SC - Florilegium history (long)

[Olwen the Odd]

Lord Stefan I thank you for your thourough answer.  I just hate getting the 
brush off type of answer when I ask a question.  The dedication you have and 
the stick-to-it attitude is admirable.  I have seen risen a list as to the 
dedication and deeds 'in service to the dream ' and I can say, for me, if 
you did not have the "dream" in your heart and head you would not have given 
the gift you have.  Vivant!



>From: Stefan li Rous <stefan at texas.net>
>Reply-To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>To: SCA-Cooks maillist <SCA-Cooks at ansteorra.org>
>Subject: SC - Florilegium history (long)
>Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 00:26:19 -0500
>
>Olwen asked:
> > I throw in with the opinion of Mistress Christianna.  Thank you so much 
>for
> > such a thourough and dedicated undertaking.  I would love to know the
> > beginnings story of the Florilegium..
>
>Thank you, Olwen and everyone else for your support. My appologies for this
>delayed reply. Yesterday I got caught up in Pennsic preperation stuff. 
>Tonight
>my modem seems to have died. #@$%^&!! I managed to get my new Powerbook 
>(new
>to me, anyway) set up for Internet connections. Nothing like a little
>preasure to liven things up. sigh.
>
>Anyway, to answer your question, back in 1988 or so, about the time I 
>started
>participating in the SCA I was running a BBS system. I started getting
>the old fidonet Medieval echo and then the feed from the Rialto (which
>had just switched to rec.org.sca and it was a one-way feed to the fidonet
>at first). I first started saving and printing
>out things I thought others in my local group might be able to use as
>well as keeping them for my own referance. Little by little (yeah,
>like a virus) I started saving more and more stuff that I thought others
>might find useful. Of course some of this I later found I suddenly
>had a wish for and was glad I'd saved it. I tried to build up an
>interest by putting the files on my bbs and encouraging local folks
>to come check the files out. Somewhere in 92 or so I started posting
>some notices on the Rialto and a few mailing lists such as the
>Ansteorra one about having some files that might be of interest and
>that folks should contact me so I could send any of it by email. I was
>also distributing paper copies of the filelist and any files requested
>locally. I think the entire filelist was only two or three pages then.
>
>Somewhere in 1993, I think, Greg Lindahl (now Master Gregory Blount in
>the SCA) saw one of my filelists and asked me if I would be interested
>in having the files posted on his website. We worked out a procedure
>where I updated a master catalog file and uploaded an RTF format of
>the updated files to him, usually about twice a month. He had a program
>that then converted the RTF file to the text and HTML versions. I have
>to admitt the resulting HTML file was ugly but it worked.
>
>Somewhere after this was when I started a monthly article describing
>what was new in the Florilegium. For several years just for my local
>newsletter. Now for a number of newsletters around the Known World.
>I also now post it to various kingdom and other SCA mailing lists
>as you have seen since I post it on this list. Recently I've started
>creating an monthly article specifically for web publishing in addition
>to the one for paper publication.
>
>In early 99 or so it became apparent that Greg no longer had the time
>needed to support the Florilegium as part of his site, so I set up
>a temporary site in the web space that came with my texas.net account.
>This let me quickly get new and updated files on line without a several
>week delay waiting for Greg to find time to move the files around. The
>idea was to then send a big batch of files to Greg every few months.
>This wasn't working out, but I heartily thank Greg for hosting the
>site for those many years during it's initial growth. For part of
>the time I didn't even have web access to see my own files.
>
>However, my personal site had a maximum of 50 Mbytes of space. So
>I started looking for another site. There had been some thought that
>I might be able to use the Ansteorra server that plans were then
>being made to purchase. But I didn't have time to wait for this to
>happen and I have concerns about being to enmeshed in the SCA
>beaurucracy. So I went looking for other sites. The Florilegium has
>too much traffic and is two large for most of the web host sites.
>Even the "unlimited" sites have small print in the contracts that
>could be used to expell the Florilegium. However, my computer
>friend, and sometime SCA participant up in Dallas was willing to
>host my site. We are still working on getting a good local search
>engine going and some other nice additions. Why a local search
>engine? My friend pays for the bandwidth used. Think of the
>bandwidth used by a search engine trying to download each and
>every file in the site, maybe once a night?
>
>When I finally get the rest of the files moved over, I will probably
>start considering adding some advertising to the site. Very directed
>stuff of interest to the SCA and re-enactment community. I haven't
>figured out how to market or price this yet.
>
>There are currently something over 1200 different files in the
>Florilegium with each of these available in three formats.  All but
>about a hundred or two have now been updated, reformatted and moved
>to the new site. I had hoped to have the rest of them moved before
>Pennsic, but that's not going to happen.
>
>I am currently adding between 12 and 18 new files and updating
>about thirty to forty more per month.
>
>Unfortunately, while back in the early 90s it was almost possible
>to read all messages on the Rialto, and almost all SCA internet
>traffic passed through there, since 1994 or so the number of SCA
>mail lists has rapidly proliferated. And much of the info that
>was on the Rialto has moved to them. So, I'm afraid that I am
>only collecting a mere trinkle of the useful information out
>there now. Although it some areas, such as cooking, my coverage
>is considerably better. :-) But as you all know, just keeping up
>with this list can be a problem at times. What with people like
>me posting long and off-topic messages and such.
>
>This was probably longer and more technical than most of you
>wished.
>
>--
>Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
>**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
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