SC - Competition entry

[Jeanne Stapleton]

Berengaria here:

Sorry if I appear to rant, but *A&S competitions are
not evil*.  One of the biggest problems is that people
take them *far too personally*.  I don't think I've
ever seen, in my life, an arena where everyone enters
expecting to win, often with items that don't even
pretend to come close to the SCA's chartered purpose.
I know (unfortunately) a few fighters who enter 
tournaments with a "win at all costs" mentality, but
they are also generally not universally respected--
maybe they'll win a small corner of respect in an
arena that means the most to them, and thus can live
with themselves, but by and large there's at least
some degree of discouragement of this.

I've often pondered the potential benefits of
requiring
that A&S entrants have a consort and bear a favor and
be reminded to conduct themselves with honor.  I've
been both judge and entrant, and I have to say that
generally when I've been docked for something it;s
been because I deserved it; and there have been days
when I was astounded by how "well" I did, because I
didn't expect it; and there's never been a time I
didn't learn something!

A proposal I've strongly advocated for several years
now is the signing of a pledge card similar to what
was required of each heavy combatant at Estrella 3
years ago:  basically, a pledge saying "I'm here to
have fun and I promise not to get pissed off and act
like a jerk on the battlefield".

- --- Siegfried Heydrich <baronsig at peganet.com> wrote:
>     The second time, I entered a Kurdish dish whose
> recipe was taught to me
> by the grandmother of a family friend. She was old
> enough to have been the
> Grandfather of Assassins personal handmaiden, and
> came from the Alamout
> region, no less . . .
>     She told me that the recipe had been in her
> family for many generations,
> and I documented this as such. I also documented
> similar dishes as period,
> and stated that this particular recipe had been
> handed down in an oral
> tradition, and was a family variant taught to me by
> word of mouth from a
> native of the region. Once again, I got docked 30
> points for 'insufficient
> documentation'.

Generally, oral tradition *is* insufficient documen-
tation.  I know just about every family likes to
believe that their secret recipes have been handed
down unchanged since the NOahs got off the ark, but
anyone who's done some oral history coursework knows
that the viable lifespan of accurate oral history is
about 50-100 years, *if the culture relies primarily
on oral history as the transmitting medium of its
culture and has specific mechanisms to train the
memories of those charged with maintaining the oral
traditions*--like the schools of ancient Greece where
rote repetition formed a major part of the curriculum.

The very fact that there was a "family variant"
suggests that change over even 200 years was not only
possible but likely.  I would've similarly docked you
points.  I wouldn't have given you zero, because in
my worldview there probably was a substantial survi-
val of some element of the original dish.

One lady I knew did a 3'x5'
> tapestry of Tolkein's map of
> the Middle Earth, and had it disqualified from
> judging as being a 'fantasy
> work'. She removed it from the hall in tears, handed
> back her green belt,
> and I never saw her at an event ever again.
> Apparently, the comments from
> the judges were bad enough that she quit the SCA as
> a result. She does
> sci-fi cons now.

Ummm...it *was* a fantasy work.  It should not have
been in the competition.  We've all heard tons of 
these horror stories about some poor competitor
reduced
to tears because they entered a really inappropriate
or out of period work...where was the mentor at the
other end of her green belt?  Where were the people
to advise her that a sci-fi con *is* the appropriate
venue for her work--which I'm sure was lovely--and
where it could receive the admiration and praise she
evidently deserved?

>     I've found over and over that judging is purely
> subjective, and the
> judges in all too many cases have little to no
> expertise in the field they
> are judging. I've seen Laurels lobbying other judges
> to boost the scores for
> their apprentices, and at other times slagging the
> entries of people they
> didn't like. Politics.

And I've equally seen judges remove themselves because
they were too close to a competitor whom they nonethe-
less felt did an outstanding job, and the person came
in second by a hairs breadth as a result.  Politics,
but good politics--overfairness, if you will.

Berengaria

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