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

[cellio]

In an ideal world, I'd like to see some active policing of orders within their own ranks. I know of a household that physically dragged one of their own members to a lady whom he had offended and forced him to his knees in front of her.

I wonder what peerage orders can do, and what it's appropriate for them to do. The head of a household can kick a member out if he's behaving inappropriately; orders can't do that. Orders, and individual members thereof, can petition the crown for a remedy. Is it appropriate for an order to announce "we condemn such-and-such actions"? What if only 90% of the order agrees; are they still speaking as an order? What if it's 60%? If the order doesn't do it as an order, is there value in individuals doing it? Or is that seen as pompous -- those people think they're good enough to pass judgement on others?

More in a followup post (and I'll be interested in seeing your post when you're ready).

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

The Amish and the Mormons call it shunning. It's amazingly effective. If 90% of the order refuses to acknowledge the existence of one member who's been a jackass, it's one hell of a motivation to shape up. Your order won't talk to you, won't sit at a table with you, won't return your greeting, etc. Unfortunately, I believe it's against SCA regs to bar them from order meetings.

The problem is there's so few penalties that they're reserved for the most heinous offences, banishments of various levels and courts of chivalry. There's almost no hand-slap, go to your room, you will apologize and stop acting like an idiot penalties. That's what we need more of.

Am I correct in understanding that Courts of Chivalry are reserved for the peerage and the only outcomes are stripped of peerage or not guilty?

[cellio]

The problem is there's so few penalties that they're reserved for the most heinous offences, banishments of various levels and courts of chivalry.

Yes. Recently the board made some changes to the grievance procedures to try to address this; it's as yet untested. There is now support for things like "cannot display symbols of rank" rather than "stripped of rank", for instance. I think it still requires the crown of the relevant kingdom to pass sentence, just like in a court of chivalry.

Am I correct in understanding that Courts of Chivalry are reserved for the peerage and the only outcomes are stripped of peerage or not guilty?

Courts of chivalry can be called against anyone so far as I know. Banishment (for a period or for forever) is also a possible outcome. I'm not up on the CoC rules.