What I Did On My Summer Vacation, Part 2

[jducoeur]

Sunday started off bright and early with Order Meetings. What fun. Having morning people for Royalty is not always a good thing (at least for those of us who are night owls), and it's worse when they correctly realize that only the Pelicans are dumb enough to go to meetings at 9am. These were done at lightspeed, about half an hour apiece.

There was one piece of significant business, mentioned at the beginning of each meeting -- the EK Order Discussion Lists are becoming Official. These were originally nothing of the sort: they were a private project of Ateno's, who figured that the members of the Orders might want to discuss stuff online. Now, in response to several considerations, the Royalty have decided that it's time to write them into Law and move them onto EK-owned servers, as well as adding "moderators" (in the sense of someone in charge of keeping an eye on things and nudging the lists if they get overheated).

Unsurprisingly, this passed with nary a comment in all of the meetings except the Laurelate. I've been noticing in recent years that the "arts mavins" in general, and the Laurelate in particular, are especially prone to argument about SCA philosophy. Don't know why, but suffice it to say that the Laurels spent 25 minutes talking about the change, as opposed to about 3 minutes in each of the other meetings.

Following the meetings, I walked out into the Royal Courtyard, only to find Ari kneeling before Their Majesties. Lady Arianwen is an old friend -- indeed, I was retainer to her in my earliest days in the Society. (She was Provost of Felding when I started at Fenmere, and I wound up involved with her household for a year or two.) She's the quiet sort who often don't get noticed much, but she's one of the senior members of Silverwing, and has served as de facto bearer of the East Kingdom War Banner ever since it was made (by her, I think), eons ago. So Their Majesties decided to recognize that in the most appropriate way: by officializing the position, and naming her Hereditary Bearer of the EK War Standard. All very period, and quite neat. (Needless to say, Steffan had a hand in it.)

After that, they immediately trooped out to start the procession, so I took Ari's scroll and held it during Opening Ceremonies. These went much as usual, with an endlessly long procession out onto the battlefield, and the various Royalty taking their turns to posture and choose sides. By count of Kingdoms things looked almost even, but anyone paying attention could easily see that the considerable majority of Pennsic attendees had declared for the Mid. (The West may be a good-sized Kingdom, but it doesn't exactly send a huge army to Pennsic.) The best declaration was Lochac, which decided that it had to side with His Majesty, Russell Crowe. Two Kingdoms chose to side with Northshield (the newest Kingdom on the block), which itself declared for the Mid.

In the afternoon, I spent an hour or two showing ladysprite around Pennsic. This wasn't anything very organized, just a random walk pointing out the sights and introducing some assorted people as we encountered them. Lots of fun: I haven't had an excuse to do a walking tour like that in a while, and it's neat getting to show her around.

In the late afternoon, I decided to take in the first part of Fairfax's class on "Five Personas". Alan Fairfax is one of the better teachers at Pennsic, concentrating particularly on medieval religion and other culture. So I wasn't wholly surprised when Their Majesties of the Mid barged in right ahead of me, and called in the Laurelate, who turned out to be there in great profusion -- I seemed to be the only one there who didn't know that Fairfax was being sent on vigil. Their Majesties then did one of the more cruelly amusing things I've seen in a while: they finished with, "And now, we give you leave to teach your class." To his credit, Fairfax managed to pull his jaw up off the floor within a couple of minutes, and taught a very interesting session. (The notion of the class series was to present a series of particular period archetypes that are often used as SCA personas, and examine how each one's view of the world would really be. This session was "The Knight".)

Dinner was Snooty Food Night, an annual Lochleven tradition. The camp's food may not be the most period, but it's always tasty, and Snooty Food Night is always a treat -- grilled steak, poached salmon and a variety of tasty desserts. Following that was the annual Welcome Ceremony, wherein the members and guests of the household sit around the fire and introduce themselves. This year they tried something new: each person was to state their goals for this Pennsic as a toast. I decided that mine was, after 20-some years, to get my first kill on the battlefield, which was well-received by the group. (Lochleven is, among other things, one of the East's better and more cohesive combat units. So they were very encouraging all week of my project of finally getting back into armor.)

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

"Lady Arianwen"

Hey, I remember her! Cool. She was one of the main players in the "cut up the whole sheep on the kitchen floor, nude, and forget to close the curtains and thus freak the neighbors" story, right?

"Snooty Food Night, an annual Lochleven tradition"

Why is it called that? Sounds like it was tasty, though.

[dkapell.livejournal.com]

Snooty food night comes from the aftermath of our first pennsic as a household, when Cassandra got to the end of the week, and had money left over. She posed the question "so, should i charge less, or provide better food" and it was decided that better food would work nicely. We have Salmon, Filet Minion, Portabella mushrooms, various pasta salads, and a variety of fancy deserts. Its kind of a "because we can" thing.

[jducoeur]

Hmm. I don't actually recall that particular story. But it does sound like the kind of thing Crystal Winds might have done...

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

The two kingdoms that sided with Northshield were Calontir (the Big Brother) and the Outlands (the Bestest Bud). What the Outlands said was "We will declare with Northshield," which lead the Easties and the Westies sitting around me to say, "Huh? What does that mean?"

[cellio]

While I was sitting in one of Fairfax's classes I found myself thinking "when are they going to give him a Laurel, anyway?". A day or two later I saw an announcement in the paper. :-)

I'm surprised that only the Laurels wanted to discuss the move to "official" order mailing lists. I am confident that in AEthelmearc both the Laurels and the Pelicans would have things to say about it. Ones other than me, I mean. :-) I predict that if someone were to try to force such a change, we'd just have two lists -- the official one to satisfy the bureaucrats, with which kingdom and corporate officers would no doubt interfere before too long, and the real one where all the discussion actually happens. No one has the authority to shut down private channels of communication, after all, though some would try.

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, the issues regarding the mailing list were mainly Laurel-related. That might have been the reason.

It does bother me that an order would waste precious meeting time discussing a decision that had been made rather than talking about the candidates.

If I remember correctly, there was no discussion of the issues in the Silver Crescent or Pelican meetings, and we *still* ran out of time.

[jducoeur]

It does bother me that an order would waste precious meeting time discussing a decision that had been made rather than talking about the candidates.

Like I said -- the Laurelate historically cares more about these sorts of philosophical issues. And they really are no less the business of the Peerage than the pollings are. Indeed, they're arguably better-suited to these face-to-face meetings than the candidate discussions, which (let's get real) tend to be fairly duplicative of those that happen on the discussion lists these days. (I heard *very* little in any of those meetings that I hadn't already heard online, whereas the list discussion was New and Different...)

[siderea]

Bloody long-hair hippy artist types, always fomenting anarchy. ;)

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

If the Crown gets too structural on the Official lists, rest assured the veteran Living Room crowd will resurrect itself.

[jducoeur]

Truth to tell, I don't deeply disagree with the change. A lot of the reasons for why it "needs" to happen are spurious, but some of the changes (especially the introduction of a little light moderation) are IMO probably improvements.

I think that TRH goofed in how they presented it -- by making it into a fait accompli, they've made it a bit more controversial than it needs to be. That aside, I don't actually think it's a bit deal...

[cellio]

Presenting a fait accompli sounds bad from the outside; was it really important for them to burn karma on that particular issue?

Ironically, the AEthelmearc laurels had a discussion this Pennsic about the mailing list; we've had a couple heated exchanges and people asked me (as list owner) to do something about it. We decided that I'll post the usual common-sense (except that sense isn't always common) guidelines and remind people of them when necessary. (Other people, of course, are also enpowered to write to problem posters.) Separately we are discussing policies whereby N complaints in X period of time gets someone moved to a moderated list for Y period of time. People have actually asked me to ban posters and I have refused because I don't want that much power concentrated in any individual (though if it's going to be, I like to think I'm a not-unreasonable choice :-) ).

All that said, I will fight tooth and nail against any effort by the kingdom to take control of our private list. (Fortunately, such efforts are not visibly forthcoming.) The last time I let something that I was doing unofficially get taken over by a well-meaning person at the kingdom level, I regretted the decision almost immediately. And mailing lists are especially clear to me; the kingdom has no more authority to regulate a private mailing list than to regulate discussions at Pizza Hut after Coronation. Polls, sure, but not discussions.

[jducoeur]

was it really important for them to burn karma on that particular issue?

I suspect that it didn't occur to them that it would be a problem. It's pretty common for Royalty to err in guessing what changes people will take in stride (which can easily just be presented as essentially edicts) and which ones will become Issues that must be presented carefully. Some Royals are sensitive to this sort of thing, but in my experience it's unusual. So I'm attributing this to honest error...