January 2025 – Creative Administration

A Brief Survey of Society Wikis

The subject of “unofficial” wikis came up obliquely in comments by the Society President at the October 2024 quarterly Board meeting, as well as in subsequent discussion online, and I thought it might be useful to survey which kingdoms had established wikis.

Of the 20 kingdoms, 9 have official wikis, 3 have unofficial ones, and 8 don’t appear to have a wiki at all.

It’s Time to Revisit the Release Form Policies

Back in 2020–21, when I first got involved in trying to clarify the SCA’s release forms policies, my goal was for there to be an up-to-date reference that webministers, chroniclers, and social media officers could all share, which would incorporate the original policy written in 2009, and the various FAQs written in 2010, the policy interpretations that various Society officers had issued since then, into a single document.

In 2021–22 I put together a draft of that handbook — by and large a restatement of existing policy, with no significant changes — and handed it off to Society officers who then made some additional changes and published the result in early 2023. .

In the following months, as the new handbook was circulated, I talked to people serving in a bunch of different roles across the SCA to get their reactions, and wrote up a series of suggestions on how to improve the handbook based on that feedback:

Clarify that individual members of the populace do not need to fill out release forms when publishing their own material to social media or to other platforms like wikis. (March 2023)
Clarify that local officers can grant permission to redistribute material published by their office. (March 2023)
Correct typographic errors and confusing elements in the official release forms. (May 2023)
Clarify where content previously posted online by members of the populace can be re-shared by an officer without requiring a release form. (June 2024)
A revised Technology Contributor Agreement that addresses some concerns that volunteers developing software for the SCA. (November 2023)

However, the response from the Society Publications Manager — the officer that owns the Release Forms Handbook — has been to ignore me. The Society’s org chart shows that the Publications Manager supervises the Society Chronicler and the editors of the various Society-level publications, but they aren’t responsible for web publishing or social media, so the concerns of those offices are (understandably) less salient for them.

In 2024, I tried to find examples of people for whom the existing release forms were working well — who were able to publish a large number of photos, art, and text written by the membership each month, without experiencing a lot of friction around release forms — but I wasn’t able to find anyone for whom this was true… and when I wrote to various Society officers asking if they knew of any such success stories, they weren’t able to identify any either.

The Society Social Media Officer is able to publish a large amount of user-generated content without experiencing issues with the release forms… because they’ve decided that they don’t have to use the release forms. However, as far as I can tell, they never informed local social media officers of this policy interpretation, and dealing with release forms continues to be cited as a barrier by officers as a barrier to getting fresh material onto local websites and social media.

I think it’s time to have a round of discussion about updating the release forms policy to better serve the organization, but doing so is an uphill battle.

The release forms policy was written fifteen years ago by a cautious lawyer without a lot of Internet experience. The 2022 Release Forms Handbook restated that policy but did not update it to reflect the modern media landscape. The people who the current policy inconveniences have no power to change it, and the people who have power to change it aren’t themselves constrained by it.

Having a restrictive policy limits the organization’s legal liability, and if turns out that adhering to the policy causes so much friction that officers routinely ignore the policy, well… the Society’s leadership can just ignore that and hope that nothing ever goes wrong.

Written Consent Can Replace Release Forms for Social Media

Even with the addition of an email-only option for release forms two years ago, local officers that publish information for their SCA branches (including social media officers, web ministers, chroniclers, and others) have continued to describe the use of release forms as a burden to doing their work.

Given that context, I was excited to hear from the Society Social Media Officer that other forms of written consent can substitute for release forms.

They listed three distinct forms this consent could take:

a release form,
a written statement of permission, or
a hashtag that indicate permission, such as #sharemysca.

This brings the practices for copyright (photographers and artists) and likeness (models) in line with the existing practices for privacy (personal information), which also can be published after receiving a simpler type of written consent short of a full release form.

I hope that other offices will follow their lead!

From: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin To: Society Social Media Officer Date: 21 September 2024

Good evening, Your Excellency,

Some of the social media officers I’ve spoken to here in the East have grumbled about the hassle involved in getting release forms filled out by photographers and people pictured in photos and videos, and then in keeping track of all of the resulting paperwork, and so I’ve been on the lookout for “success stories” of folks in the Society who are handling this challenge well in hopes that others can learn their techniques.

The Society’s official social media feeds on Instagram and Facebook share a dozen or more photographs every month and I’d love to hear how you manage the associated record-keeping.

Do you generally have people sign paper release forms, or sign the PDF forms electronically, or have them agree to the release via email?

Roughly what proportion of the photos you publish are considered “portrait style” and require a model release?

How do you keep track of all of the release forms you’ve collected over the years?

Thank you so much for any information you’re able to share!

— Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin

From: Society Social Media Officer To: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin Date: 1 January 2025

Thanks for your patience.

The important thing is to have explicit permission for usage. Some groups have run education campaigns for use of hashtags that indicate the permission of the creator for use or have simply contacted the creator in writing and gained their agreement and kept this as a record. Examples of the hashtags include #regrammysca #sharemysca #regramcalontir

A full release will always be the ideal option but explicit permission from the creator reduces the risk exponentially.

Brigid

From: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin To: Society Social Media Officer Date: 2 January 2025

Thanks so much for that explanation!

It is often simple to get explicit permission from the creator, but significantly more challenging to get them to sign a release form — lowering the bar will make it much easier to collect great-looking material for our social media feeds!

Does this looser “explicit permission” standard only apply to the social media office, or does it also govern other offices such as the webministry?

— Mathghamhain

From: Society Social Media Officer To: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin Date: 2 January 2025

I can’t speak for other offices. This is for social media only.

Just remember you need documented explicit permission – so verbal isn’t enough