Re: [Middlebridge] FROM THE AUTOCRATS-PENNSIC 24 SUNDAY CLO

Greetings from Tibor.

Lancelin brings up the obvious question (which I wanted to skirt, but OK) on
exactly what obligations the autocrats of any event have to making
information available, and such.

I agree, Lancelin, that one can only do so much to reach out to those that
do not get Kingdom newsletters. And how much one can do is a matter of
opinion. It is my opinion that most folks will reach out for the Pennsic
Pamphlet, and feel secure in knowing what they need to know.
  
  I'm not sure that I understand your alternative. Do we say that no
  changes can be made to an event unless they have been announced at
  the previous year's event? That would be ludicrous. Yet, short of
  that, I think the changes have been communicated as well as possible.

It is true that every reasonable venue I know of is being used to
communicate changes. But any changes need to be reasoned out, knowing that
communication is less than perfect. If the new rules, and the follow-on
special exemption were the only way to cope with the situation, then so be
it. Since it is not, the several solutions have to be balanced in the
context they appear.

I stand by my feeling that a person who arrives at Pennsic, expecting to
leave at noon Sunday despite it's inconvenience, finding out that an
exception procedure was available but was not published in the Pennsic
Pamphlet, will feel they are being treated unfairly, and rightly so.
  
  A reasonable suggestion, if you were addressing the people who made
  the decision. But I doubt if the Coopers subscribe to this list. Why
  waste our bandwidth railing at the autocrats about this? The only
  thing they can do at this point is to revise the schedule and pricing
  (and the latter may have already been built into the agreement with
  the Coopers).

Because without the agreement of the autocrat's, there is nothing else to
do. Nor do I believe that the autocrat's have stopped communicating with
the Coopers. If they want it, it can happen. Also, frankly, the reasons for
the change have been so hideously restated over the last few weeks, and so
frequently contradicted, that I don't know what to believe about those
reasons.

What I do believe, is that public pressure, and discussion, is a good way to
move a process that is full of inertia. Which is why I appreciate your
calling it a reasonable suggestion. I feel that it is, and the more folks
who agree, and say so, the more likely it is for the autocrat's to choose to
revisit the decision.

Having been under the gun myself, as an autocrat of smaller events of only
Kingdom size, I assure you that it is tremendously difficult to admit you
are wrong, and it is tremendously difficult to revisit a decision that was
hard to reach. Put them together, and you have got something hard to
change. I don't expect the autocrat's to be more than human.

I believe it was the Cooper's decision that stragglers cannot be tolerated
this year. I believe it is up to the autocrats to impliment that strategic
decision. Throwing out or discomforting 9,000 people is inferior to dealing
with the 50 or so damn fools.

It seems to be an SCA wide thing, though, to punish the innocent in order to
penalize the guilty. Perhaps it's just human nature. All I know is, I'd
like to see us better it. I think that a public call is more efficacious
than a private one, at this time.

        Tibor
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From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.math.harvard.edu>
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Received on Fri Jun 2 22:04:17 1995