Greetings to the Populace of Northshield!
We are trying to clean up the Northshield website. Specifically, we're trying to clean up the user database attached to the website. We've discovered a number of user accounts and profiles which are duplicates, and we'd like to ask for your help in consolidating some of them.
Why are there duplicates? It could be for a number of reasons. Since users can create a new account at any time, someone might log in once using his or her SCA name (for instance, Simon), not log in for a year, change the spelling of his or her name, and create a new account with the new spelling (Symon). Or they might not have an SCA name when they create an initial profile and later create a new account using the name. Sometimes a person who has not created a profile will receive an award, and in order to make a record of the award the Clerk of Precedence will create a profile. When the user later creates his or her own profile, the original one doesn't get merged. The specifics will be different for each case. We're concerned with cleaning them up and merging them together.
I have sent lists of names to the seneschals and chatelaines of each group, and we've made some progress — but we'd like to make more. Please check the website to see if you exist more than once, either with multiple instances of your name or with an old name which should no longer appear. If you find multiple instances, we canhandle it — please send them to profilecleanup@northshield.org or support@northshield.org.
More common than duplicate names, though, arepeople who have moved and not updated theirprofiles. We know that sometimes a person willleave his or her old address or group listed forpolitical reasons, and we're okay with that. (Thereis no requirement that you be physically locatedwithin a group's boundaries in order to play withthat group.) But we also know that sometimespeople just forget. So, just in case, please checkyour profile — go to the website, log in, andclick 'Edit Profile' in the top right corner of thepage. 'Postal Information' includes your address,and 'SCA Information' includes your BranchAssociation. And it's a dropdown, and you canselect groups which include different Kingdoms.So if, for instance, you've moved to the Midrealmbut don't want to lose your Northshield profile,you could change it to 'Middle, Kingdom of'. Imean, nobody ever really *leaves* Northshield.
And! To make it easier for you to do this, I (andsome deputies) will continue to make an effortto be at events in the future with a laptop so thatpeople can log in to check their profiles and makesure that all of their awards, authorizations, andother information is up to date. Or create a newprofile, if you don't have one! I've mentioned itbefore, but can't say it enough — having a profile— and having it up to date — is important ifyou want to recommend someone for an award,hold an office in the Kingdom, or authorize inany weapon style. If you are already a fighter, wetrack your authorized weapon forms based onthat user profile. If you're a scribe, illuminator, orother artist we can keep records of your artworkand scrolls. If you're an officer, your reports arefiled on the website. It's important and useful!And also fun!
See you at an event!
Abelard