RE: North and South: The Statistical Truth

[David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.UMD.EDU>]

Poster: David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.umd.edu>


Greetings from Dafydd ap Statistics

Eldred writes:

>      Now to refuel the debate, _when_ were these Non-Coronation events
> held? The answer to that question may shed some light on why there is a
> hue and cry. 

Or, it may not.

I'll find the data for Kingdom events since 1992 and give it to you.  But
you won't find any massive injustice.  For example, I can tell you exactly
which two 12th Nights since 1984 were held in the North.  One was in
Lochmere eight years ago, and one was in Dun Carraig three years ago.  Not
exactly a trend of abuse that would create a hue and cry.  A week after
the Dun Carraig 12th Night there was a Southern 12th Night in Hidden
Mountain (which I attended, incidentally). 


> [....]  Those who have been in for less than three years may
> perceive that more events have been held in the north (or the
> south) since they joined.

Exactly.  We are not dealing with facts, we are dealing with perception. 
And the way we should deal with someone who says "gee, all the Kingdom
events are always far away" is that we should respond "I'm sorry you
weren't able to make it to an event you wanted to attend, but that just
isn't true." 


You say that there is a hue and cry, and I read from some earlier notes of
others that there is a perception of injustice.  Frankly, you are correct. 
There is significant injustice being done, the opposite of what you think.

The North has more than four times the SCA population of the South, so we
should have four times as many Kingdom events.  We are only getting the
same number of Kingdom events.  That is clearly unfair and unjust --
Southerners get four times the Kingdom events per capita that us
Northerners do.  Until this discrepancy is resolved, I propose that the
South get no more Kingdom events.  Given 2 Kingdom events in the Central
region for every Northern one, and another 22 Northern Kingdom events
necessary before this injustice is made right, I expect that this solution
will result in the next Southern Kingdom event being in the year ... 2019.

Of course I am not serious.  However, I am finding it hard to avoid
poking fun.


>      BTW, I noticed that University was not included in
> the 11 year statistics (let's limit this to 11 years since we
> have the stats).

University is not a Kingdom event.  An important event, yes, and a
regularly scheduled one.

And DON'T GET ME STARTED on holding Universities in the South.  I like
University, and I love teaching -- I've taught more than 30 classes, more
than 100 hours, at University.  I also travel.  But the last University
held in the South had very poor attendance from the South.  Only about 25%
of the attendees were from the region.  Yes, I can prove this--Elizabeth
can run off University attendance statistics.

I consider this a major problem.  University is one of our best events.
There are some strong supporters of University in the South: Baron Corwyn
and Baroness Deirdre have taken more courses than just about anyone.  But
there seems to be a significant lack of interest in University in the
general populace down South, and I find that distressing.

If anyone has any ideas on how to increase the interest in the University
of Atlantia in the South, I (and, I'm sure, the Chancellor, Mistress
Deirdre) would love to hear them.



> Also, I noticed that the 1990 placed
> Isenfir in the Central region, which skews the results
> significantly--esp. since most of us in the South STILL
> consider it to be in the North.

No, it will have no affect on the statistics at all.  For the placement of
Isenfir to matter on the statistics of Kingdom Events before 1990, Isenfir
would have to have hosted such an event.  That didn't happen.  Ergo, no
effect on the stats. 

 
> [....] When was the last time someone tried
> driving from DC or even Baltimore down to Greenville (or
> vice versa--Pointless War readily springs to mind)?  That's
> a LONG trip! 

Yes, it sure is.  And I've gone to about four Sea Wars events held in SC
or even GA or FL.  These days the Kingdom is fighting the East at
Pointless instead of Trimaris at Sea Wars; in the future maybe we'll fight
Drachenwald, and everyone will whine about driving the 140 hour trip
underwater. 

 
>      To further egg this on, let's look at the actual
> physical location of those Kingdom event sites.  I know
> that people travel to Charlotte (really King's Mountain)
> for events.  A Sacred Stone event held at King's Mountain
> is considered "central".  Actually, it isn't.  King's
> Mountain is actually in Nottinghill Coill, which is
> the western 2/3rds of South Carolina.  When Nottinghill
> Coill holds an event there, it is considered "South".
> The stats are looking a bit shaky in cases that involve
> shared sites such as King's Mountain......Do people think
> in terms of the hosting branch or the physical location?

Frankly, I consider Charlotte to be the South.  It is the same distance
from me as some sites in Nottinghill Coill.

However, if we relabel every Kingdom event held in Charlotte as being a
Southern event (and there have been a bunch of them there!), then we'll
end up with the numbers being even more skewed, showing that an even more
vastly disproportionate number of Kingdom events are held in the South. 


Dafydd,
who is in favour of travel and has made it to two or three events in the
South every year for the last 15.



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