Re: Acorn on the Web

[Lance Harrop <lharrop@mrj.com>]

Poster: Lance Harrop <lharrop@mrj.com>


Unto:

Lord Landi,			Lady Angharad Melys	Baron Corun MacAnndra
Lady Elenore Spyrling		Lady Alys of Foxdale	THL Falcone
Lord Henry Best			Lord Alfredo		Lady Rosine
Lady Ursula von Bremen		Lord Eagon		Lady Linneadh Gordon
Master Robyyan Torr d'Elandris				  of Marinus
Lord Aedric the Green


The Honorable Lord Falcone hath challenged me to defend my pre-eminant 
right to be chief toe chewer of Atlantia with these words:

> Hey Leifr!!
> 
> Somebody else is competing for principle (That's princiPAL, Falcone ;-) of 
> the OHC (Order of the Hairy Chasm)!!  Are you gonna let him win?
> 
I do so love coming onto these kind of arguments late.  It seems that our 
leftists (as arrayed above, wider political implications are not 
intended) were saying, "Rabah, please don't beaucratize web paging" and 
our rightists were saying, "Don't be mean to Rabah!".  Now the debate has 
migrated to the leftists saying, "Rabah, we all love you, but you won't 
be Kingdom Chronicler forever, so please don't beaucratize web paging" 
and the rightists saying, "Don't be mean to Rabah, it's not his fault 
anyway, the Society Chronicler is making him do it."

If you don't quite get the point, I think these arguments are passing 
like ships in the night, with their lights out.  If you are lucky, they 
might even bounce into each other.

So, congradulations, most, if not all of you, are on the watch list for 
the OHC.

So now I'm going to blow your hosen off with what I hope is a simple 
observation:

	THE way to warrant a local web page is to create the official
	Kingdom of Atlantia Web Page and create links to the local 
	pages the Kingdom Web Master warrants as being official.

I think Lady Angharad came closest to realizing this vision.  She seems 
to understand the implications of the web best of those who have spoken 
here.  There will always be web pages which are "unofficial", and those 
which are officially recognized.  If the Kingdom creates links to 
"Official" local sites, setting whatever criteria they wish, then those 
sites will tend to get more hits.  Unofficial sites will tend to wither.

But if the Society and the Kingdom start to get too restrictive on 
content, then they will begin to lose sites, and the "unofficial" sites 
will become more useful then the offical ones.

So if everyone keeps their heads, I suspect this effort will begin to 
balance out.  Regulation of the sites should be kept to a minimum and 
utility kept to a maximum.

Lord Kevin of Thornbury is a great guy ( I have to say that, he is nearly 
a head taller then me, outweights me by more then I care to say, and is 
learning to fight armoured combat, if he ever gets his helmet padded ;-), 
and I am sure he will do a good job as chief webspinner for Atlantia.  
However, like Lord Henry, I see no reason to create another "Official" 
officer for the local groups.  If a local group isn't recognizing the 
efforts of their web masters, demo coordinators, guild heads, and other 
significant locals, then they are worthy of all the scorn we can heap 
upon them.

Lord Rabah, in his infinite wisdom in following the footsteps of his 
predecessor, is doing an excellent job with the Acorn.  Collecting 
deputies, like Lord Kevin, is a good idea.  I've been a deputy kingdom 
officer myself.  Mandating local officers is a bad idea.  I've also been 
a Seneschal, and filling these Society and Kingdom mandated offices is a 
pain in the butt.  However, it is generally easy enough to find people to 
perform the tasks that really need to be done, if the group is healthy.

One should just not confuse one group's need as a requirement for every 
group.

In Service

Lord Leifr Johansson
Defending Principal of the OHC (Order of the Hairy Chasm);
Last Squire, House Frosheim; Protege, House Krebshaven; Lady Killer; 
Reformed Dragon; Viking Hal Bard (until they throw me out of the guild)
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