Let's Talk about Wording

[jducoeur]

[This is SCA politics; folks not in the SCA aren't likely to care about it.]

So it sounds like last weekend's BoD meeting was mostly uneventful -- nothing I've heard so far is head-exploding. That said, it does seem to have had its bits of Special.

The one interesting problem is the new change to the wording of the Same-Gender Crown Proposal. Specifically, the addition of a sentence, "No one may take part in the list as both competitor and also consort." This is a *huge* policy change, and a surprisingly bad idea -- it would have far more effect on traditional opposite-gender couples in Crown. I'm a bit surprised that the Board is even entertaining it.

So I'm contemplating a letter to the Board. Here's a draft, for commentary.

To the members of the Society's Board of Directors, from Mark Waks, known in the Society as Justin du Coeur: greetings.

I've read the informal reports of the Board meeting on October 27th, and most of it seems uncontroversial. However, I must express my concerns about the proposed change to law, in response to the Same-Gender Crown Proposal, to add the sentence, "No one may take part in the list as both competitor and also consort."

This seems like an extremely bad idea -- deeply at odds with established practice in many Kingdoms, and harmful in a number of ways. In particular, it is likely to lessen the number of women in the Crown List, since many of them are fighting for the man who is fighting for them. And indeed, given how many female fighters cite Duchess Rowen (who would have been excluded by this rule) as a primary inspiration to them, this rule change seems to have the potential to be quite damaging to the Society.

My understanding is that the proposed change is in response to concerns about "Ducal Daisy Chains" -- collections of Royal Peers who choose to collaborate in a massive rules-hack to improve their chances of winning. I'll be frank: I think this is unwarranted catastrophizing, the typical sort of rationalization people come up with to argue against the Same-Gender proposal to begin with. The prime rule of the SCA is "Don't Be a Jerk", and trying to legislate against the ten thousand ways one *can* be a jerk is just a recipe for tying ourselves in knots. I honestly don't think we should be spending so much attention on something that should instead be handled by social censure.

But let's take the concern at face value. If we really are concerned about this happening, a much more correct rule change would be, "Couples may compete for each other in the Crown List, but neither may compete for a third party". That is, it should absolutely be allowed for two Dukes to compete for each other, just as Rowen and Hector did and just as many opposite-gender couples do today. (I suspect that the social hassles given to the first pair to do so will help discourage subsequent rules-hackers.) We should call a spade a spade, and forbid only the sorts of unlikely grand conspiracies that seem to be the basis of the catastrophizing, without harming those couples who sincerely wish to fight for each other and are following decades of tradition in doing so.

You will also note that this wording has little to do with the Same-Gender proposal, intentionally. These "daisy chains" are already possible -- if people aren't worrying about that case, it is only because they are not taking the female fighters sufficiently seriously. The fact that this issue is only coming up in the context of the Same-Gender proposal is, honestly, quietly insulting to the many talented female fighters of the Society.

I hope you take this suggestion into consideration.

Sincerely,
Mark Waks

(Wow, it goes against my grain to use my mundane name in SCA correspondence, but as I've remarked before, the Board appears to be deeply embarassed by the notion of the game intruding into their sphere of operations at all.)

Opinions?

Comments

[bleemoo.livejournal.com]

Ok. That actually makes sense, and makes me much less uncomfortable with the apparent attitude of the board (notwithstanding my discomfort regarding the current rule change).

I am still wary of getting involved with a hobby whose existence is dependent on a highly formalized and ritualized "multi-million dollar non-profit corporation that spans international borders and has affiliates in other nations and subsidiaries within the United States," for a variety of complex reasons.

For someone who has absolutely no interest in actually joining the SCA, I am surprisingly interested and invested in the way it works.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

You have the right to your reservations. :-) I have a lot of reservations on HOW they do things, but not that they exist.

Basically: in this world that we live in, there are 2 inevitable things: taxes and liability. (It used to be death and taxes, but then the US Government made immortal corporations people... now death is optional for some people. HHOS)

Given the existence of laws, and the need for insurance, and the issues of taxation, there has to be some sort of Corporation that pays the taxes (or avoids them legally) and which can be used as a tool or barrier against suits for negligence (usually by buying insurance). I suppose you don't HAVE TO have a corporation, but it's the standard way.

And, as long as the SCA has people that want to play in lots of states and countries, it needs to protect their income and taxes and their personal property by either existing, or creating a liaison with corporations that are unique to the laws of other nations.

I wouldn't let the mere existence of such bother you.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

You've been to science fiction or gaming conventions, yes? The SCA BoD is analogous to a convention's ConCom. The SCA is merely larger.

Don't let the discussion here bother you - in the day-to-day experience of most SCAdians, the BoD... isn't an issue. Our host here is a policy wonk (and I mean that in a good way). For someone like me, who just wants to go to events, do some arts and crafts, and maybe experiment with whacking people with rattan on rare occasion, the BoD comes close to "might as well not exist".

[jducoeur]

Yes, quite true. Sadly, one side-effect of playing for a long time, often at the fringes of the very high levels of the club, is that I am extremely conscious of how the sausage is made, and find it extremely difficult to ignore. That's a lot less visible to most folks, most of the time...

[umbran.livejournal.com]

And, of course, someone has to pay attention to how the sausage gets made. Sausage quality tends to drop if you don't.

The point being that so long as there are sufficient food inspectors, most of us can be pretty blithe about consuming the sausage :)