Robert's Rules of Order. The remaining percentage of organizations use other books on meeting procedures. Notable examples of such books on parliamentary authority include Demeter's Manual of Parliamentary Law and Procedure, and Riddick's Rules of Procedure. These books along with Robert's Rules of Order share the general idea of rule of the majority with respect for the minority. A difference may be a "simplification" of the rules.

Consensus decision-making
In modern parliamentary procedure, the usual practice is having a proposal first, then discussion on this proposal with any modifications to it, and finally a vote on it, with majority vote deciding the issue if there are any disagreements. An alternative to this process is consensus decision-making. In this alternative, discussion of potential proposals is held first, followed by the framing of a proposal, and then modifying it until the group reaches a consensus, when there is no longer any disagreement.

As a response to this alternative, the authors of Robert's Rules of Order stated their belief in using debate and majority vote as part of the process in making decisions for the group.

title: Robert's Rules of Order


text:
Legislature

A legislature is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Legislatures can exist at different levels of government–national, state/provincial/regional, local, even supranational (such as the European Parliament). Countries differ as to what extent they grant deliberative assemblies at the subnational law-making power, as opposed to purely administrative responsibilities.

Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as primary legislation. In addition, legislatures may observe and steer governing actions, with authority to amend the budget involved.

The members of a legislature are called legislators. In a democracy, legislators are most commonly popularly elected, although indirect election and appointment by the executive are also used, particularly for bicameral legislatures featuring an upper house.

Terminology
The name used to refer to a legislative body varies by country.

Common names include:

 * Assembly (from Old French asemblee, cf. assemble)
 * Congress (from Latin congressum, "having gone together")
 * Council (from Latin concilium, "calling out with, uniting")
 * Diet (from Ancient Greek díaita, "lifestyle, discussion, decision")
 * Estates or States (from Old French estat, "condition, state, the state")
 * Parliament (from Old French parlement, "talking")

By names:
 * Chamber of Deputies
 * Chamber of Representatives
 * House of Assembly
 * House of Chiefs
 * House of Representatives
 * Legislative assembly
 * Legislative council
 * National Assembly
 * Senate

By languages:
 * Cortes (from Spanish cortes, "courts")
 * Duma (from Russian dúma, "thought")
 * Knesset (from Hebrew k'néset, "meeting")
 * Majlis (from Arabic majlis, "sitting room")
 * Oireachtas (From Irish airecht/oireacht, "deliberative assembly of freemen")
 * Rada (from Polish rada, "'advice, decision")
 * Reichstag (from German Reichstag, "assembly of the empire")
 * Landtag (from German Landtag, "assembly of the country")
 * Sansad (from Sanskrit saṃsada, "assembly")
 * Sejm (from Polish sejm, "take with, assembly")
 * Soviet (from Russian sovét, "council")
 * Thing (from Proto-Germanic *þingą, "meeting, matter discussed at a meeting")
 * Husting (from Old Norse húsþing, "house meeting")
 * Veche (from Old East Slavic věče, "council, agreement")

Though the specific roles for each legislature differ by location, they all aim to serve the same purpose of appointing officials to represent their citizens to determine appropriate legislation for the country.

History
Among the earliest recognised formal legislatures was the Athenian Ecclesia. In the Middle Ages, European monarchs would host assemblies of the nobility, which would later develop into predecessors of modern legislatures. These were often named the Estates. The oldest surviving legislature is the Icelandic Althing, founded in 930 CE.

Functions
Democratic legislatures have six major functions: representation, deliberation, legislation, authorizing expenditure, making governments, and oversight.

Representation
There exist five ways that representation can be achieved in a legislature:

 * Formalistically: how the rules of the legislature ensure representation of constituents;
 * Symbolically: how the constituents perceive their representatives;
 * Descriptively: how well the composition of the legislature matches the demographics of the wider society;
 * Substantively: how well representatives actually respond to the needs of their constituents;
 * Collectively: how well the representatives represent the interests of the society as a whole.

Deliberation
One of the major functions of a legislature is to discuss and debate issues of major importance to society. This activity can take place in two forms. In debating legislatures, such as the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the floor of the legislature frequently sees lively debate. In contrast, in committee-based legislatures like the United States Congress, deliberation takes place in closed committees.

Legislation
While legislatures have nominally the sole power to create laws, the substantive extent of this power depends on details of the political system. In Westminster-style legislatures the executive (composed of the cabinet) can essentially pass any laws it wants, as it usually has a majority of legislators behind it, kept in check by the party whip, while committee-based legislatures in continental Europe and those in presidential systems of the Americas have more independence in drafting and amending bills.

Authorizing expenditure
The origins of the power of the purse which legislatures typically have in passing or denying government budgets goes back to the European assemblies of nobility which the monarchs would have to consult before raising taxes. For this power to be actually effective, the legislature should be able to amend the budget, have an effective committee system, enough time for consideration, as well as access to relevant background information.

Oversight
There are several ways in which the legislature can hold the government accountable, including questioning, interpellations, and votes of confidence.

Function in authoritarian regimes
In contrast to democratic systems, legislatures under authoritarianism are used to ensure the stability of the power structure by co-opting potential competing interests within the elites, which they achieve by:

 * Providing legitimacy;
 * Incorporating opponents into the system;
 * Providing some representation of outside interests;
 * Offering a way to recruit new members to the ruling clique;
 * Being a channel through which limited grievances and concessions can be passed.

Internal organization
Each chamber of the legislature consists of a number of legislators who use some form of parliamentary procedure to debate political issues and vote on proposed legislation. There must be a certain number of legislators present to carry out these activities; this is called a quorum.

Some of the responsibilities of a legislature, such as giving first consideration to newly proposed legislation, are usually delegated to committees made up of a few of the members of the chamber(s).

The members of a legislature usually represent different political parties; the members from each party generally meet as a caucus to organize their internal affairs.

Relation to other branches of government
Legislatures vary widely in the amount of political power they wield, compared to other political players such as judiciaries, militaries, and executives. In 2009, political scientists M. Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig constructed a Parliamentary powers index in an attempt to quantify the different degrees of power among national legislatures. The German Bundestag, the Italian Parliament, and the Mongolian State Great Khural tied for most powerful, while Myanmar's House of Representatives and Somalia's Transitional Federal Assembly (since replaced by the Federal Parliament of Somalia) tied for least powerful.

Some political systems follows the principle of legislative supremacy, which holds that the legislature is the supreme branch of government and cannot be bound by other institutions, such as the judicial branch or a written constitution. Such a system renders the legislature more powerful.

In parliamentary and semi-presidential systems of government, the executive is responsible to the legislature, which may remove it with a vote of no confidence. On the other hand, according to the separation of powers doctrine, the legislature in a presidential system is considered an independent and coequal branch of government along with both the judiciary and the executive. Nevertheless, many presidential systems provide for the impeachment of the executive for criminal or unconstitutional behaviour.

Legislatures will sometimes delegate their legislative power to administrative or executive agencies.

Members
Legislatures are made up of individual members, known as legislators, who vote on proposed laws. A legislature usually contains a fixed number of legislators; because legislatures usually meet in a specific room filled with seats for the legislators, this is often described as the number of "seats" it contains. For example, a legislature that has 100 "seats" has 100 members. By extension, an electoral district that elects a single legislator can also be described as a "seat", as, for example, in the phrases "safe seat" and "marginal seat".

After election, the members may be protected by parliamentary immunity or parliamentary privilege, either for all actions the duration of their entire term, or for just those related to their legislative duties.

Chambers

A legislature may debate and vote upon bills as a single unit, or it may be composed of multiple separate assemblies, called by various names including legislative chambers, debate chambers, and houses, which debate and vote separately and have distinct powers. A legislature which operates as a single unit is unicameral, one divided into two chambers is bicameral, and one divided into three chambers is tricameral. In bicameral legislatures, one chamber is usually considered the upper house, while the other is considered the lower house. The two types are not rigidly different, but members of upper houses tend to be indirectly elected or appointed rather than directly elected, tend to be allocated by administrative divisions rather than by population, and tend to have longer terms than members of the lower house. In some systems, particularly parliamentary systems, the upper house has less power and tends to have a more advisory role, but in others, particularly federal presidential systems, the upper house has equal or even greater power.

In federations, the upper house typically represents the federation's component states. This is also the case with the supranational legislature of the European Union. The upper house may either contain the delegates of state governments – as in the European Union and in Germany and, before 1913, in the United States – or be elected according to a formula that grants equal representation to states with smaller populations, as is the case in Australia and the United States since 1913.

Tricameral legislatures are rare; the Massachusetts Governor's Council still exists, but the most recent national example existed in the waning years of White-minority rule in South Africa. Tetracameral legislatures no longer exist, but they were previously used in Scandinavia. The only legislature with a number of chambers bigger than four was the Federal Assembly of Yugoslavia; initially established as a Pentacameral body in 1963, it was turned into a hexacameral body in 1967.

Size
Legislatures vary widely in their size. Among national legislatures, China's National People's Congress is the largest with 2,980 members, while Vatican City's Pontifical Commission is the smallest with 7. Neither legislature is democratically elected: The Pontifical Commission members are appointed by the Pope and the National People's Congress is indirectly elected within the context of a one-party state.

Legislature size is a trade off between efficiency and representation; the smaller the legislature, the more efficiently it can operate, but the larger the legislature, the better it can represent the political diversity of its constituents. Comparative analysis of national legislatures has found that size of a country's lower house tends to be proportional to the cube root of its population; that is, the size of the lower house tends to increase along with population, but much more slowly.

title: Legislature


text:
Adjara

Adjara (აჭარა Ach’ara ) or Achara, officially known as the Autonomous Republic of Adjara (აჭარის ავტონომიური რესპუბლიკა Ach’aris Avt’onomiuri Resp’ublik’a ), is a political-administrative region of Georgia. It is in the country's southwestern corner, on the coast of the Black Sea, near the foot of the Lesser Caucasus Mountains, north of Turkey. It is an important tourist destination and includes Georgia's second most populous city of Batumi as its capital. About 350,000 people live on its 2,880 km2.

Adjara is home to the Adjarians, a regional subgroup of Georgians. The name can be spelled in a number of ways: Ajara, Ajaria, Adjaria, Adzharia, Atchara and Achara. Under the Soviet Union, Adjara was part of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic as the Adjarian ASSR. The autonomous status of Adjara is guaranteed under article 6 of the Treaty of Kars.

History
Adjara was a part of Georgian polities, Colchis and Caucasian Iberia, since ancient times. Colonized by Greeks in the 5th century BC, the region fell under Rome in the 2nd century BC. It became part of the Lazica before being incorporated into the Kingdom of Abkhazia in the 8th century AD, the latter led unification of Georgian monarchy in the 11th century.

Andrew the Apostle, who is believed to be a missionary of the Mother of God to Georgia and founder of the Georgian Orthodox Church, entered Georgia from Adjara region and first preached Christianity there.

Adjaria was occupied by several empires: the First Persian Empire (500 BC), Seljuks (11th century), Mongols (13th century), and Timurids (14th century).

Ottoman period
The Ottomans conquered the area in 1614. Although, the Ottoman millet system allowed its subjects extensive self-governance and religious freedom, many Adjarians gradually chose to convert to Islam during the 200 years of Ottoman presence. The nobility converted first. Adjarians were fully Islamized by the end of the eighteenth century.

Russian Empire
The Ottomans were forced to cede Adjara to the expanding Russian Empire in 1878 under the Treaty of Berlin. The Berlin Treaty allowed Adjarians to leave for Turkey, keeping a provision of Section 6, article 21 of the Treaty of San Stefano. Many Adjarians emigrated to Turkey. While the Russian authorities supported the Russian Orthodox Church's missionary efforts, they also tried to win the loyalty of Adjarians by building mosques and madrassas and supporting the local Muslim clergy. As a result, many Adjarians emigrants, called Muhacir, came back to Adjara. Within Russian imperial administrative division, Adjara was called Batumi okrug, comprising Kutaisi Governorate.

Soviet rule
In 1918, Georgia regained its independence as a democratic republic and Adjara became part of it. However, in April 1918, the Ottoman Empire invaded Georgia and captured Batumi. On 4 June 1918, the Treaty of Batum was signed, under which Georgia was forced to cede Adjara to the Ottoman Empire. However, due to the Ottoman defeat in the First World War and the Treaty of Mudros, the Ottomans soon withdrew the territory. After the temporary occupation by the British (with the entrance of the British warship HMS Liverpool (1909)) troops in 1918–1920, Adjara became part of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1920. The British administration ceded the region to the Democratic Republic of Georgia on July 20, 1920. It was granted autonomy under the Georgian constitution adopted in February 1921 when the Red Army invaded Georgia. Turkey reinvaded Adjara in March 1921, although Georgians defeated Turks in the Battle of Batumi and Ankara's government ceded the territory to Georgia under Article VI of Treaty of Kars on the condition that autonomy be provided for the Muslim population, while Turkish commodities were guaranteed free transit through the port of Batumi. The Soviets established in 1921 the Adjarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in accord with this clause, thus Adjara remained part of Georgia. Until 1937, it had the name Ajaristan. The autonomous republic was the only autonomous unit in the USSR based solely on religion. However, Stalin's definition of what constituted a nation was based on language. Without their own language, Adjars did not develop a strong sense of national identity, separate from Georgian. Moreover, the Soviet atheist ideology dampened religious practice. In the 1920s, the Ajars rebelled against the Soviet anti-Islamic activities, as well as against the collectivization reforms. The armed uprising began in the mountainous regions of Adjara in April 1929. Soviet troops were deployed in response and swiftly quelled the revolt.

Independent Georgia
After the Georgian independence, Aslan Abashidze became the chairman of Ajaria's parliament. Abashidze was initially appointed by the first Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia in 1991. However, he later took advantage of the civil war in the country and turned Adjara into the personal fiefdom, although it remained relatively prosperous enclave in an otherwise rather chaotic country. Abashidze unilaterally took power without formal agreement and started to withhold tax revenue and capture Adjara's considerable wealth. His opponents alleged that Abashidze engaged in smuggling. After the end of Georgia's civil war, Abashidze reached agreement with the Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze to stay in power. The central government in Tbilisi had very little say in what went on in Adjara. Elections in Adjara were not free and fair, Abashidze controlled the media and captured customs revenue for his personal enrichment. Abashidze instituted the border control with the rest of Georgia and created armed paramilitaries. However, he asserted that Adjara wasn't separatist. Even though Shevardnadze often complained about Abashidze's aggressive autonomous strategy, they had good relationships and supported each other when they needed public support. On October 24, 1997, Adjara became a full member of the Assembly of European Regions (AER).

This changed following the Rose Revolution of 2003 when Shevardnadze was deposed in favour of the reformist opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili. Adjaran leader Aslan Abashidze, being in strong opposition to the Rose Revolution, declared a state of emergency immediately after Eduard Shevardnadze's ousting on November 23, 2003. He began to crackdown on opposition, with dozens being injured as a result of clashes between protesters and police in the southern Adjaran village of Gonio in January 2004. Soon after his inauguration as president in January 2004, Saakashvili took aim at Abashidze with strong anticorruption reforms. In the wake of Abashidze's visit to Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on January 20 backing Abashidze's policy and condemning his opposition as "extremist forces". In spring 2004, a major crisis in Adjara erupted as the central government sought to reimpose its authority on the region. It led to several encounters between Abashidze's paramilitaries and the Georgian army. However, Saakashvili's ultimata and mass protests in Batumi against Abashidze's autocratic rule forced the Adjaran leader to resign in May 2004. Facing charges of embezzlement and murder, Abashidze destroyed the bridges between Adjara and the rest of Georgia to delay the advance of Georgian troops in Batumi and then fled to Moscow. Even Abashidze's former ally, Haji Mahmud Kamashidze, sided with Saakashvili. Saakashvili wanted Adjara to keep a significant autonomy. A new law was therefore introduced to redefine the terms of Adjara's autonomy. Levan Varshalomidze succeeded Abashidze as the chairman of the government.

In July 2007, the seat of the Georgian Constitutional Court was moved from Tbilisi to Batumi. In November 2007 Russia ended its two-century military presence in Georgia by withdrawing from the 12th Military Base (the former 145th Motor Rifle Division) in Batumi.

Turkey still has noticeable economic and religious influence in Adjara as the Georgians wary of the rising Turkish presence.

Law and government

The status of the Adjaran Autonomous Republic is defined by Georgia's law on Adjara and the region's new constitution, adopted following the ousting of Aslan Abashidze. The local legislative body is the Supreme Council. The head of the region's government—the Council of Ministers of Adjara—is nominated by the President of Georgia who also has powers to dissolve the assembly and government and to overrule local authorities on issues where the constitution of Georgia is contravened. Tornike Rizhvadze is the current head of the Adjaran government.

Administrative divisions
Adjara is subdivided into six administrative units:

Geography and climate
Adjara is on the southeastern coast of the Black Sea and extends into the wooded foothills and mountains of the Lesser Caucasus. It has borders with the region of Guria to the north, Samtskhe-Javakheti to the east and Turkey to the south. Most of Adjara's territory either consists of hills or mountains. The highest mountains rise more than 3,000 m above sea level. Around 60% of Adjara is covered by forests. Many parts of the Meskheti Range (the west-facing slopes) are covered by temperate rain forests.

Adjara is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude.

Climate
Adjara is well known for its humid climate (especially along the coastal regions) and prolonged rainy weather, although there is plentiful sunshine during the spring and summer months. Adjara receives the highest amounts of precipitation both in Georgia and in the Caucasus. It is also one of the wettest temperate regions in the northern hemisphere. No region along Adjara's coast receives less than 2200 mm of precipitation per year. The west-facing (windward) slopes of the Meskheti Range receive upwards of 4500 mm of precipitation per year. The coastal lowlands receive most of the precipitation in the form of rain (due to the area's subtropical climate). September and October are usually the wettest months. Batumi's average monthly rainfall for the month of September is 410 mm. The interior parts of Adjara are considerably drier than the coastal mountains and lowlands. Winter usually brings significant snowfall to the higher regions of Adjara, where snowfall often reaches several meters. Average summer temperatures are between 22–24 degrees Celsius in the lowland areas and 17–21 degrees Celsius in the highlands. The highest areas of Adjara have lower temperatures. Average winter temperatures are between 4–6 degrees Celsius along the coast while the interior areas and mountains average around -3–2 degrees Celsius. Some of the highest mountains of Adjara have average winter temperatures of -8–(-7) degrees Celsius.

Economy
Adjara has good land for growing tea, citrus fruits and tobacco. Mountainous and forested, the region has a subtropical climate, and there are many health resorts. Tobacco, tea, citrus fruits, and avocados are leading crops; livestock raising is also important. Industries include tea packing, tobacco processing, fruit and fish canning, oil refining, and shipbuilding.

The regional capital, Batumi, is an important gateway for the shipment of goods heading into Georgia, Azerbaijan and landlocked Armenia. The port of Batumi is used for the shipment of oil from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Its oil refinery handles Caspian oil from Azerbaijan which arrives by pipeline to Supsa port and is transported from there to Batumi by rail. The Adjaran capital is a centre for shipbuilding and manufacturing.

Adjara is the main center of Georgia's coastal tourism industry, having displaced the northwestern province of Abkhazia since that region's de facto secession from Georgia in 1993.

Demographics
According to the 2014 census, the population of Adjara is 333,953.

Ethnic groups
The Adjarians (Ajars) are an ethnographic group of the Georgian people who speak a group of local dialects known collectively as Adjarian. The written language is Georgian. Adjarians have been known as "Muslim Georgians". They were officially referred as such until the 1926 Soviet census which listed them as "Ajars" and counted 71,000 of them. Later, they were simply classified under a broader category of Georgians as no official Soviet census asked about religion. In independent Georgia, censuses do not include an "Adjarian" category, nor do they distinguish between ethnic Georgian Muslims and other Muslims, such as Azerbaijanis.

Ethnic minorities include Laz, Russians, Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Abkhaz.

Religion
After Adjara was ceded to the Russian Empire in 1878 under the Treaty of Berlin, Adjarians, who were Muslims, were allowed to leave for Turkey. While the Russian authorities supported the Russian Orthodox Church's missionary efforts, they also tried to win the loyalty of Adjarians by building mosques and madrassas and supporting the local Muslim clergy. As a result, many Adjarians emigrants, called Muhacir, came back to Adjara.

Although Adjara's political and religious autonomy was guaranteed by the 1921 Treaty of Kars, the Soviet atheist ideology dampened religious practice in the region.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the re-establishment of Georgia's independence first led to an Islamic revival. However, later Christianity has experienced a strong growth in Adjara, especially among the young, which saw the conversion to Christianity as returning to the religion of ancestors prior to the Ottoman conquest. Nevertheless, there still remain Sunni Muslim communities in Adjara, mainly in the Khulo district. The Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs is active in Adjara. According to Ghia Nodia, many Adjarians are Muslims but they consider themselves ethnic Georgians. According to the 2014 census, 54.5% of Adjara's population is Orthodox Christian, while 39.8% is Muslim, the rest includes atheists, adherents of the Armenian Apostolic Church and others. In the main city, Batumi, out of 152,839 inhabitants, 68,7% is Eastern Orthodox Christian, and they primarily adhere to the national Georgian Orthodox Church. Muslims make up 25,3% of population, while there are also Catholic, Armenian Apostolic, Jehovah's Witness, Seventh-day Adventist, and Jewish communities. In the second largest Kobuleti Municipality, 65.1% of the population in Orthodox Christian, while 28.8% is Muslim. Muslims make up majorities mostly in the mountainous districts, they make up 94.6% of the population in Khulo Municipality, 74.4% in Shuakhevi Municipality, 62.1% in Keda Municipality and 56.3% Khelvachauri Municipality.

Selimoba
Selimoba is held in the village of Bako, Khulo Municipality on June 3 and commemorates the life of Selim Khimshiashvili. A concert with the participation of local amateur groups of a folk handicraft products exhibition is held during the festival. It is supported by Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Adjara.

Shuamtoba
Shuamtoba ("inter-mountain festival") is a traditional festival, which is held on the summer mountain pastures of two municipalities (Khulo and Shuakhevi), during the first weekend of every August. Horse racing, a folk handicraft exhibition and a concert involving folk ensembles are held as well.

Machakhloba
Machakhloba is a Machakhela gorge festivity, held in the second half of September. It is a traditional holiday celebrated in Machakhela gorge, Khelvachauri Municipality. The festival begins at the Machakhela rifle monument (at the point of convergence of the rivers Machakhela and Chorokhi), continues in the village Machakhispiri and ends in the village Zeda Chkhutuneti.

Kolkhoba
Kolkhoba is an ancient Laz festival. It is held at the end of August or at the beginning of September in Sarpi village, Khelvachauri District. The story of the Argonauts is performed on stage during the festival.

Notable people

 * Aslan Abashidze (born 1938), head of the Adjarian government 1991–2004
 * Memed Abashidze (1873–1941), prominent political leader of Muslim Georgians
 * Tbeli Abuserisdze (1190–1240), Georgian writer and scientist
 * Sopho Khalvashi (born 31 May 1986), Georgian singer
 * Ahmed-Pasha Khimshiashvili (died 1836), Great Ottoman Pasha
 * Selim Khimshiashvili (3 June 1815), Pasha (Minister) of Ottoman and Russia Political Affairs on 1802
 * Zurab Nogaideli (born 1964), former Prime Minister of Georgia 2005–2007
 * Levan Varshalomidze (born 1972), head of the Adjarian government 2004–2012
 * Fyodor Yurchikhin (born 3 January 1959), cosmonaut

title: Adjara