Congratulations to Our New Webminister!

The Barony Officers have chosen to appoint Niall Mac Rædwulf as our new Barony webminister! Niall enters the office with plenty of “Tech in These Current Middle Ages” experience in his work as Ætherial herald and as a deputy Kingdom Webminister. I am excited for the plans Niall has for the site, calendars and communications, and will serve as his deputy as long as he requires.

It has been a pleasure serving as Webminister over the past two years. I thank the officers for giving this SCA newbie a chance, and for the populace for being patient with me as I learned the ropes!

In Service,

Herr Reinhard Regenbogen

Call for Letters – Barony Webminister

Salve Accolens!

As my term as the current Webminister of the Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands comes to a close in April, I wanted to invite all interested and qualified members to submit a letter of intent for the position as I am not seeking a second term.

If you are passionate about the Barony and have the necessary skills and experience, I encourage you to consider submitting a letter of intent by the April business meeting. I will happily act as deputy in order to assure a smooth transition as long as I am needed. For technical skills, you should have a basic understanding of HTML. Most of the role involves being able to promptly respond to email requests to publish new information to the site, blog, and Barony calendar.

Please include your qualifications, relevant experience, and vision for the role in your letter of intent. As a reminder, in order to be considered for the position, you must be a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism in good standing and a member of the Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands.

You can submit your letter of intent via email to Their Excellencies, Baron Brandubh and Baroness Hilderun, and to our Seneschal, Baroness Muirgheal by April 12, 2023.

In service to the Barony,

Reinhard Regenbogen, Outgoing Webminister of the Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands

Congratulations to the New Webminister!

Unto the Barony, greetings from Kameshima, former Webminister.

It has been my honor and privilege to serve the Barony for the last 4 years as your Webminister. Especially in these tumultuous times when virtual communication is essential, having not only a functional but user-friendly website is indispensable to a group.

My successor, Reinhard Regenbogen, has been approved by the Baronial Officers. I wish him the best of luck going forward, and am confident that he will continue the improvement and expansion of the site and its functionality.

Thank you to everyone who worked with the Webminister’s office, including the offices of the Seneschal, Chronicler and Baronage, as well as my deputy, THL Kathryn Tantzel.

In Honor and Service,
​亀島
Kameshima Zentarou Umakai

Call for Letters: Webminister

Unto the Barony, greetings from Kameshima Zentarou Umakai, Webminister.

For the last four years, it has been my honor and privilege to serve as the Baronial Webminister. In that time, we have seen the modernization of the Baronial Website, the flourishing of Stórfréttir, the Baronial Blog, and its establishment as a primary means of information dissemination throughout the Barony.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and my second term in this office will do so at the Baronial Business meeting currently scheduled for April 7th. Thus, as is tradition in our Barony, I am calling for letters of intent for this office.

The website is coded in HTML, CSS and PHP, so familiarity with those technologies is certainly desirable in a potential candidate. Stórfréttir is written on the WordPress platform, so again, experience with that platform is a plus. However, nothing on the website involves coding at a particularly deep level, so someone with basic programming knowledge should be able to pick up what is needed. And, of course, there is an Officer’s Handbook available that explains most of the ins and outs.

Letters of intent should be submitted to webminister@debatablelands.org and seneschal@debatablelands.org no later than April 7th. Any questions can be directed to me at webminister@debatablelands.org.

In Honor and Service,
亀島
Kameshima Zentarō Umakai
土地の議論のウェブサイト管理者
Webminister, Barony-Marche of the Debatable Lands

New Page: Songs of the Barony

Unto the Barony, greetings from Kameshima, Webminister! As mentioned at today’s Barony meeting, a new page has been added to the Baronial web site, containing songs that celebrate our beloved Barony!

The new page is located at http://www.debatablelands.org/songs/ or you can navigate to the page by either:

  1. Selecting “Songs of the Barony” from the “About” menu;
  2. Clicking on the “Resources” menu item and clicking the “Songs of the Barony” link under the “Baronial Links” section.

If you know of — or are moved to write! — any other pieces of Baronial music, please send them to the Webminister to have them added to the site.

Again, my thanks to the authors of the pieces, as well as those that helped our office collect them for publication to the site!

In Service,
亀島
Kameshima, Webminister

Call for Letters: Webminister

Unto the populace of the Debatable Lands, greetings from Kameshima Zentarō Umakai, Baronial Webminister!

My term as Webminister ends at the next Baronial Business meeting, April 3rd, AS LIII (2019), and while I am intending to seek a second term in the position, the Barony is always looking for good people to step up and take positions of leadership!

If you are interested in the position, please submit your letter of intent to webminister@debatablelands.org and seneschal@debatablelands.org sometime before the beginning of the aforementioned meeting. Included in your letter should be your qualifications for the position, as well as what if any plans you have for improving the Barony’s web presence.

If you have any questions about the requirements of the position, please contact me at webminister@debatablelands.org!

(A gentle reminder: email addresses have been sanitized to prevent bot spam; please clean the email addresses in your mail client before trying to send!)

In continued honor and service,
亀島
Kameshima Zentarō Umakai

New Stórfréttir Features!

Unto the Barony, greetings from Kameshima, Webminister!

I hope you are all finding Stórfréttir, the new incarnation of the Baronial Blog, helpful and informative. As we continue to move forward to make Stórfréttir the focal point for information dissemination throughout the Barony, I am thrilled to announce some new additions to the Baronial web site and the Stórfréttir interface that should make Stórfréttir even easier to use and access.

  1. Direct Subscription – If you do not subscribe to the Barony’s email list but still want to receive Stórfréttir posts in your email, you can now subscribe directly! Go to the Stórfréttir front page (http://www.debatablelands.org/blog/) and enter your email in the “Subscribe to Stórfréttir” widget along the right side of the page to receive a confirmation email to add your email address to the distribution list.
  2. Author Login – There are now two menu items listed under Stórfréttir in the main web site menu. The “Author Login” menu item takes you to the login page, and if you have a Stórfréttir account, you can log into your account there in order to author new posts.
  3. Stórfréttir FAQ – Have questions about Stórfréttir, be it how to log in and post, or what is needed to read? Click “Stórfréttir FAQ” under the Stórfréttir menu to go to our FAQ to read all about it!

Also, remember that clicking directly on the “Stórfréttir” menu item will take you to the Stórfréttir front page.

As always, your Webminister team stands ready to assist you in any way we can to make the most of our new and continually improving features. Send any questions you may have to webminister at debatablelands dot org.

In Service,
Kameshima, Webminister

New Website Live!

Unto the Barony, greetings from Kameshima, Webminister!

It is my honor and privilege to announce that the new Baronial website has gone live. Thank you to everyone who has worked so hard to provide me with content. For those of you who have not previously had the opportunity to peruse the new web site, and are having trouble finding the information you need, look to the “Confused by the new site?” section of the sidebar to find a utility made just for you!

Additionally, I am thrilled to announce that posts from Stórfréttir — the newly renamed Debatable Blog — have been configured to forward, in addition to the current outlets, to the BMDL mailing list. I hope that officers, martial leaders and guildmasters will use this new functionality to help make Stórfréttir the primary source of information dissemination for the Barony.

As always, if you have event announcements, activity updates, or other information that you would like to have posted to the Baronial website, please contact your friendly local Webminister team at webminister at debatable lands dot org and we will work with you to get your information out through the most appropriate channels.

Finally, if you notice any problems or issues with the new site, please contact us immediately so that we may investigate and fix the problem as soon as possible.

New Webminister

Following much avid discussion in the officer meeting, a vote was taken and your new Webminister in Master Kameshima Zentarou Umakai!

This is still Ishiyama writing right now, but I will be meeting with Master Kameshima in the near future to hand off responsibility for the site and this blog. He and his deputy Lady Kathryn have some big plans for the web site, so if you have ideas or needs make sure to talk to them soon!

It has been an honor to serve the Barony as its webminister, and my thanks to my deputy Master Broom.

Call for Letters: Webminister

My term as your Webminister expires next month, and while I am willing to continue doing this job, I am also willing to give somebody else a chance. I can even serve as deputy to the new Webminister until they get their feet under them, if necessary. Heh, “web feet”.

The Webminister is responsible for the official Baronial web site and its related functions. The Webminister updates the information on the web site as requested, such as when office holders change or a new event is announced. Knowledge of HTML and basic web design is required. Some functions of the web site are written in PHP, and an understanding of PHP would be helpful. You must have a reliable computer, Internet connection, and email address. Your ZX81, 300 baud modem, and AOL address are probably not sufficient. Most changes to the current site can be made in a text editor and uploaded via FTP, so no special software is required. The web site is hosted by a commercial service provider, so the ability to pay hosting and domain registration fees via credit card is required, though you will be reimbursed by the Barony after you make payment.

The Webminister is also responsible for maintaining the list of email aliases. The hosting service also provides email forwarding so that senders can always send email to a Baronial officer without having to remember who currently holds that office and what that person’s address is. Updating the list of aliases involves logging into the hosting provider’s domain management web interface, so some ability to deal with that kind of thing is required. We always have problems with forwarded email landing in spam folders, so dealing with email problems is a constant task.

The Webminister is also responsible for maintaining and administrating the Baronial Blog. The Debatable Blog uses the WordPress system and all interactions with the site are through a web interface. Some knowledge of WordPress usage and administration would be helpful. If I stay as Webminister, I’m going to pester officers a lot more to post things to the blog.

The job of Webminister is not constant. It mostly consists of small amounts of work on a irregular basis, but occasionally requires a large amount of work in a short time period. Like when you discover the entire web site has been hacked to forward to a bootleg pharmacy site. The editorial policy of the website is available on the site. Some familiarity with the current policy, and an interest in upholding or improving on these traditions would be to your advantage.

The Webminister is not responsible for the Barony’s social media presence, as this is a function of the Seneschal’s office by society policy. Some coordination with the Seneschal or Social Media Deputy may be required, but they tend to be really nice about it.

If you are interested in standing for this position, please submit a letter of intent to the Webminister and Seneschal before the next officers’ meeting, which will be on April 5th, 2017. Candidates should be at the meeting if possible, as the elected officer will be expected at future meetings for the duration of their 2-year term.