SC - questions/kinda long, sorry

[Jeff Gedney]

At 1:09 PM -0400 6/16/00, KallipygosRed at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 6/15/00 11:24:31 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
>ddfr at best.com writes:
>
>  > What evidence do you have that the cooks in question actually knew
>  >  anything much about period cooking--other than their claiming they
>  >  did?

...

>In this neck of the woods, they made up the guild. They were considered, and
>are considered, the experts in feasting period. They are the names I was
>given as the "go to" people for assistance at the time. As a newbie myself I
>can only go by what I'm instructed by the peers as to their "expertness" or
>not. But the peers here explained that they were, and I had no reason to
>doubt the peers.

Other people's recommendations are one thing to go on, but not the 
only thing. One very important skill to cultivate is the ability to 
judge sources of information on internal evidence.

Exampla gratia: Last Pennsic, I discovered a merchant, I think from 
An Tir, whose swords, although no fancier than anyone else's, were 
more beautiful. I started a conversation with him. I asked him (with 
malice aforethought) what evidence he had that period scabbards were 
made, as his were, simply of leather. His reply was that period 
scabbards weren't made that way, that he would be happy to make 
authentic wood scabbards covered with leather for a customer willing 
to pay extra, but most were not. I concluded that he could be trusted 
and that, as I had suspected, his swords were more beautiful because 
he was taking more care to make them correctly. I ended up buying two 
very lovely (and very authentic) knives from him, one for my wife and 
one as a gift for a friend.

Suppose he had answered, as many would, "of course they were done 
that way. I'm an expert, and I tell you, and you have no business 
questioning me." I would promptly have discounted anything else he 
said--including his explanation of why he chose the particular wood 
he did for the handle of one of the knives I bought.

The fact that I already knew something about period scabbard 
construction helped, but it wasn't essential. To a considerable 
extent, if you cultivate an ear for such things, you can separate the 
real expert/enthusiasts from the fakers without actually knowing the 
subject.

On the question of what happened in the thread, Lars has already 
conceded that he made a mistake and offered a generous apology.

I think it is worth, however, pointing this out as an example of the 
way the standard anti-authenticity urban legend gets created and 
reinforced--since it has just happened under our eyes. It is simply a 
computerized version of the old game of telephone, with the facts of 
what happened changing from one step in the chain to another, in the 
direction of what people expect to happen. People expect, for various 
complicated reasons, that those who know and care about issues of 
authenticity will be rude about it, so as the story develops it 
incorporates "facts" confirming that expectation, even though they 
didn't actually happen.

One advantage of doing it on a computer is that--provided you keep 
old posts--you can look back and check the evolved version against 
the original.

In a later post, Lars writes:

>  I was backing up someone who said
>about Balthazar, when Bathalzar was being debated, something along the lines
>of, "What Balthazar meant was that we appear in some posts...."

Or in other words, you were deducing what A must have said from what 
C said about B's comment on A (I think I've got that right), not from 
looking at what A actually said (which may have been before you came 
on the list, or something you didn't read, or ...). Thus illustrating 
my point above.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/