Correspondence – Creative Administration

The Webministry Should Relax Release Form Requirements

At the start of the year I learned that the Society Social Media Office was operating under a relaxed standard for permission to share photographs: rather than requiring a signature on an official release form, their office merely requires written consent from the photographer.

This might seem like a minor issue, but I have spoken to multiple webministers who simply do not publish photographs on a regular basis because the perceived hassle factor of handling release forms and persuading people to fill them out is too onerous.

Therefore I have written to the Society Web Minister, asking them for permission to operate under the same standard as is in use for social media. I haven’t heard back yet, but I’ll keep following up in hopes of eventually making some progress.

[Update, March 18:] I’m pleased to have heard back from the Society Web Minister with good news — I’ll publish a separate update about that.

From: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin To: Society Web Minister Cc: SCA Publications Manager, Society Social Media Officer Date: 2 January 2025

Hello,

I recently learned that the Social Media office operates under a more-lenient standard than the Web Ministry regarding release forms — in short, they allow material to be published as long as there is explicit written consent, which could be a release form or some other explicit written form of consent.

As many of us have learned, it is much easier to get ask for permission in a Discord or Facebook chat — “can we use this photo for our group’s website?” “sure!” — than it is to get folks to fill out an official release form… and unfortunately, the current rules around release forms mean that some webministers simply avoid posting photos to their sites altogether.

Therefore I am writing to ask you whether those of us working as local branch web ministers may have your permission to operate under the same standard as the social media office, so that we can publish art and photos as long as we have some type of explicit written permission, even if it isn’t always a standard release form.

That will greatly simplify things and allow us to use the same photos for both our website and our social media in a coherent and seamless way.

Thank you for your consideration.

— Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin

From: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin To: Society Web Minister Cc: SCA Publications Manager, Society Social Media Officer Date: 3 March 2025

Hello again!

I’m checking in because a full two months have passed since I sent the below email and I haven’t heard back from anyone.

May those of us working on the local level of the webministry have permission to operate on the same standard as the Social Media office uses for obtaining consent to share and publish the photos and content created by our membership?

Thank you for any guidance you can offer.

— Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin

From: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin To: Society Web Minister Cc: SCA Publications Manager, Society Social Media Officer, Board Ombudsman for IT Date: 16 March 2025

Hello,

Another two weeks have passed and I have yet to receive even a one-sentence acknowledgement of the email I sent back at the start of January.

Perhaps there is some good legal or policy reason why the webministry is holding itself to a higher standard than other offices when it comes to release forms — at the cost of having fewer photographs on our websites.

But if this is an unforced error that we simply haven’t gotten around to addressing yet, I would encourage you to put this on the agenda for discussion and possible remediation.

Or if you’ve decided to simply ignore the issue, I would at least appreciate the courtesy of a reply telling me that, so I can stop wondering whether my email is all winding up in a junk filter.

Thank you,

— Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin

From: Society Web Minister To: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin Cc: SCA Publications Manager, Society Social Media Officer, Board Ombudsman for IT Date: 17 March 2025

My apologies for the delay Mathghamhain.

I completely misunderstood your email […]

If the standard was relaxed for Social Media, then I agree it should be no different for the Webministry as the two offices should work in conjunction with one another.

Please understand I had not been purposefully ignoring you.

From: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin To: Society Web Minister Cc: SCA Publications Manager, Society Social Media Officer, Board Ombudsman for IT Date: 18 March 2025

Thank you so much for this policy interpretation — I look forward to sharing it with the other folks in the webministry and hope to see an increase in photographs published to our Society’s websites in the coming year.

I completely understand [the delay], and I apologize for the somewhat frenetic tone of my last email — I know that you will be stepping down from this office in the coming months and was afraid that we’d lose the momentum we had built up in the course of the handoff to your successor.

Again, I really appreciate both this policy clarification and the other work you’ve done as Society Web Minister over these last few years.

It’s been a pleasure working with you,

— Mathghamhain

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

On Confidentiality of Communications

A few weeks ago, the SCA’s Board published a set of proposed changes to Corpora, the governing document of the Society as a whole, covering a number of topics including sanctions as well as the prohibition against serving both as a royal and a Society officer.

Among those proposals was one regarding confidentiality, which contained a poorly-worded phrase that I believe could be misinterpreted, so I wrote in to encourage them to clarify it.

Updates to the Society Org Chart

At the April meeting of the Board of Directors, following a good deal of members feedback, a proposal was ratified to promote the office of the Chatelaine from a deputy to a full Society officer, and to add a new Society officer for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB).

As part of this update, the previous Corporate office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging office was named the Office of Inclusive Programs.

I assume the Society’s Governing Documents will be updated soon to reflect these changes.

I’ve updated my org chart to reflect these developments, as well as two corrections to the version I assembled in December:

In Support of the Omnibus Peerage

I was tardy in writing to the Board in support of the proposed Omnibus Peerage, but did manage to get my letter in just under the wire.

The process of implementing this change has taken much longer than it should; the proposal has repeatedly been workshopped, brought forward for consideration and then sent back for refinement, over and over again for years.

I hope that this time it’s finally going to get across the finish line.

Recent Board Minutes Posted

The minutes from the first two quarterly meetings of the SCA Board of Directors for 2023 have now been posted to their website in the usual location, along with the minutes from the first four conference calls of the year:
https://sca.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/sca/neonPage.jsp?pageId=10

Correspondence follows, for those curious.

Society Documents May Be Shared

The SCA has a legitimate interest in avoiding confusion around its policies that could be caused by the widespread publication of incomplete or out-of-date documents. To further this goal, it instructs officers in kingdoms and local branches to link to the canonical documents on SCA.org rather than hosting copies on their own websites — this way, there’s no chance that someone might be misled by reading an old copy of Corpora or an office handbook that has been since been superseded.

But I wanted to make sure that this policy would not be construed in such a way as to prevent amateur historians of the Society from sharing and discussing old versions of these documents, so I penned an inquiry to the Society’s leadership.

Reassuringly, I’ve received an answer from the Society President stating that these are “public documents” and may be shared as long as steps are taken to minimize the chances of confusion.

Correspondence on this topic is appended below.

From: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin To: Society Seneschal Cc: Society In-House Counsel, Society President Date: 18 August 2023

Greetings from the East,

I have a policy-related question that I hope you can help with: would any harm be caused by sharing an archive of previous editions of the Society’s governing documents?

I ask because the following sentence appears on the front page of the Organizational Handbook: “The contents of this document will be posted at http://www.sca.org and further reproduction on other Internet sites is expressly forbidden.”

I assume the prohibition stems from a concern that having multiple copies of the governing documents floating around on various websites could cause confusion if someone were to refer to an out-of-date edition that had been posted to some third-party location.

However, given the interest in possible revisions to Corpora and the Bylaws, I think there is a real value to our membership in making earlier versions of the governing documents available for easy reference so that people can see what has changed over time.

Therefore, I have collected a batch of sixteen historical versions of the organizational handbook from the last two decades, and would like to post them for public review. Before doing so, I plan to watermark each page by overlaying a message that clearly indicates that this is a non-canonical document for historical reference only, and directing people to visit SCA.org to obtain the current governing documents.

Can you see any way in which this would harm the interests of the Society?

Thank you for your consideration,

— Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin

From: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin To: Society Seneschal Cc: Society In-House Counsel, Society President, Board Ombudsman for Corporate Office Date: 23 September 2023

Hello,

I’m checking in because a month has passed without a reply to this question.

Would any harm be done if I posted an archive of old versions of the Society’s governing documents, clearly labeled to show they were out of date and for historical reference only?

Thank you,

— Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin

From: Society President To: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin Cc: Society Seneschal, Society In-House Counsel, Board Ombudsman for Corporate Office Date: 25 September 2023

Hello Matthew,

We very much appreciate your interest in this area and concur with your basic analysis. We feel that the risk of confusion from having the old versions published may possibly outweigh the value of being able to look at the evolution. There is a concern that someone may look at an outdated version of one of our documents and rely on a section that has since been amended. But all of these versions are public documents and as such are in the public domain.

It is appreciated that if you do put these up that all of the past versions are clearly marked as such and that wherever the placement is done that area be clearly designated as not an official site of SCA, Inc.

Your watermark plan should help prevent any confusion.

In service,

John

SCA To End Emailing of Credit Card Numbers

The SCA will soon stop asking local event organizers to pay for venue insurance certificates by sending their personal credit card number to the corporate office via email, as it had been doing for the last two decades.

Instead, event organizers will be asked to process those credit card payments on the new membership portal operated by NeonOne, as hinted when the new higher costs for certificates were announced in April.

This change will be well received by Internet security enthusiasts among the membership, who have complained for many years about the practice of sending credit card numbers by email.