[ANSTHRLD] Documentation Request - Elizabeta di Firenze della Rosa

kobrien at texas.net kobrien at texas.net
Wed Mar 31 15:33:21 PST 2004


> On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Brent Ryder <borekvv at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > let me know if anything needs changing ...
> >
> > Elizabeta	From the Academy of St. Gabriel,
> > http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14/venice14given.html,
> > Page 4 of 4, Women's Given name
> >
> > di Firenze	From the Academy of St. Gabriel,
> > http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14/venice14sur.html, Page
> > 2 of 6, 'da Firenze' Locative meaning 'from Florence'
> >
> > della Rosa	Descriptive byname, 'of the Roses'
> 
> Your documentation is damned near useless.

Daniel has attended waaaaaaaaayyyyy too many Pelican decision meetings 
lately.  :)  And has heard me rant.  And rant.  And rant.  

 
> Do you read LoARs?  I searched recent ones for "adequ" and found
> this as a recent hit, from the July 2003 LoAR (arrived in mailboxes in
> early October):

I was interpreting Borek's email as a shorthand just for this email list.  As 
such, it was enough for me to look up the info. 

However, you are correct that these notes are not the way it should be 
summarized for the submission or on an LoI.  

Since Borek's been around the submission process quite awhile I figured he was 
just making notes.  But pointing this issue out for newer folks is indeed a 
good idea.


>       As a reminder, inadequate summarization will continue to be a
>       reason for return. In this case, the College provided no support
>       for the Instigator as a plausible byname in period. Lacking
>       support for the Instigator as a byname in period, this byname is
>       not registerable. As the submitter allows no changes, we were
>       unable to drop the problematic element in order to register this
>       name.


I admit, it's gotten bad enough on LoIs from multiple kingdoms that I actually 
wrote a form the above paragraph as boilerplate.  (See the Dec LoAR - or was it 
Jan? they all run together after awhile - for more examples of this problem.)

In the LoIs that I'm dealing with that will appear in the March LoAR, there are 
examples of names with absolutely no documentation at all for elements.  (Stuff 
like "of [placename]" where the placename was not documented at all.  Heck, the 
LoI in question only listed "of [placename]" in the header of the submission 
and did not even mention it in the body of the LoI text for that item!)  There 
are plenty of examples in the stuff I'm working with now of "documentation" 
that has the form "[X] is found in [Y]" where Y is some book that is not on the 
No Photocopy list.  And the submission most likely did not include 
photocopies.  Sigh.  There's also plenty of "[X] is found at [website URL]" 
with no info about what the website _says_ about X.  (About half of the ones 
documented this badly turn out to be fantasy gaming sites.)

Ansteorra has been pretty good about stuff like this.  A major reason is the 
effort that Asterisk and Bordure have been putting in on polishing stuff before 
it goes out of kingdom.  Another major reason is the amount of work our 
commenters put in during the ILoI process.  That work makes Asterisk & 
Bordure's life much easier.  Yet another reason is all the work that folks on 
this list put into gathering good docs for the submitters.

I want to take a minute to say "thank you" to all of you for this effort.  It 
is much appreciated!  Let me tell you, when you have to rule on something like 
150 names in one day, having good summaries and good docs makes a BIG 
difference.  Do the math.  At 150 names in an average LoAR, with an average 
meeting of 8 hours, that's something like 18+ names an hour.  Less than 4 
minutes per name.  Heck, sometimes you can't _read_ the commentary for that 
item in 4 minutes.  Even if you're a fast reader.

The two big questions that someone asks themselves when reading an LoI entry 
is "What does the submitter want?" and "Is what is submitted supported by the 
documentation?"  That's why the summarization in the LoI of both what the 
submitter has checked on the form (plus any additional requests) and of the 
supporting docs is so critical to Wreath and Pelican and to commenters 
(including members of the College of Arms) who are commenting on the submitted 
item.

So, all the work everyone puts in to present the information clearly and 
completely is MUCH appreciated!

Mari
[Outgoing] Pelican Queen of Arms






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