[SCA] Can I say this?
May. 19th, 2008 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newman(This isn't going to mean a lot to you if you're not in the SCA. Even if you are, it may not mean a lot to you)
A short note came across the wires this morning from Hal Simon (Chairman of the BOD) regarding the invalidation of the reign of the current King and Queen of The Middle because of a 3-day lapse in membership due to some unusual circumstances. At the conclusion of the brief letter, Mr. Simon (as ever) indicates that "Questions, suggestions and comments can be sent to [email address snipped]". This is the note I'm considering sending; do I bother?
Dear Mr. Simon:
Upon reading your recent brief note concerning the invalidation of the reign of Lutr and Tessa, I was struck by the fact that The Board of Directors seems increasingly hidebound, interested in enforcing the letter of our laws, regardless of the cost or of the original intent of those laws. Interest in the S.C.A. from senior members (such as myself) is waning, and The S.C.A. has not been able to increase new member recruitment. My question, suggestion, and comment are
1) Why aren't the Board of Directors focused more on improving the S.C.A. and less on preserving some perceived status quo?
2) Please increase the transparency of our government. Much of the Board's actions are in a sealed Star Chamber.
3) If the Board of Directors does not make some drastic changes in the next few years, the S.C.A. as an entity will cease to exist. It already has largely ceased to exist as an organization I wish to be part of.
Alternative text for #3: If the Board of Directors does not make some drastic changes in the next few years, the S.C.A. as an entity will cease to exist. It is already well on its way to becoming an organization I would not wish to be part of.
Signed,
me, with all the titles and O.P. stuff that apparently makes me worth listening to ;-)
A short note came across the wires this morning from Hal Simon (Chairman of the BOD) regarding the invalidation of the reign of the current King and Queen of The Middle because of a 3-day lapse in membership due to some unusual circumstances. At the conclusion of the brief letter, Mr. Simon (as ever) indicates that "Questions, suggestions and comments can be sent to [email address snipped]". This is the note I'm considering sending; do I bother?
Dear Mr. Simon:
Upon reading your recent brief note concerning the invalidation of the reign of Lutr and Tessa, I was struck by the fact that The Board of Directors seems increasingly hidebound, interested in enforcing the letter of our laws, regardless of the cost or of the original intent of those laws. Interest in the S.C.A. from senior members (such as myself) is waning, and The S.C.A. has not been able to increase new member recruitment. My question, suggestion, and comment are
1) Why aren't the Board of Directors focused more on improving the S.C.A. and less on preserving some perceived status quo?
2) Please increase the transparency of our government. Much of the Board's actions are in a sealed Star Chamber.
3) If the Board of Directors does not make some drastic changes in the next few years, the S.C.A. as an entity will cease to exist. It already has largely ceased to exist as an organization I wish to be part of.
Alternative text for #3: If the Board of Directors does not make some drastic changes in the next few years, the S.C.A. as an entity will cease to exist. It is already well on its way to becoming an organization I would not wish to be part of.
Signed,
me, with all the titles and O.P. stuff that apparently makes me worth listening to ;-)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 08:09 pm (UTC)I think that's a little overstated. First of all, it needs to be noted that nobody *wanted* to do this --
Moreover, they're currently getting around the problem with the most egregious and clever rules-hack I've seen in the entire history of the Society, and if I'm reading the back-and-forth correctly it's being done with the full complicity of Corporate. Far as I can tell, the Powers That Be are as unhappy with this turn of events as anybody, and looking for a way to fix it within SCA law as written.
The thing that's bugging me about the whole situation is that everyone seems to be looking to blame Corporate, and in this particular case I think that's largely mis-aimed. (And remember who is talking: I am no apologist for Corporate.) There's a fuckup here, but it's in the way we *wrote* our laws, not in how they're being enforced. Frankly, it looks to me like the people at the top are making the best of a bad hand...
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 08:59 pm (UTC)And I can read that where? It isn't on his LJ and I haven't seen it on any of the many SCA fora I read.
But yes, I don't dispute that this is the prescribed response. And it's a quintessentially Scadian one: our motto should be "Global Solutions for Local Problems Since 1965". If a flea bites a dog in Pocatello, the response is always the nuclear carpet-bombing of Idaho followed by the destruction of every flea...and every dog...that can be found.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 10:59 pm (UTC)Maybe he took it down, but I don't think I am on his friends' list.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 11:32 pm (UTC)Hmm. It *was* there. Of course, it was also developing a fairly nasty set of comments, so I guess he decided to kill the thread to avoid the tsurrus.
As for the general point, though, I really don't see this as carpet-bombing. It was an individual error, and an individual reaction -- damned inconvenient due to the timing, but I think that comparing it with the Society's admitted tendency to over-legislate is inappropriate in this case. *This* one was very specific, moreso than is often true -- the backsplash is just the inevitable consequence of *any* rule that affects sitting Royalty...
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 11:10 pm (UTC)You mean the double crown tournament? What is your reason for so characterizing it?
no subject
Date: 2008-05-20 01:28 am (UTC)*That* is why I call it a gigantic rules-hack, and a very clever one. I may be misinterpreting, but that's how I read the various messages I've seen...
no subject
Date: 2008-05-20 12:31 pm (UTC)And I think this shines a light on my basic philosophical disagreement with the BoD: they are more interested in preserving the letter of the law than its intent, and they are so bound by SCA law or fearful of it that they seem to have no power or desire to adjust it on a case-by-case basis.
In this case, an honest (and relatively minor) mistake was made; the Royalty let their membership lapse. Since, de jure they must have their reign invalidated, that's what the BoD did. I think that's hide-bound, and I don't like it — but I can follow the logic from a "we were only following orders" standpoint. Creating exceptions to law on a case-by-case basis gets messy; I can see why a group of people wouldn't want to open that can of worms, even in a case that looks as clear as this one.
But... the remedy to this problem (the 'clever hack'), supports the point of view that the law is more important than the intent. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to articulate this well. The purpose of Crown Tourney is to fight to be King. I have always been told "don't enter if you don't want to win". This whole new tournament — with its explicit purpose of finding a 'new king' and its implicit purpose of doing a rain dance to appease the gods of law so that Lutr can sit on the throne again — seems to me to be the wrong way to go about this.
It's charming that it's being done with the tacit support of the BoD. It also seems to me that if the BoD thinks the situation is wrong, the thing to do is a) fix it, and b) take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.
The upcoming tournament seems to be a polite fiction, a way to 'get around' an SCA law, and everyone seems very pleased with themselves that they've come up with this clever hack which keeps all the laws intact while overlooking the fact that we're effectively rigging a Crown Tourney. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
The people who created the idea of the 'fake' Crown Tourney don't have the power to change, suspend, or amend S.C.A. law, so their only recourse is to a) petition the people who can do so, or b) come up with a clever way around the current laws. I applaud them for doing so.
The B.O.D., on the other hand, are the very few people in the S.C.A. who do have the power to change, suspend, or amend S.C.A. law. The fact that they've taken the tack of supporting a hack, rather than taking the harder path of amending a law that clearly needs amendation, makes me unhappy with them.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-20 02:50 pm (UTC)But as far as I can tell, they *are* taking the path of amendation -- they're just doing it in a controlled way.
I think that's appropriate. Consider: most of the Society's worst disasters have been due to the Board getting panicked into making law changes in the heat of the moment. When you have a crisis is *not* the time to be making changes with long-term ramifications, if at all avoidable -- odds are better than usual that you will screw it up. (And historically, they often *have* screwed it up.) Over the years, the membership (with Carolingia leading the pack) have hammered into their heads that they shouldn't make significant changes in a clumsy rush.
Hal's note (at least in my reading) boils down to, "This was a mess. Help us figure out the best way to avoid it in the future." For the duration of the current crisis, they took the narrowest fix possible, but they are trying to understand a more correct approach for the next time it happens.
Mind, I think the most important part of your letter -- "follow the spirit rather than the letter of the law" -- is a perfectly fine point. Indeed, it's fairly similar to the thrust of my note to them, which recommends creating a framework that allows them to make judgement calls without violating SCA law themselves, so that they *can* contradict the letter when necessary.
I just think that the tone of your note hamstrings that point, and makes it more likely to be taken as personal rather than constructive criticism, and thus less likely to really be understood. It comes across as "*You* are screwing up and *I* am going to leave", rather than "The system is seriously messed up, and here's a recommendation of what needs to change". The problems are institutional; the fixes are going to have to be so, as well...