[Ansteorra] Job descriptions

[Chris Zakes]

At 10:05 PM 7/11/2005, you wrote:
>LMAO...I haven't heard " nastycrat" since my early years in Caid.
>
>Now, to put in my 2 shekels...and I was staying out of the discussion 
>because being new to the Kingdom, I didn't want to offend...
>As a long time SCA'er...when the changes were made from 
>Auto-crat...feast-o-crat etc to stewards...I found it to be ridiculous 
>because people suddenly had to be" PC".
>
>To the best of my knowledge..."Troll" was always said to be in fun , and 
>actually done as a term of affection. I have run gate many times...and 
>always thought that the fact that we used the term was cute.
>
>Just becuase we are a " re-creation " group doesn't mean we can't have 
>some fun with the game. Remember, an Anachronism is something out of time 
>or place, and to be politically incorrect...I am a bit tired of the 
>'athenticity mavens" who want to ruin things by demanding  complete 
>perfection in what we say or do.

Two points: (well, two and a half, really.)

1. Don't put too much weight on the "Anachronism" part of the SCA's name. 
It's not like someone spent weeks coming up with the perfect name for our 
organization; when Elfreida of Greenwalls (Marion Zimmer Bradley) was 
filling out a form to reserve a park for the second tournament, she came 
across the line "name of organization" and "Society for Creative 
Anachronism" was the first thing that popped into her head, so she wrote it 
down. (That's also where "autocrat" came from--the next line was something 
like "officer's title.")

2. Where has *anyone* "demanded" complete perfection, or that people stop 
using words like "troll" or "autocrat"? I said using historical terms for 
historical functions made more sense; Don Robin said that he preferred the 
historical terms, Sir Gunthar said that he was a "major antagonist" of 
tacking "-ocrat" onto the title of the various jobs done at SCA events. 
Other people have said that they liked the made-up names.

<shrug> Ultimately it's up to the individual to decide. If I'm ever running 
an event, I'll call myself the Steward, and the folks at the entrance will 
be Gatekeepers. If you're running an event you can call yourself the 
Autocrat, and your gate crew Trolls if you want to.

         -Tivar Moondragon

P.S. One final question: How would having an event that was completely 
medieval--the hall, the clothes, the food, the whole ambiance, "ruin" 
things? I kind of thought that was the whole idea of the SCA.