The Kingdom of the Emerald Hills

Per the Monarch, a new updated revision has been uploaded. It contains a change to I:A:1 at the suggestion of Orchid, and numerous typo, formatting, or consistency fixes.

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/library/EH%20 ... 011_4_.pdf

I believe this will be the final revision.

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I'm sure you were all wondering, "What does KodiaK think of this?" Wonder no longer!

I'm opposed to the change which allows removal of knighthood.

I'm opposed to the possibility that it will be added to the corpora as part of a blanket vote "to clean up the document and make it more consistent."

I'm opposed to the fact that the time between when the revisions were presented and the time when the vote will be held is not long enough for me to become qualified to vote against it.

This concludes today's episode of "What does KodiaK oppose?"

As of today's attendance, you are qualified to vote.

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Just to clarify, there has always been a way to remove Knighthoods. The proposed Corpora codifies that it should be done via the CoK and the Monarch, and not via an Althing vote.

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Forest Evergreen

Puppet Master of the EH

"Of course you are Forest. You're like the Mr. Burns of EH." - Finn

(insert titles and awards here)

Of course, the Althing can always vote to enact or suspend a rule. This change does not create a barrier to the populace stripping a knighthood or taking any other punitive action that seems required by extraordinary circumstances.

To clarify the clarification, what this does is create an additional method to remove someone's knighthood. It also takes power away from the people who granted or approved it in the first place, and gives it to people who were not knights when that person was knighted.

Apart from any concern about specific items: KodiaK's point is well made. A general clean-up and structural improvement for the Corpora, with minor changes as to reflect current usage and intent, should have been proposed completely separate from substantive changes. Things like how groups change in status, the possibility of stripping someone's knighthood, restricting giving high awards to newbies, and so forth should not have been bundled with other, unrelated changes to the Corpora.

There are several things I would like to vote Yes for, that I cannot!

To clarify, it does not add a way to remove a belt, but changes the way it is done. We have never had a belt removed via althing, but that is how it would have been done by our current corpora. The proposed corpora states removal of a knighthood is done via the CoK and the Monarch. Just as a belt should be granted, in the same way is how it would be removed.

This is not in addition to an althing vote, but instead of one.

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Forest Evergreen

Puppet Master of the EH

"Of course you are Forest. You're like the Mr. Burns of EH." - Finn

(insert titles and awards here)

Just to give a little back-story…

A couple of knights have attempted to strip Sir Darkangel’s belt on a few occasions.
The reasons given…
His belt was not approved by the Circle of Knights, and he does not ‘act’ like a knight.
Neither of these being legitimate reasons for stripping a knighthood and the latter being a purely subjective judgment on his character, which had no basis in factual evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of Sir Darkangel.

During one particular attempt…
I was told that the majority of the knights who were asked, said that Darkangel should have his belt stripped. I found that particularly odd since he had fallen only one vote short of being GM of Knights in the previous election, held only a few weeks prior.

With this “law” written into corpora, a monarch & a few knights could easily strip a knight of their belt without any sort of “Due Process”.
If say 5 knights show up to a meeting and three of them voted to strip a belt, a total of 4 people would be able to remove a knighthood for any reason they saw fit.

Does that seem right to Anyone…???

VOTE NO TO All ALTHING VOTES.

Teach the Crown a Lesson.

Nice smoke and mirrors, but let's look at the real situation shall we? A petition would have to be brought before the Monarch, PM, and GMK detailing the complaint against the Knight. Then, the GMK would have to decide it was a valid complaint and put it on ther COK agenda. Then, the CoK would have to have a 75% vote indicating that the belt should be removed. (COK allows absentee voting, so all voting eligible knights could vote even if they can not make the meeting). Then the sittign Monarch would have to agree that the offense was worthy of removing the belt.

I am not sure how that translates into a few knights and no due process. BUt I would bet it is 10 times harder to get the CoK to strip a belt than an Althing.

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Forest Evergreen

Puppet Master of the EH

"Of course you are Forest. You're like the Mr. Burns of EH." - Finn

(insert titles and awards here)

Ooh! We've not had popcorn worthy politics in a while! *nom*

That being said, I actually like the way the new corpora reads, it's clear and concise. As to the CoK thing? I'm not a knight, there is a reason that knighthood is called a peerage. I feel funny voting on something that does not pertain to me, the non-belted guy, in anyway.

Nettle

This lowly squire oh so humbly suggests that un-knightly behaviour is certainly a legitimate reason to strip a belt.

If I were to attain a white belt, and then proceeded to make a complete assbag out of myself and abandon all knightly qualities, I would expect my belt to be removed. Undeserved honors should be rescinded.

No “smoke & mirrors” here ladies and gentlemen…
Just the facts…
At Brennon’s end-reign, I was flat out told by King B himself…
“… most of the knights I asked said Darkangel should be stripped of his belt” *paraphrased
Simple as that folks, simple as that.

There was no petition, no list of accusations, no cross-examinations, nothing like that. Just a little one-on-one meeting with each knight to tell us the story.
DA hadn’t been approved by the CoK and he didn’t have a “knightly attitude” so he should loose his belt, so say most of the knights that Brennon asked.

In the end, B told me he had decided not to strip the belt…
Reason being… it would be bad for the Kingdom moral.

So, if this here statement by the Czar is actually on the level, and seeing as how Sir Forest has been the loudest advocate for stripping Sir Darkangel’s Knighthood, I doubt that it is.
But if it actually is…
Well then, by all means… set up an actual system by which a Knight can be stripped of his/her earned title by a jury of his/her peers… You do that!
Just make sure it happens in the public eye, so they can see just how corrupt your little system is… or isn’t.

And ya better have a Damn Good Reason…!!!

Just sayin’

Ah more "The World according to Delphos." And now for the actual facts:

I have said, and will continue to say, that Darkangel did not earn his belt. However, I have never tried to have it removed.

I think that for a belt to be stripped should take more than that. I think the peers of any knight should be the ones to judge if the actions warrant a belt removal, and the monarch, who is the only one who can bestow the belt, should be the only one who can remove it if the CoK has concluded such an action is necessary.

And yes, Brennon, as Monarch, was considering removing Darkangel's belt along with the PM. Then it would have been put to an althing to either support or overturn as is the current policy. He elected not to. Regardless of how that althing vote would have turned out, Darkangel would have been without a belt until it happened as the Monarch and PM can "make law" until said althing.

My proposal would not allow 2 people to strip this honor, but would require the CVoK to act first.

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Forest Evergreen

Puppet Master of the EH

"Of course you are Forest. You're like the Mr. Burns of EH." - Finn

(insert titles and awards here)

Facts?
Really...???
Sir Darkangel did not "earn" his belt...
That Sir, is not your place to say and never was.
That’s the world according to Delphos…!!!

Sir Darkangel is a Knight in the Order of the Serpent, a Master Serpent and a pretty damn good artisan. I seldom find myself in agreement with him, however regardless of your “opinion”, that doesn’t mean he didn’t Earn & Disserve his Knighthood, despite the lack of acceptance by the CoK.

Many, many Knights did not have the Okay from the Circle before they were knighted.
Are you saying that all of them didn’t “earn” their belts as well…???
And to say that you have never tried to “remove” Darkangel’s belt, I call Bull Shit!
Anyone who is aware knows that you have called for his belt several times.

I’ve said it many times, Forest, you have a special way of rearranging the truth to make yourself appear in the right… no matter what it takes.
I see too many ways that you and yours could rape this system and use it to get rid of those knights who hold a different opinion of how things should work.
I watched how your “good-ole-boy” system worked and how much you allowed one of your own get away with…
I’d hate to see what you would do with this change.

If this Corpora of yours does pass an Althing vote, it will certainly cause me to re-evaluate my status here in the Emerald Hills.

As a Knight of the Flame & Serpent, a Founder of the Emerald Hills, a former Prime Minister and an active voting member of Amtgard…
I strongly urge the entire populace to vote Against this Corpora.

* "This just changes the way knighthoods are removed"

My understanding is that it is impossible for a rule enacted by an althing to prevent an althing from removing a knighthood. In principle, we could put the method in the articles of incorporation, but this isn't that. If we write into the corpora that althings can't remove knighthoods, then the althing just has to first vote itself the ability to remove a knighthood, then vote again to remove it. The only thing protecting knighthood from being removed by a decision of the monarch and prime minister or althing right now is that it is "covered by the Corpora." As far as I can see, all either power would have to do is remove XI.H.5 from the corpora (a power granted to them by the corpora) and they would then have the authority to remove knighthoods again.

Has any prior corpora expressly granted the power to remove a knighthood to any organization? I don't see anything in the corpora beyond XI.F.4 which is horribly written and doesn't grant anyone any actual authority. As mentioned above, althings and the monarch/pm can grant themselves the authority to remove knighthoods, so there's no way to stop them, but "that's the only way to achieve it" is subtly different from "that's how it would have been done."

I could have been a bit more clear in my initial post - I didn't mean to imply that it was not allowed to remove a knighthood. I was just using that to describe the rule change that bothered me.

* Why do I oppose placing a process for removing knighthood in the corpora?

Most importantly, I feel that it reduces, however slightly, the seriousness with which the kingdom undertakes to create new knights. Under the present corpora, it is not entirely clear that a knighthood is a thing which can be removed once granted. I prefer it that way; I prefer things the way I once believed them to operate, where it was the job of the knight's circle and the monarch to attempt only to knight people who could be trusted not to disgrace the title.

I'm also not a fan of the fact that this addition gives no guidance at all about why one might remove a knighthood. If a sword knight is no longer physically able to fight, should their knighthood be removed? What if weapons technology changes significantly, and the hypothetical sword knight fails to adapt to the new technology and is no longer competitive? I understand that no one is advocating for these two possibilities; I'm just offering them to illustrate that there's nothing in the corpora to suggest that these are not valid reasons. More realistically, if a knight should fail to pay child support awarded by a Texas court, would that be a valid reason? If not, is there a wholly mundane offense so heinous that it would justify the removal of a belt?

Finally, by explicitly creating an organization responsible for deciding whether a knight ought to retain the award, it transforms knighthood into an ongoing duty. I see that there's some intent to prevent the circle of knights from being responsible for continuous, comprehensive policing of the acts and character of its members with the retention of the "dispute" clause. But once anyone submits a formal complaint, the circle is now responsible for examining all the knight's conduct since the award, possibly including conduct outside the kingdom or even outside the game.

Certainly, it's important for us to consider the performance of our knights and reflect. But I don't agree that we ought to be constantly re-examining them to determine whether they are still entitled to the title.

* Does the revision even make sense?

I'm not sure that XI.H.4 and XI.H.5 in the revised corpora even manage to produce a coherent process for removing a knighthood. .4 states that, in the event of a dispute, a formal complaint must be submitted. There's no explicit connection between .4 and .5. So perhaps the procedure is : 1) the circle of knights and monarch take a vote and then 2) since a dispute just occurred, now someone is obliged to submit a formal complaint. Presumably, that job would fall to the monarch, since the monarch has the strongest duty to uphold the corpora of anyone present for the vote. It certainly doesn't mention anything about the guildmaster of knights assessing the validity of the complaint (what if the guildmaster of knights is up for removal?) - perhaps this is in the (unpublished?) bylaws of the circle of knights? Presumably, that's also where we learn about how much notice the circle of knights receives, and how long they have to submit their votes. And that's fine, but if the formal complaint is supposed to be a prerequisite to the vote, the corpora should probably make that explicit. I'd certainly prefer if the corpora also mentioned that the circle of knights has no obligation to consider a complaint that the gulidmaster of knights doesn't think is worth considering. Of course, I respect that I missed the - what, five-day window? - to raise concerns about the wording of the change, but I just figured I'd mention.

* In conclusion

I'm all for cleaning up the corpora. It certainly could stand some improvement. And I understand that there is broad support for instituting a substantive change to the corpora that I oppose for a number of reasons. I find it frustrating that I can't vote for one and against the other.