The Dove-Cote

IT Tag: Content: Reference

  • Ceremonies and Scrolls Archive

    This proposed project would establish a web site to publish examples ceremonies for SCA courts from around the known world, as well as examples of award scrolls that had been given out.

    In some kingdoms this material is already gathered together in a standard way, while in other kingdoms it’s passed around informally or kept in personal archives by experienced heralds.

    Technology

    Platform: Project leads are seeking a web-based Document Management System or customized Content Management System.

    Team

    Leads: Shandra Vazquez de Granada, Sisuile Butler

    History

    Project initiated in 2024.

  • Individual Heraldic Websites

    Numerous Society heralds maintain personal websites, blogs, or equivalent online publishing channels for SCA heraldry-related articles, posts, or other resources.

    Some of these are widely cited resources, while others are less well known. A few are considered authoritative, but most just represent one herald’s opinion.

    Examples

    There are too many to list.

    Here are some examples of popular armory resources:

    The no-photocopy list in the Admin Handbook provides more examples:

    Technology

    Many disparate platforms, including hand-edited HTML, WordPress blogs, and online document services.

    Future Possibilities

    Better Indexing: There are lots of useful online resources that aren’t yet listed in the various article pages on the College of Arms website. Because those resources haven’t each been reviewed in detail and are subject to change over time, they can’t be considered authoritative, and we don’t want to publish a directory that might mislead submitters or new heralds into thinking that they can just open some random herald’s blog and treat it as gospel — but we should be able to help interested heralds find more of this material.

    Collaborative Publishing: There are some resources that could benefit from allowing several people to contribute to them. For example, a couple of experienced heralds have assembled lists of IAP submissions, but it’s a struggle for one person to keep those perpetually up to date — perhaps if that content was available on a collaborative platform where a few other experienced heralds could contribute additional items to it, it would be easier to fill in gaps and keep such a reference up to date.

  • Traceable Heraldic Art

    A collection of armorial clip art for SCA heraldic submissions and scribal uses.

    Contains over 6,500 entries illustrated by around a hundred different SCA heralds and scribes, or sourced from period and post-period sources. Most illustrations are suitable for SCA submissions, with flags for poor style or unregistrable items. However, is known to be incomplete and imperfect so should not be considered authoritative.

    License: All images are public domain or are licensed for free use in the SCA.

    Website: Available at heraldicart.org.

    Usage: Visited by 100–200 people per day.

    Technology

    Code: Perl.

    Database: Source material is in flat files. Exports and publishes database in JSON format.

    Source: All code and data files available for download.

    Team

    Developer: Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin.

    History

    Started in 2016 as a small collection of ordinaries and field divisions, then imported the imported the Pennsic Traceable Art in 2017.

    Called for a volunteer to build a successor system in 2021.

    Pace of publishing new entries has declined from an earlier high of over a thousand year to a lower rate of around four hundred per year in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

    Future

    Web-First Rewrite: The existing data could be imported into a new web-based system that would become the system of record. I’ve posted about how the existing system works, about the database model, and the JSON export format.

    Get Involved: Contact Mathghamhain via email, Discord, or other channels.

  • FELIX

    Felix was a project undertaken by the Codex Herald circa 2007 to upgrade the “Articles” section of the College’s website.

    The goal was to provide a content management system that would use web mirroring to allow authors to keep their articles up to date.

    Status: Active circa 2007–08; Halted, Abandoned.

    Team

    Developer: Robin Gallowglass

    History

    Announced at the 2007 KWHSS. Never completed or launched.

  • MARES

    The Meridies Accessible Resource & Education System (MARES) was intended to be an online Learning Management System (LMS) for educational uses in the SCA, starting with heraldic education.

    Status: Active 2022–2024 or so; Halted, Incomplete.

    Technology

    Platform: Moodle LMS.

    Hosting: Meridies Kingdom Server.

    Team

    Lead: Sophia Berkeley (Meridies)

  • Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources

    A large and reliable collection of given names with citations to source documents.

    Technology

    Interface: Website at dmnes.org.

    Code: Python. (Technical details.)

    Revision Control: Repositories at GitHub: github.com/uckelman/dmnes-viewer and github.com/uckelman/dmnes-editor.

    Database: The master data is stored in a set of XML files that are updated by the editor. From there, the data is loaded into a SQLite database used by the web viewer.

    Hosting: Linode.

    Team

    Editor: Aryanhwy merch Catmael (mka Sara L. Uckelman)

    Developer: Joel Uckelman

    See Also

    Additional Indexes for DMNES at digitalherald.org, built via a Perl script that reads citations from a web mirror of the site and builds additional index pages.

    History

    The predecessor to DMNES was Aryanhwy’s Database of Medieval Names (2009-2013).

    The DMNES was announced in 2014 and first published in 2015.

    Updates were frequent from 2015 through 2020, and have been much slower from 2021 on.

  • College of Arms Website

    The College’s website at heraldry.sca.org is the official reference point for both outsiders and members of the college.

    Content

    The content on the site can be divided into a couple of sections based on the pattern of updates and the people who contribute to it:

    • General Info: Home page, About Us, KWHSS information.
    • Rules: Admin Handbook, SENA, Glossary, etc. Generally maintained by Palimpsest. Files sent to Codex for posting.
    • Articles: Directory of links to locally-hosted and off-site resources. Usually approved by Clarion or directly by the Sovereigns. Files sent to Codex for posting.
    • Letters: LoARs, Precedents, LoAR search. LoARs are posted directly by Morsulus.

    Technology

    Code: The site uses simple PHP templating code to wrap a common header, footer, and stylesheet around all of the pages on the site.

    Databases: There are no relational databases, but several types of information are stored as YAML files which are read and converted to HTML displays by PHP code embedded in certain pages.

    Revision Control: All code and content are stored in Git. The repository is hosted at GitHub. Access is limited.

    Server: Hosted on the main SCA.org server.

    Team

    Codex Herald: This title is given to the lead maintainer of the site.

    Clarion Herald: In recent years, the heraldic education deputy has also been responsible for the curation of articles for the website.

    Others: Updates during 2024 contributed by Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin.

    History

    The website was first built in the 1990s, overhauled in 2004 and again circa 2013.

    There was an effort circa 2019–2020 to reorganize the website, and an update during 2024 to recruit people to edit the articles pages.