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femkes_folliesI got to thinking this past weekend, while bouncing a few things off Dad (thoughts, questions, Caramel puff corn....).
We occasionally comment on small groups and lack of willing officers and how it leads to people wearing too many hats.
What we don't always consider, however, is that the way the SCA structures its officer divisions in some ways combines disparate duties under a single title. Let me give you a "fer instance" or two.
Herald: There a voice Heralds, there are list Heralds, there are Protocol Heralds, and there are book Heralds. Very few people are good or even interested in all aspects. However, a local group Heralds is expected to maintain the OP, herald Court in the event of a Royal Visit (often the Kingdom Herald is there to do this, but there are instances in which the local Herald is just "it."), AND assist members with name and armory submissions. This, I posit, is a poor breakdown of job descriptions. Because, let's face it, most local heralds that I've met are exceedingly poor and usually disinterested book Heralds. They have no wish to learn the submissions process, and therefore they give out Very Bad Advice and lend heavily toward the poor image the CoA has with the general membership. Those folks who DO like book heraldry often avoid stepping up as a group Pursuivant on the possibility that they might someday have to herald Court. It would make a heck of a lot more sense to make the group Herald responsible for the OP and Court-based stuff, while having At-large Consulting Heralds who are trained at submissions. We get half-way there with consulting tables, but still.
Web Minister: OK, let's face facts. A lot of local group pages are an affront to nature. The fact is, a lot of folks who consider themselves "tech savvy" - learned HTML 1.0 in 1997 and never kept up. Think I'm exagerating? (Sorry, Lettice, but this sucker makes my retinas bleed on several levels, in addition to being WAY out of compliance with corporate policy). The problem? Well, first that aforementioned lack of updating coding skills. The other issue is that the intersection of groups of folks who can code with groups of folks who can manage aesthetics and graphical design to any degree is vanishingly small. And yet, we lump them all into one group. No, I don't know how to solve this one. I'd noodled on the concept of suggesting would-be WebMin's ask their groups to purchase a good web development book. (As the typical SCAdian webMin can't or won't drop $20-30 on a book...) However, it doesn't make a lot of sense for the Canton/Shire/Barony to own a book that will be outdated by the time the office changes. Maybe a list of good on-line resources for basic development skills. The other aspect - good design - is more challenging. It would be nice if a pool of folks with talent in that aspect could be developed who could design a graphical layout, and then just send it to the WebMin of a given group to be sliced and used in the creation of the code layout. But I'm not sure how that would work in practice.
Fuzzy chains of Command: Traditionally, in this neck of the woods, Regional officers pretty much collate reports. They have responsibilities... but no authority. They don't exist as an independent body, so they don't talk to each other. They are, strictly, deputies of their Kingdom superiors. But more can be made of it, with a little effort. While the Regional deputy for a given office doesn't have the authority to require much of anything and can bring no sanctions for noncompliance - beyond reporting to their superior - they CAN encourage things. They CAN call meetings at events. The Regional Chatelaine and Chronicler have been known to do so. Some of the others could do so as well. (It might not be bad for the Regional Marshall to sit the Group Marshalls down and have a heart-to-heart on their reporting responisbilities, as an example). It's one of those areas where the officers have exactly as much authority as they exercise... so long as no one intervenes from above. But they don't have to be just decorative...
We occasionally comment on small groups and lack of willing officers and how it leads to people wearing too many hats.
What we don't always consider, however, is that the way the SCA structures its officer divisions in some ways combines disparate duties under a single title. Let me give you a "fer instance" or two.
Herald: There a voice Heralds, there are list Heralds, there are Protocol Heralds, and there are book Heralds. Very few people are good or even interested in all aspects. However, a local group Heralds is expected to maintain the OP, herald Court in the event of a Royal Visit (often the Kingdom Herald is there to do this, but there are instances in which the local Herald is just "it."), AND assist members with name and armory submissions. This, I posit, is a poor breakdown of job descriptions. Because, let's face it, most local heralds that I've met are exceedingly poor and usually disinterested book Heralds. They have no wish to learn the submissions process, and therefore they give out Very Bad Advice and lend heavily toward the poor image the CoA has with the general membership. Those folks who DO like book heraldry often avoid stepping up as a group Pursuivant on the possibility that they might someday have to herald Court. It would make a heck of a lot more sense to make the group Herald responsible for the OP and Court-based stuff, while having At-large Consulting Heralds who are trained at submissions. We get half-way there with consulting tables, but still.
Web Minister: OK, let's face facts. A lot of local group pages are an affront to nature. The fact is, a lot of folks who consider themselves "tech savvy" - learned HTML 1.0 in 1997 and never kept up. Think I'm exagerating? (Sorry, Lettice, but this sucker makes my retinas bleed on several levels, in addition to being WAY out of compliance with corporate policy). The problem? Well, first that aforementioned lack of updating coding skills. The other issue is that the intersection of groups of folks who can code with groups of folks who can manage aesthetics and graphical design to any degree is vanishingly small. And yet, we lump them all into one group. No, I don't know how to solve this one. I'd noodled on the concept of suggesting would-be WebMin's ask their groups to purchase a good web development book. (As the typical SCAdian webMin can't or won't drop $20-30 on a book...) However, it doesn't make a lot of sense for the Canton/Shire/Barony to own a book that will be outdated by the time the office changes. Maybe a list of good on-line resources for basic development skills. The other aspect - good design - is more challenging. It would be nice if a pool of folks with talent in that aspect could be developed who could design a graphical layout, and then just send it to the WebMin of a given group to be sliced and used in the creation of the code layout. But I'm not sure how that would work in practice.
Fuzzy chains of Command: Traditionally, in this neck of the woods, Regional officers pretty much collate reports. They have responsibilities... but no authority. They don't exist as an independent body, so they don't talk to each other. They are, strictly, deputies of their Kingdom superiors. But more can be made of it, with a little effort. While the Regional deputy for a given office doesn't have the authority to require much of anything and can bring no sanctions for noncompliance - beyond reporting to their superior - they CAN encourage things. They CAN call meetings at events. The Regional Chatelaine and Chronicler have been known to do so. Some of the others could do so as well. (It might not be bad for the Regional Marshall to sit the Group Marshalls down and have a heart-to-heart on their reporting responisbilities, as an example). It's one of those areas where the officers have exactly as much authority as they exercise... so long as no one intervenes from above. But they don't have to be just decorative...
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-28 01:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-28 02:03 am (UTC)Thing is, a website is often a groups first contact with new people. It's more important than a lot of people realize.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-28 03:17 am (UTC)I gave up.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-28 03:20 am (UTC)One can but hope that the Kingdom webmin might pay attention when warranting group officers and use that as an opportunity for education, as you will.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-28 02:14 am (UTC)Seneschals, heralds, exchequers et cetera do have their own mailing lists to compare notes and help each other, but it does depend on having someone in the office who is willing to be more than just a "warm body" and wants to do their job well.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-28 02:28 am (UTC)Granted, those standards can't dictate taste. BUT - it does require that you remove frames, get the correct copyright statement in place, have officer contact info in place, and maintain good contrast between the background and text, among other things. A number of elements on that page in particular, and many others I've seen.
A concentrated effort to provide the actual policies in plain English (The w3 standards are highly technical and a little obtuse, really), then require them to be met, while offering assistance to do so would go a long way.
I like CMS systems, too, but I don't know how Kingdom feels about server usage for those sorts of things, because I haven't asked. It would be a pretty good solution to a lot of it. Though... custom templates are not the easiest thing to grok with any of the three major systems, either. And people get unreasonably attached to their "look."
I guess, to a degree, I'm in favor of holding people who are officers to a certain minimum standard - but a reasonable standard. I think the office of group herald is just to broad to be met by a single person. And the Web Min office has a similar problem, in terms of the initial design of a site. The concept of aesthetics doesn't often go with the knowledge of coding (you're the exception, frankly). ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-28 07:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-29 12:31 pm (UTC)Kingdom offers free webspace to groups. I suspect they'll allow CMS usage - but won't help out with it.
Which is fine. Though I think you could get into SOME trouble there, too. Building a custom template is even more complex than a website. And most people want a specific "look."
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-29 05:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-29 09:40 pm (UTC)I'm in the process of learning Drupal theming: not yet to the point where I can create a custom theme from scratch, but so far haven't needed to. And it doesn't look to be that difficult once I wrap my mind around a few more concepts. Certainly no harder than learning how to set up documents in a print layout program.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-29 11:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-29 07:01 am (UTC)It needs a lot more work to get it looking more like this (which I'm not sure has ever been updated since it was put up there, and it without any CMS software), and people will go for the non-compliant-but-pretty over bare-bones-functional any day.
Just be thankful that nobody(? I hope!) has yet made an entirely flash-driven page.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-29 12:33 pm (UTC)Yeah, the things with CMS sites is that you either have to be savvy enough to write a custom template (in which case, you shouldn't have had any trouble with a static page, either), or you're stuck with a generic template. And, you're right, folks will go with badd over well designed a lot of the time.
It's not even pretty vs. compliant. It's poor taste over a clean layout!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-29 09:49 pm (UTC)The problem is that non-web-design people see it as the former rather than the latter.
(I'm sure there are parallels between this and SCA heraldry.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-29 11:41 pm (UTC)I like simple armory, too. Resume armory or TSCA stuff makes me bang my head. Parallels, indeed.