RE: Electronic availability.....

[Tanner Lovelace <lovelace@acm.org>]

Poster: Tanner Lovelace <lovelace@acm.org>

On Wed, 21 Jan 1998, Karen Lyons-McGann wrote:

> Once you are on-line, you tend to know many more people on line and 
> communicate more often with people you know with access than you might to 
> those you  know without it.  It's very easy to begin to feel as if the 
> majority of people are on-line.   In actuality, people with electronic 
> access are a minority and that minority is often a sub-group of those 
> living a certain sort of middle class lifestyle. (College students and 
> white-collar paper-shufflers.) SCA membership may be scewed toward the 
> sort of people with electronic access  but I'm sure the majority of 
> members still rely on printed and snail-mailed newsletters,  or their 
> seneschal, for this sort of information.  In individual situations, there 
> is always the possiblity that something is not on line because the person 
> responsible for it is not on-line and never considered that anyone would 
> go looking on-line.  
> 
> Anne

There are enough people online now that this can no longer be considered
a valid excuse.  Even corporate sca is online, and pretty much every
kingdom, barony, shire, and college is online.  If someone doesn't
have net access, they probably no someone who is.  Still, the people
who said the forms would not be availble electronically said so
electronically, so obviously they, or someone in their confidence
has net access.  What it appears to me to be is that they only
want to accept originals of the form in question.  They refuse
to even accept photocopies.  This is what doesn't make sense to me.
Are they worried about different size paper, or legibility.  If 
it's legibility, then just say "illegible forms will not be processed."
Also, they could make the form availble in PDF format so it would
be the same every time it's printed.  No one here is talking about 
supplanting the regular distribution mechanisms, but rather adding
one more, that would allow us to reach a greater number of people.
(Isn't that what it's all about?  The greatest amount of fun for
the greatest amount of people?)  I know from my personal experience
last year that I didn't receive a pre-pennsic handbook, even though
I am (and was at the time) a subscriber/member.  I ended up having
to borrow one from a friend who wasn't using hers.  The people who
decided no electronic distribution had better realize that the
21st century is coming up very soon, and although we recreate
the past at events, there is no need to recreate it in preparing
for those events (i.e. paperwork, etc...).

In service,
Lord Kendrick Wayfarer
Listkeeper, Merry Rose
---
             |                       lovelace@acm.org
             |\                       Arlington, VA
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---------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville -- mighty Casey has struck out.

			From "Casey at the Bat"
			By Ernest Lawrence Thayer (1863-1940)


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