sheetwalls-msg - 4/2/07 Pros and cons of using sheetwalls to separate encampments at SCA events. NOTE: See also the files: Sheetwalls-art, camp-security-msg, cmp-courteses-art, SCA-camping-lnks, firepits-msg, Care-o-Prvies-art, camp-showers-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 07:05:17 -0400 From: Cynthia Virtue Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Making sheet walls for Pennsic Gwen Morse wrote: > (woken out of a sound sleep when she realized she accounted for > 'everything' in her two-person camp _except_ sheet walls) Keep in mind that you don't necessarily *need* sheet walls, especially for a smaller camp. I'm more a fan of deliniating the edges with ribbon or half-walls -- friendlier, easier to put up, less engineering overall. cv Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 22:31:52 -0400 From: Cynthia Virtue Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Making sheet walls for Pennsic Chris Zakes wrote: > But then, this is a clear case of InterKingdom Anthropology. I'd been > in the SCA for years before I ever saw a sheet wall or, for that > matter, a camp with sharply defined boundaries. In Ansteorra, such > things are considered unnecessary. I'm fairly easygoing, but in a big camping area, I like to have some boundaries, just so friends (and the clueless) know where the front gate is, or where they shouldn't just blithely step through on the way to somewhere else. I don't like above-waist-height walls around most of a camp in the same way that a 6' high fence around one's front yard is rather unfriendly. cv From: herveus at radix.net (Michael Houghton) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Making sheet walls for Pennsic Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 12:03:03 -0000 Gwen Morse wrote: >>Keep in mind that you don't necessarily *need* sheet walls, especially >>for a smaller camp. I'm more a fan of deliniating the edges with ribbon >>or half-walls -- friendlier, easier to put up, less engineering overall. > >You don't? I thought you sorta had to...for privacy reasons (like, >your neighbors don't _want_ to be able to see into your camp)? Nope. There is (or has been in the past) a requirement to clearly delineate the boundaries between camps, but that can be done with a low fence. A simple fence that does not obstruct vision nor intercourse can make being neighborly easier. A wall makes it easier to be asocial. yours, Herveus -- Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly herveus at radix.net | White Wolf and the Phoenix Bowie, MD, USA | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff | http://www.radix.net/~herveus/ From: Lord Hanse Drachensohn Subject: Re: Making sheet walls for Pennsic Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 06:49:46 -0400 Newsgroups: rec.org.sca wood poles are the most common, unless you're camping in the trees. 2x2's are a good size for the poles, cut to desired height. (with enough extra to put in a hole.)to keep the top from sagging, you may want to put a few grommets along the top of your sheet wall, then run rope through all the grommets. slits are a good idea especially if you camp up on the field because of the wind. Hanse From: Arval Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Do sheet walls still make Westerners boggle? Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 21:31:50 +0000 (UTC) Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC The first times I escorted west-coast Society folk around Pennsic, one of the things that blew their minds was the boundaries around camps. I didn't really understand why until I went to West-An Tir war about 10 years ago: Tents were plopped down any old way, without any boundaries, roads, or any organization at all that I could see. People routinely walked directly through the middle of other people's campsites, and were astonished when I commented on that behavior. Does that difference still exist? =========================================================================== Arval arval at mittle.users.panix.com Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 20:04:41 -0400 From: Cynthia Virtue Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Do sheet walls still make Westerners boggle? Arval wrote: > Tents were plopped down any old way, without any > boundaries, roads, or any organization at all that I could see. > People routinely walked directly through the middle of other people's > campsites, and were astonished when I commented on that behavior. > > Does that difference still exist? I think it varies a lot by event and the location. Some places, it's definitely cheek-by-jowl camping (ok, *was* -- I was in the West for 7 years but have been back in the East for 5 now.) By which I mean 'more crowded than most places at Pennsic.' If there's a reasonable amount of space, then folks behave more sanely. Two big differences to keep in mind, though: 1: from March-October, nearly every event is a camping event. Nearly every event in the Central West (middle third of California) is a Kingdom-level event. Nearly everyone who is active attends, and there are often more than one of these per month. 2. The ideal Western camping layout is a really large central rectangle, around which is one layer deep of household or group camping. Frontage is usually a large sunshade/awning, and the group goes back in a fairly narrow rectangle from there. When there's so many people that the ideal ends up being double-parked, then you get the apparent randomness you describe. cv From: Heather Rose Jones Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Making sheet walls for Pennsic Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2004 01:51:50 GMT law wrote: > Cynthia Virtue wrote: >> I'm fairly easygoing, but in a big camping area, I like to have some >> boundaries, just so friends (and the clueless) know where the front >> gate is, or where they shouldn't just blithely step through on the way >> to somewhere else. > > This has probably been the hardest thing for me to accept in "SCA-style > Camping" versus "The way I learned camping." In "real world" camping, > it is considered rude to walk through someone else's campsite just to > get to the other side ... much like just walking through someone's front > door and out the back because it's the fastest way to the next block. If > absolutely necessary, a polite "excuse me" is expected and the traveler > is also expected to be as unobtrusive as possible. Since my first SCA > Camping experience, it seems to be quite common to just walk through the > middle of an encampment -- making as much noise (especially in the wee > hours) as possible. The practical problem is that it isn't always easy to distinguish between "a path through the middle of an encampment" and "a path between and not entering encampments". I suspect that sometimes this is a major motivation behind camp walls -- one that would be as well served by lines on the ground as by tall sheets. (Another practical problem is that if there are no "public footpaths" left _between_ encampments, then they will naturally tend to evolve _through_ encampments. There's something to be said for good old common law traditions.) Tangwystyl From: "Drew Nicholson" Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Making sheet walls for Pennsic Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 22:20:04 -0500 "Heather Rose Jones" wrote: > The practical problem is that it isn't always easy to > distinguish between "a path through the middle of an > encampment" and "a path between and not entering > encampments". I suspect that sometimes this is a major > motivation behind camp walls -- one that would be as well > served by lines on the ground as by tall sheets. Except in the middle of the night, especially when you're hammered. I've yet to be so inebriated that I can't keep myself from walking through a sheet wall; I've easily been distracted enough by my son at times to miss lines on the ground. Purple From: herveus at radix.net (Michael Houghton) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Making sheet walls for Pennsic Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 12:32:11 -0000 Gwen Morse wrote: >I've been to three Pennsics, then, I missed the last four. I vividly >remember having sheet walls being explained as exceptionally >'necessary' for social comfort during my first pennsic. No one really >said 'why', other than it that it was to make other people happy. I >was so much in awe of everything my first Pennsic, I didn't really >question any pronouncements handed down. My experience suggests the contrary. Clan Cambion has never found it necessary to even consider walls. We do put up a low fence that comes up about waist high, or a bit lower. It draws a line so you can see where the camp runs, but does not impede conversation, even when you are seated. When we have our fire-pit/conversation area up by the road, it is sociable to have the low wall, because passers-by can stop to chat without having to come into the camp. It also permits ready observation of the passers-by, to whatever end... A sheet wall would isolate the inside from the outside -- not very sociable. Herveus -- Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly herveus at radix.net | White Wolf and the Phoenix Bowie, MD, USA | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff | http://www.radix.net/~herveus/ Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 08:15:53 -0400 From: Cynthia Virtue Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Making sheet walls for Pennsic John Husvar wrote: > Really, it probably is. Some folks seem to like to help the sheetmakers > stay in business. It does little harm, I suppose, and the decorations on > some are entertaining. Note for the new: actual bedsheets are not a good fabric for "sheetwalls." They are easy to rip, sag when wet, etc. If you want a sheetwall/windwall that will last a few seasons, use a heavier cloth. cv From: Chris Zakes Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Do sheet walls still make Westerners boggle? Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 01:19:33 GMT On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 21:57:53 +0000 (UTC), an orbital mind-control laser caused Arval to write: >>>The style of camping that I described as typical in the East -- >>>well-defined boundaries around camps and reasonably well-defined >>>walkways -- is found at events other than Pennsic, even very small >>>ones, or at least was back in the days when I was attending a lot of >>>events. And it pre-dates formal land allocation at Pennsic. > >jk replied: > >> But that wasn't always so in the east OR at PENNSIC. > >It was the norm as early as Pennsic X, at least in the more central >parts of the event. Are you thinking earlier than that? > >Arval Edited by Mark S. Harris sheetwalls-msg Page 6 of 6