[Northkeep] Sir Balvins Defence

[Marc Carlson]

Angus,

I agree with you about Balvin being a nice and good person, and never
intentionally doing anything hurtfull.

The fact is, however, he sent his message - which is easily read as being
curt, and just this side of saying "don't let the door hit you on the ass on
the way out", and topposted that to Sioned's letter, which was itself
topposted to Ainar's forward of Seth's message.  Neither of those following
messages were edited in any way.  Therefore, it is not a real stretch to
read his message as a response to Sioned's message - and she, as you will
recall was talking about the problems she's had with the local group.  Now,
while I may feel that some of those problems are based on point of view
(hers versus the people she's had difficulties with) - this in no way
diminishes the pain and discomfort that has resulted.

Now, I understand that some people may not care about that, or that may be a
little too touchy-feelie for them, but since I've been bitching about
similar difficulties in getting people to show up at things, I've sort of
placed myself into the position of having to give a shit about what people
are feeling.  Sorry - get over it.

Now, had you-Angus, or Alton, or even Frank, had written such a letter - my
response would have been to say to myself, "gee, that's too bad" and not
bothered to respond - since, oh, gosh, you aren't PEERS.

It may seem a little peculiar to me (as Marc), but peerage in the SCA is
supposed to confer not only some cool benefits, but also some serious
obligations.  For example, people look to THEM to see how to behave.  [And
you know, I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure that there might be some
connection between the fact that of the small number of peers we have had
around here, most of them (for perfectly good reasons all, mind you) have
tended not to play with the local group AS a group - instead focusing on
their own things and playing elsewhere - and the unspoken sense that being a
part of the Group is somehow something people shouldn't invest too much in.
But I digress...]

Since people DO watch the peers to see how to behave, it might be kind of
nice if they'd take a little more responsibility for how their words can be
perceived in general (since of course no one can always keep themselves from
being misunderstood).  In fact, pretty much what Ainar was talking about
with that request that people might want to keep in mind how they come
across to new people.  As I said, it took no stretching AT ALL to read
Balvin as slamming a new person who's had some problems getting to be part
of the main group.

Marc/Diarmaid

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