[ANSTHRLD] Submissions Rate

Jennifer Smith jds at randomgang.com
Thu Jan 19 09:52:43 PST 2012


On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 11:44 PM, Kathleen O'Brien <mari_1184 at att.net> wrote:
> On 1/18/2012 8:29 AM, Tim McDaniel wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 18 Jan 2012, Alden Drake <alden_drake at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Can someone please confirm the current rate for heraldic
>>> submissions?
>>
>> Oh, I dunno, about 250 a month Society-wide, maybe 350 if the Pennsic
>> submissions hit Laurel in the same month?
>
[...]
> I actually use submission counts like this to explain to submitters who ask,
> "Well, why can't Laurel just call and ask me if they have a question?"
>  Well, that would be because the person making the decision has to rule on
> anywhere from 125 to 175 items in a single day.  Which, depending on the
> submission count and how many hours you're willing to go, means no more than
> 3 to 5 minutes to handle the form, read everything, and make a decision.
>  So, it just isn't possible to call folks with questions.
>
> I think this is one of the major benefits we've gotten out of OSCAR. Issues
> get raised earlier in the process and a kingdom herald can contact
> submitters with questions or try to get letters of permission to conflict.

Completely agree!

For reference, here's the counts of device and badge registrations:

June: 152
July: 95
August: 152
September: 145
October: 126
November: 167 (Aug LoIs, earliest possible Pennsic stuff)
December: 99
January: 120
February: 122*
March: 134* (Dec LoIs, more typical gone-through-internal-process Pennsic stuff)

* (Note: not exact counts, since I'm only counting pictures for Feb
and Mar, and not things like exchange of device & badge, and none of
these counts include heraldic wills and other oddities that wouldn't
show up with a in a "egrep -i 'device|badge'".)

This works out to an average of 132 or so items per month for Wreath
to deal with, over the last 8/10 months.

With the advent of OSCAR, fortunately, I try to have time during the
month to look ahead, and spot the problem issues that may come up, and
insert questions for commenters to chew on. For an example, in the
January decision meetings, there is a device with a cauldron on it,
but the LoI blazoned it as a "pot". Much discussion was had about
whether or not it was a heraldic pot, or a heraldic cauldron, and a
kingdom herald input a story from the submitter that explained the
reference and why he preferred it called a "pot"..which the artwork
was not, by our current standards, and so forth. I asked for the
herald to check with the submitter and find out what he wanted done,
as it was obvious by this point the commentary was leaning strongly
towards "cauldron" -- in essence, would he be happier with a
registration blazoned as a cauldron, or happier with a return for
redraw if it wasn't a pot? There was enough time for the herald to get
with the submitter, get their opinion, and get back to me and the rest
of the commenters before the commentary period closed. Success!

And then, of course, there are the Letters of Permission to Conflict.
The number of these that turn up during commentary and before the
decision meeting (or even just before publication of the LoAR!) is
significant, and quite helpful in avoiding returns.

I didn't run numbers for the Pelican name items, but I suspect there's
more names than there are armory in any given month. I'm sure similar
things happen on the name side.

As a reminder/plug, I will be doing a Wreath Roadshow at Bryn Gwlad's
Candlemas on Feb 4, as well as probably teaching at least one class on
the New Rules stuff. I am teaching three classes (names, armory
conflict, armory design/style), all with the new rules, at Northkeep's
Winterkingdom on Jan 28. And for the *really* interested types, I will
be doing a *full* Wreath decision meeting at Mooneschadowe's
Provincial Games on Feb 18. (Whew!)

-Emma



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