[MR] Regarding Modern Names for the Atlantian OP

Fri Feb 15 07:11:37 PST 2002

Greetings unto the populace of Atlantia and all who haunt these lists on this
beautiful winter morning from your Atlantian Clerk of Precedence, Mistress
Mordeyrn Tremayne!

Good people,

It has come to my attention that you would like to understand why I have
requested that I have the correct modern name associated with the SCAdian names
contained within the Atlantian Award database. 

As you all know, the Order of Precedence database is a listing of the awards
conferred upon people throughout the history of the Kingdom. The award name,
date given, and what kingdom gave it is tied to a SCAdian name. This listing is
used extensively by persons from all over Atlantia as well as the rest of the
Known World to check what recognition their friends/subjects have so they can be
recommended for an award they do not have already, or to insure they have an
award that the looker thinks they should have. Because of this, I, as the Clerk
of Precedence for Atlantia, owe it to all, to insure that the information is
accurate, complete, and available in a timely fashion. 

To this end, I am having to revamp the set up of the database to insure this
accuracy. At the moment, the key field for the data is the SCAdian name. As we
all know, people change their SCAdian names, they're misspelled on reports,
they're shortened, in short these names can be quite mangled. However, if there
is a reliable field to cross reference too, then duplicate and errors can be
minimized. We have two such reliable fields available - your membership number
or your modern name. 

Let's look at these two pieces of data. Membership is not required, not readily
available, and thus not reliably useable. The modern name however is something
that everyone has, and is reliable. So, in order to insure the accuracy of the
Atlantian award database, I have filled in the modern name associated with the
SCAdian name. To date, I have cross referenced about 60% of the database with
modern names, I've removed approximately 50 duplicate names, and I've found at
least 20 people missing from the database completely. 

This database is a tool, what happens if one of the orders recommends to Their
Majesties or Baron/ess that a person should have an award, and they do that
after cross checking the OP. Ok, the person in question is very well name by one
name, say "Quacker", and that's the ONLY name everyone knows this person by. Ok,
he's not in the database at all, he's always lived in Atlantia, now there is
doubt whether this person has an AoA. 

So, the Order recommends to Their Majesties that They confer an AoA on this man,
since he didn't have one and if Their Majesties choose, the award in question.
Their Majesties may not be able to find out if this man already has an AoA, and
They shouldn't have to, especially if an order has given a recommendation - we
should have done the homework already. If Their Majesties had chosen to give
this man an AoA only, we would have caused an embarrassment for the Crown, and
ourselves, not to mention the probable hurt this person would garner since he
was not recognized as already having an AoA receiving a second one, and then
unbeknownst to him (hopefully) he was not given the award he should have gotten! 

A situation easily avoidable by having accurate, complete, timely data. It is
typical that on recommendations, the person being recommended has their modern
name referenced. Therefore, I would be able to look in MY database and find that
his registered name is indeed in there, and that he does have an AoA but not the
award he was recommended for. However, his registered name of "Darkwing Duck" is
not even slightly close to the name (remember, Quackers) he is known by...
there's not a snowball's chance in hell we would have found that if I didn't
have his modern name referenced in the database.

Rest assured, that your modern name will not be displayed to the populace as a
whole. It is contained with in the database I am using on my computer. Period.
The Atlantian award database is a tool to aid those who have the ability to
recognize people for their deeds, to be able to do the right and proper thing.
It is also a tool for all to use to see what their friends, associates, all have
been recognized with and be able to write recommendations.

So, I ask you, please go on-line to http://op.atlantia.sca.org and find YOUR OP
entry if you should have one. Is your SCAdian name spelled correctly? Are all
the awards, kingdom, principality, baronial you have been recognized with there
with the correct date? Are you from another Kingdom, and you're not in my
database? If there is an error, PLEASE, email me the correction, and please
include your modern name.

If there are no errors, please, either give your Baronial OP Herald your modern
name to pass along to me for cross-referencing purposes only, or, send it
directly to me at angela at ascc.lucent.com. After you've done that, check out what
awards your friends and fellow baronial members have - is something missing on
theirs? Maybe you need to send a recommendation letter to Their Majesties or
possibly to your Baronial Coronets.

I thank you in advance for your help and attention to this important matter.

In Service to Crown and Kingdom,

Mordrea
Mistress Mordeyrn Tremayne of Casa del Tremayne
Atlantian Clerk of Precedence

Please feel free to forward this missive along to other lists that I've left off
my TO list as you see fit.
-- 
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