Online Awards Recommendation Form

[rmhowe <magnusm@ncsu.edu>]

Poster: rmhowe <magnusm@ncsu.edu>

Well, 

 As the one who saw the page and suggested the "new idea" I'm going 
to break my usual rule and get into this pending discussion. I think
some good points have been made, both by Duke Logan and others.

 First of all, I think we all know/have known people who don't get
noticed for the work that they are doing or have done. Often it is
because someone (or many someones) have always assumed that they 
already had an award. How many people have had others say how 
surprised they were that they didn't have one after they got their
AoA? Personally, I've heard that one a lot. I also am sure many
people have worked hard and gone unnoticed to the extent that they
feel hurt about it. I imagine some have grown bitter and quit.

 Secondly, I have also read and heard various pointy hats complain
about not having people send in award recommendations.

 Thirdly, not everyone understands what certain awards are for. (Yes,
I understand that the award descriptions for various kingdom awards
are on the kingdom website and have been published years ago in TI.)
Not everyone is webenabled, although I would guess that by cohabita-
tion probably at least a third are, or are at work.

 Fourthly, I see individual's strong efforts to build their part of 
Atlantia into a better part as enobling and useful as some of the 
Kingdom officer's functions (but not all of them). Great things are
usually built in small pieces and then assembled into something
magnificent. So I see no reason to overlook local recommendations.
(Cliques aside). It was many individual efforts that built Atlantia,
not those of a few.
 
 I can't speak for the rest of the kingdom because I don't live there.
Here in Windmasters' Hill we have a very large barony with many cantons.
New people are coming in all the time. I have lived here 17+ years in
this barony and I certainly don't know them all. We have grown in that
time from 35 or so to 10 times that number.

 It would appear to me that there IS sufficient space on that webpage,
or could be on one WE design, for reasons to be stated as to why a 
certain person should receive an award. Very specifically.

 There could also be sufficient room for whoever is proposing that 
award to sufficiently identify themselves for all intensive purposes.
Names, rank, address, zipcode, barony, canton, shire, checkable email
address and phone number.

 Emails from singular persons also aren't petitions. They would be 
direct and to the point. Less flowery perhaps and when answering 
certain required questions more honest and forthcoming than "just
because he's a nice guy". Those questions would be there to justify
WHY they think So and So should receive Such and Such Award. 

 Where's the kingdom award form when we need it now? Many of us have
one somewhere but we're really not sure where. I think having
a kingdom award form in the Acorn is a great idea, although maybe every
other month, to conserve space and printing costs. This will make it 
available to the rest of the subscribing members. Heck, we could have 
a separate webpage just to print one out.

 I can't really see the harm in placing forms in both mediums. It would
make the process very simple, get the right questions answered, identify
the sender sufficiently to recontact if more specific questions need to
be asked (especially easy, fast and cheap in email), and maybe, just 
maybe, get some long overdue awards to people who might deserve them. 
The page can be tailored to however the current Royals (or Curia) see 
fit.

 Frankly, it might be a nice idea to link such a page with the Atlantian
Awards Page and the Kingdom Order of Precedence (especially now that 
some Baronial awards are also being listed). Then one could check and
see who has what and even get a rough idea of how long and useful a 
member they have been. In my opinion that would be a real plus.

 I differ with one suggestion that it become an all encompassing
awards page instead of a Kingdom one. I think that we have 14 or 15
different Baronies now, all with different awards, and all with
different people in charge. That is simply too much for any person in
charge of such a page to administer, and new changes would happen
continually. I think individual Baronies should have their own if they
so wish. If it doesn't fly at Kingdom level I also see no reason why
those Baronies could not use the idea anyway. Most of them have both
their own webpages and newsletters and not everyone is necessarily
connected to both - or either for that matter.

 For a Barony as large as ours I think it makes better sense to have an
independent page. While some of the Baronies up North are in relatively
confined areas, those to the South are very wide in scope, their people
more spread out and less well known. Such a thing could be an asset. 
Here we cover large parts of states, not areas around a single city 
like some.

 With stirring stick in hand,
 Magnus, in Windmasters' Hill,
 feeling just a bit like an actor in "Against the Wind" :)
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