A few calculations

[stellar_muddle]

[insert rant/calculations on SCA player numbers and if a majority of people in Lochac make it to Festival]

Well, no actually. Just ended up posting the numbers to the Lochac Shambles list directly. If you care, you can probably read it there.

I should probably stop poking now...

Majority, HAH!!!

Though if I look now, I was out by 1 on the NZ members (sorry)... Given the rest of the rounding, doesn't matter overall.

Ok, so I get pedantic over weird things...

Comments

[mmy-me.livejournal.com]

Now, now, why ruin a perfectly good bald assertion with actual numbers? You're such a spoil sport!

[teffania.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for doing that!
I read the message and had exactly the same reaction to the word majority.

I know the truth is no event will ever have the majority of members there, and that festival is likely to have the highest number of members ever at an event, which doesn't invalidate their remarks, but using the wrong words is wot leads to discrimination.

The other thing I think no-one in NZ realises is that when they think of the east coast events having lots of events, as a melbournite it feels like there are actually two political blocks: adelaide-tas-melb and from canberra north. I doubt it's reality, but that's the way it sometimes feels like from here, especially when people say things like "everyone goes to festival". It's part of the language - brisbane people talk about how they had to travel further to yass (that was a bloody long drive I hear), but only compare the drive to us melbournians, and forget that we are only halfway to tasmania or adelaide. I guess it's because from brisbane (or anywhere in NSW), you have to look towards sydney, but from melbourne we don't: adelaide is closer, tassie is sometimes an easier trip.

And it's still cheaper to fly to NZ than WA.

[pearl]

The most relaxed four months I experienced in the SCA was when the database crashed and I was accidentally unsubscribed from the Shambles.

Then I realised I was missing out on drama and I had to know what was going on. There's also the worrying tendency that the subscribers seem to think that their mailing list is the centre of the Lochac universe and that all the important things are discussed there.

My point: If you can cope with livejournal and the occasional social gathering deteriorating into discussions of the Shambles and you have no idea what they're talking about, then it is OK to unsubscribe and simply ignore it.

[not-an-elf.livejournal.com]

totally agree!
I've stopped reading the shambles now, though I still get the emails. It was making me not want to play any more.

I thought about a "please stop being crap" email, but decided that voting with my feet was the best option.

[pearl]

It was making me not want to play any more.

I'm so glad it wasn't just me who thought that!

Everyone just gets so excited and passionate, which is good, but then don't really channel that passion into anything constructive, which is bad. (There are exceptions.) I just know nothing about psychology to suggest how it could become a saner place.

It's also startling to put faces to names, and realise that quite often they're lovely and normal people in the flesh, who turn into insane ranting loonies online. (Sort of like me, now I think about it. Oh dear...)

[wenchilada.livejournal.com]

Gotta agree, voting with your feet does seem to make things a lot less complicated and much happier. My feet took me to somewhere where there is no SCA, which is pretty extreme... but life is peaceful and every now and then I log back into the Shambles for a peep when I need to be outrageously outraged about something...

[stellar-muddle.livejournal.com]

I will occasionally turn it to web only when I am about to head away from net for a while and forget for several months to about a year. Life goes on quite happily, then I notice my inbox has been boring/empty/undistracting for a while and I change settings back.

It generally takes a fair amount to get passed my "I can't be arsed" filters in posting something (last may have been a year or two or three ago). I generally just giggle/follow silly link/hmph/snark to Z/rant in LJ slightly. I think this managed to trip an actual post due to triggering my "show me the numbers dammit" reflex - a fairly well trained reflex by this stage only slightly behind eating and breathing.

No comments/replies other than in LJ though, so the corridor camoflage is still fairly strong...

[baronsnorri.livejournal.com]

"Ok, so I get pedantic over weird things..."

Last I checked, you were a Scientist, my dear...it's to be expected. But, if you don't stop all that Statistical Stuff, you'll go blind... : )

Haven't Lochac-listed since 1998, because too many (e-mail-access-at-work-idiots) hit "Reply" to every e-mail in the stream, then added a puerile one-liner at the bottom (*some* of us were paying for downloads).

Otherwise, perfectly personable persons, *in person*, turned into Raving Loonies on e-mail, because they [obviously] had not developed anything approaching a polite ("civil"?) frame of reference for dealing with electronic communications.

Do I miss out? Maybe. Do I care? Not enough to wade back into the Miasma...

To quote a Wise Person:"And it's still cheaper to fly to New Zealand than Western Australia."

Cheers! Snorri.