SC - questions

[CBlackwill@aol.com]

At 10:23 PM -0400 6/15/00, KallipygosRed at aol.com wrote:

>  but it shouldn't be something where you come running
>at the person with a baseball bat screaming how unperiod it is. I guess what
>I objected to was the lack of "approachable attitude"  in the instance.
>Someone had come online to ask about running a first feast or some such, and
>was immediately jumped for not using totally period receipes.

I think I read the entire thread, and I don't remember any such 
exchange occurring. Perhaps you could cite the post that did the 
jumping?

What I saw was someone coming online with some questions, several 
people giving polite answers, one of the experienced people (AM) 
giving an answer that correctly described SCA practice as ranging 
from very period to completely mundane and incorrectly, in my view, 
implying that all of those were equally good,  another experienced 
person (Ras) attacking AM for implying that mundane was just as good 
as period, a third experienced person (Adamantius) attacking Ras, and 
a fourth experienced person (me) defending Ras.

[description of horrible "period" feasts omitted]

>Because these cooks were so entrenched in the receipe and menus of period,

What evidence do you have that the cooks in question actually knew 
anything much about period cooking--other than their claiming they 
did? What you describe sounds much more like someone with very little 
knowledge of period cooking doing a bad job of putting on a feast, 
and then excusing it by asserting that that is what period cooking is 
like.

>... Their knowledge is very, very good. When I
>approach these particular cooks for knowledge or help with translations, I'm
>always made to feel beneath them.

What makes you think their knowledge is very, very good? In my 
experience, people are much more likely to be hostile to questions if 
they don't know very much and are afraid of being shown up than if 
they really do know a lot.

>  Which leads me to my second point I was trying to make:
>2.  New people are already nervous enough about being new. Responding to
>their questions or requests for assistance without tact and diplomacy;
>without finding out what they are actually trying to accomplish, is only
>going to scare them away--perhaps for good.

Again--could you describe what post you are referring to? Ras wasn't 
responding to the new person, he was responding to Anne-Marie, who 
has been in for some time now.

I've just checked the first twenty posts in the thread, and so far as 
I can tell what you are describing simply didn't happen.

David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/