[Sca-cooks] Overdocumentation

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

 > Your point about the term "nazi" is probably well taken.  I will 
>endeavor to come up with a more suitable term for judgmental 
>authenticity buffs with bad dispositions, and invite everyone on the 
>list to help.  Perhaps if there weren't so many "meanies" about 
>verbally assaulting our "young ones", such warnings would become 
>unnecessary.
>

Authenticity cranks. 
Let's be honest, Silverwing's Laws are right about one thing:

"Authenticity is like a two-lane highway. If someone is going slower 
than you, they're a slug. If they are going faster than you, they're a 
maniac!" 
Thaddeus the Brown, via Avery from the Middle Kingdom

It's important to bear in mind that while the more authentic of us find 
it really jarring and sometimes even take it personally when people 
insist on being inauthentic, complaints about those people may cause 
collateral damage to others around the complainer. Some of us are rather 
oversensitive to remarks like "this person being inauthentic interferes 
with my game..." 

Worse yet, being an authenticity snob (or contrariwise, an 
anti-authenticity rebel) is a stage many people go through in what I 
call their SCAdian adolescence. This is the period in many SCAdians' 
growth as members of the SCA where they go about trying to prove they 
are more SCAdian than thou. :)

I'm interested in period research. But I don't do very good period
clothing or a period tent-- I have other fish to fry. I have had 
horrible arguments (are we surprised) both with those more and less 
authentic than I. (My favorite was when someone suggested that instead 
of buying a lightweight plastic table to take to demos, we should build 
one out of mahogany which, he claimed, would be cheaper, lighter and 
more period. I pointed out that none of those claims were true, and had 
the dubious pleasure of hearing two halves of a married couple claim 
that I was 'acting like and period nazi' and, contrariwise, 'acting like 
I wasn't willing to make the effort to be authentic'. That's the sort of 
moment where you throw up your hands and just walk away. :)

-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"The toad beneath the harrow knows/exactly where each tooth-point goes,
The butterfly upon the road/Preaches contentment to that toad." 
			- Rudyard Kipling