What’s going on this time?

A policy proposal (to make incoming royals sign a confidentiality form when they win Crown Tournament) was incomplete in a way that caused some alarm. My full thoughts on this should be obvious from the email chain. I have pasted my emails below and paraphrased the responses to them, as I have not requested permission to reproduce the emails I received & there’s nothing much in them that would warrant exact reproduction anyway.

Some meta-commentary on giving commentary, if you will

I feel that when I email the Board they have lately been more friendly and receptive to my feedback. I attribute this to several things.

First, my consistency in giving feedback and contributing to my local SCA over the years has perhaps made the people who respond to emails aware that I’m trying to improve things in my own way, and not just trying to cause problems.

Second, I think I am helped by the effort I have made lately to not just be angry about things via email but also have some empathy for the volunteers trying to make it through difficult circumstances. This approach change was more apparent especially after mid-late 2024 (around when I was elected to the Board of Directors of my local hackerspace, a much smaller 501c3 with its own tangle of interpersonal conflicts).

Third, I also attribute it to some light coaching from the people I met in the SCA in Colorado (the Kingdom of the Outlands is 1/3 the size of the East Kingdom, so the social dynamics are different and I personally found them more amenable to what I was trying to learn), and also some emotional stability work that I did on my own via therapy and probably just generally rough edges being sanded over time as I’m no longer as socially inexpert as I was in my 20s.

Email contents

My email on Tuesday, October 21, 10am Eastern

Hello,

https://www.sca.org/news/feedback-request-proposed-addition-to-corporate-policy/ does not describe the content of the policy that royal heirs would be required to sign, nor is the text of the policy somewhere I could find in corpora or in the document library (I used ctrl-f for “confidentiality” both places)

Can you please share the content of this policy alongside the request for feedback on whether it should be used? What is being signed will inform my opinion on whether it should be signed.

Thanks, Anne of Østgardr (resident in Ealdormere) (signature block with membership, expiry, mundane name etc)

My email on Thursday, October 23, 8:30am Eastern

Hi,

I see the update from two days ago that the text would be posted “later today” but I do not see where the text is posted. Am I missing it? I also did not receive any response to my initial email; please acknowledge receipt.

Thanks, Anne

Receipt acknowledged from SCA, Thursday, October 23, 1:30pm Eastern

The recipient is on the west coast of the US so it is understandable that time zones delay the responses a bit. The response explained that the information is coming soon and the Board wants to give more context with their next communication on it, which means it takes longer.

My message of thanks, Thursday, October 23, 8pm Eastern

Thanks very much! I appreciate your response and the additional consideration from the Board. I see the new policy is available online now at https://www.sca.org/news/revised-feedback-request-proposed-addition-to-corporate-policy/ so I will provide feedback under the separate email subject as requested.

Thanks, Anne

Response Thursday October 23, 11pm that they are looking forward to it

My feedback email on Friday, October 24, 5:45pm Eastern

Hi, I’m providing feedback on the following proposal: https://www.sca.org/news/revised-feedback-request-proposed-addition-to-corporate-policy/

  1. Intent of this proposal
    • I agree with the intent of holding official representatives of the SCA who have access to privileged information to a standard for confidentiality. Officers should all affirm their intent to follow all SCA policies when they apply, and I am comfortable with kingdom-level and up officers signing a form stating that they understand what they’re agreeing to when they step up.
    • I agree with the intent of a Crown Tournament entrant affirming that they are required to follow all applicable SCA rules when they enter the list and again when they step up.
    • I disagree that the victors of a Crown Tournament should be allowed access to privileged information due to their role as Crown or Heirs. I believe that in my ideal world holding an in-game role does not mean that out-of-game decisions such as anti-harassment policy enforcements become a part of their purview. I believe the change as written in the current draft brings us farther from this ideal state, not closer to it.
  2. Implementation of proposals, generally
    • I would like it if all active SCA policies had a clear ownership (ideally a position with continuity, not a person who may leave). Sending a collectively-owned-by-the-board document out is a recipe for it to become stale and have no clear path to successful updates. I am unclear who would own this confidentiality agreement, were it to come into effect.
    • I would like it if all proposed SCA policies had a clear ownership (in this case I’m OK with a specific point person/ombudsman within the board championing it, who hands it off when they leave instead of dropping it). I have seen some significant mistrust of the Board’s handling of issues, and I feel that it would be better for the Board to have clear channels of discussion with individual people who are all trying to improve our Society, rather than an anonymous dictation from a faceless collective.
    • For policy changes which have a legal impact, I would like to know the reason why we feel that they will be protective of both the SCA and good-faith engaged individuals involved. I believe this could be accomplished by a short abstract written and signed by someone who explains their legal credentials and the relevance of their background to reviewing the change. They could provide answers to questions like: why is 10 years the correct amount of time to keep this agreement active?
    • For policy changes which have a social impact, I feel it is appropriate to explain why this social impact is desirable. Thank you for doing this in your October 23 update.
  3. Implementation of this proposal
    • I feel that this agreement as written is standard and appropriate for the following subset of officers listed in the agreement: Members of the Board of Directors, Corporate Officers, Employees, Corporate and Kingdom Investigators, Kingdom Seneschals, Kingdom Exchequers.(i.e. all of them but the Crown). I believe it may be appropriate to extend this in the future to other Kingdom+ officers who have access to privileged information, such as Webministers.
    • Section 1 specifies “name” where presumably “legal name” (or perhaps some other form of mundanely used name?) is meant rather than persona name
    • Sections 4 and 9 of this agreement use “OR” bullet points (any of the following may be true) and the other sections use “AND” (all of the following must be true). Clarifying this within those sections of the document would be better.
    • Section 6: “Through channels that maintain appropriate recordkeeping and security” should likely be “communicate about confidential matters only through channels….”
    • As stated above, I do not feel it is appropriate for Crowns to be in the loop on sanction discussions; they should have no need to sign such a form as they do not hold a privileged officer position.
    • “Proposed addition to Corporate Policy, item XXI” says that this is to be executed 10 days after winning a crown tournament. I do not think that is the right place to update Corpora for something that must be agreed to by the victors of a crown tournament. Were it to be added, it would need to also live in section IV “Royalty”.C “Duties” in a new section 10, immediately after section 9 about having a valid membership for the duration of the reign. But again, I don’t think it should be a power that the crown has, so I don’t think that section should be added.

As always, thanks for your time and attention, please acknowledge receipt of this message, and feel free to follow up with any questions or comments.

Thank you, Anne of Østgardr (currently resident in Ealdormere) (sig block etc)

Receipt was acknowledged Friday, October 24, at 6:10pm Eastern, with thanks :)