Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Rialto & Groups; Persona & Classes; East & West; Fido & Returns
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1992 08:42:11

 JD> In response to a message about classes in persona, Tadhg writes:
 JD> >How educational. Illustrates very well the sheer, unadulterated
 JD> >utility of playing persona games in the SCA....

 JD> Tsk; getting snide isn't useful.

My personal experience suggests that neither is being serious, in this area.
Despite the fact that playing persona games demonstrably has never worked,
demonstrably does not work, and demonstrably will never work, there persist a
depressingly large number of people who continue to elevate it to the status
of a holy ikon. When reasoned argument doesn't make an impression (and I've
been trying, in various fora, for ... let's see, it'll be 18 years come
September), snide is sometimes all one has left.


 JD> In fact, persona can be a *very* useful tool for education.

Never said it wasn't. However, to withhold knowledge that one has from a
student who desires it merely because one's "persona wouldn't know that" is an
instantiation of a class that I call "stupid persona tricks", all of which
share the general characteristic of not only being "not useful" but also
"alienating", especially to new people.

 JD> In a previous message, I mentioned a
 JD> class that Baron Patri taught last year, about "Why Things Fall".
 JD> In a typical party-in-garb SCA context, this probably would come
 JD> out fairly dull, and would have an inevitable context of "this is
 JD> what they thought, but we know better now". Instead, we got a 
 JD> *fascinating* lecture, that left one at the end hard-pressed to
 JD> not agree with the reasoning. There is a qualitative difference
 JD> between "this is what they thought", and "this is how it works".

Depends on the quality of the teacher. A bad teacher can be just as bad in 
persona as otherwise (and, in fact, more "authentic"). Similarly, a good
teacher can be good no matter what approach he or she decides to adopt. A
method is only as useful as the person who applies it.

 JD> In short, a well-taught in-persona class can help you not only
 JD> know *what* they knew, but make you understand what it was like
 JD> to believe in that. Damned useful for understanding the period
 JD> mindset...

The key being "well-taught". A "well-taught" class can do so whether it's "in 
persona" or not.

 JD> Tadhg writes, in response to Arval's comment about over-long lines:
 JD> >Almost certainly the fault of whatever software translates between
 JD> >FidoNet and Usenet - FidoNet BBS editors work within the 80 character
 JD> >limit of most PC screens.

 JD> No, I believe that you're wrong here. Your messages and Vashti's are
 JD> coming out with super-long lines (around 200 characters or so -- I had
 JD> to edit your message in order to respond to it), but Stephen of the
 JD> Grove's messages, also from Herald's Point, look just fine. This would
 JD> seem to indicate that the problem is at the editing level, not the
 JD> transmission level.

Vashti uses the editor that comes with the BBS. I use a different system that 
reads the message base directly, and use My Favorite Text Editor, QEDIT.
Stephan uses an offline reader called MegaMail, which has its own built-in
editor. All of these do "word wrap" and none of us worries about line ends.

 JD> My guess is that you are using an editor that is pseudo-breaking
 JD> lines. Am I correct in guessing that it appears to automatically
 JD> put in a carriage return after a reasonable line length? If this
 JD> is so, then these automatic returns are being lost on transmission.
 JD> For the message to be intelligible to those outside Fidenet, you
 JD> need to put in hard carriage returns. To most of us, your messages
 JD> are hard to read, and some people actually lose about 2/3 of the
 JD> text. So *please* put in those hard returns...

Well, I'll see what I can do. It's easy for me, since I can go back and insert 
characters into my text, but I'll have to work on how the BBS handles
things....

 JD> (This applies to folks on many Fidonet sites -- please put in
 JD> hard returns, so the rest of us can figure out what you're
 JD> saying. Some sites don't have this problem, but many do...)

Again, as I say, the gateway software ought to be designed with this in mind, 
and ought to format messages automatically.

 * Origin: Herald's Point * Steppes/Ansteorra * 214-699-0057 (1:124/4229)