SCA: badly-behaving peers

[cellio]

A question has come up among some SCA folks, and I'm interested in hearing a broader perspective. Particularly because I've been a peer for a while and have become less active in recent years, it's possible I'm a bit out of touch.

Non-peers: to what extent do you look up to peers (define "look up" however you like)? Are you negatively affected (again, define how you like) if a peer does something bad?

Peers and non-peers: if a peer does something bad, is that significantly worse to you than if a non-peer did it? To what extent does the behavior of an individual peer reflect on his order or on the peerage in general? Does the answer vary based on what the peer did?

I'll post my own thoughts later; I want to hear others' first.

Clarification: "bad" = "behaves badly", not "produces substandard work". Sorry I didn't make that more clear.

Comments

[siderea]

How shall I put this? I don't expect better than average behavior from peers, because I am not an idiot. But that said, I think it quite reasonable to hold them to a higher standard of conduct. However if we are going to hold them to a higher standard, it has to be more voluntary: candidates should be offered invitations to the peerage discretely so they can elect not to shoulder that burden if they don't want it.

[cellio]

candidates should be offered invitations to the peerage discretely so they can elect not to shoulder that burden if they don't want it.

Excellent point! In my time in the SCA I've only seen two people turn down the offer, which must have been really hard with the entire kingdom watching.