The plural of anecdote is not data. This is data.

[mariedeblois]

Yesterday, upon seeing some raw data posted, fosveny did a little bit of analysis of peerages bestowed in the East Kingdom over time with some pretty graphs. This is the kind of thing I've occasionally thought about doing with the data in the Outlands' OP database, so I went ahead and did the same kind of basic analysis with similar (if slightly less

Comments

[mariedeblois]

It is quite interesting to contemplate, yes, since heavy fighting gets such massive billing in the Outlands, but so few are elevated.

[marchaunt]

I've been thinking that there had been less peerages given these last few years - it's nice to see I am not going crazy

[mariedeblois]

Yep. For what it's worth, the East is also having the same trend. I'd be interested to see the data for other kingdoms as well.

[marchaunt]

which leads to a question of is it because we have less people worthy of the award or less people as a whole or some other factor

[mariedeblois]

Well, less people as a whole probably isn't a strong factor if the East Kingdom (at over 5000 people or so) has a similar trend. Last I knew, we were about 1500-1700, but it's been quite a while since then.

I would note that someone on fosveny's post posted data for Atlantia and they do =not= show the same trend of decreasing peerages generally for the last 6-7 years. About 10-12 years ago, they ramped up on Laurels and Pels and are only barely starting to ramp down. However, Atlantia's data does match the East's in that there are far fewer Chiv made than Laurels or Pels (about the same number of each of the last two). Atlantia's total-peerages-given-per-year is somewhere between that of the Outlands and the East and they probably have a population somewhere between the two as well.

[pixel39]

The theory has been posited that the reason for the declining numbers of Chiv (13, 15, and 22 respectively for Northshield Chiv, Laurels, and Pels since going kingdom in 2004) is related to the declining numbers of fighters in general, which is because the country is in an active war situation. Thus, the people who would ordinarily join *us* to whack each other with sticks are joining the military instead.

[mariedeblois]

Now -that-'s an interesting hypothesis. Totally wouldn't surprise me, but damn hard to check out.

[ursule]

But surely one can do both? I've known lots of military SCA members. (It helps that both in An Tir and Caid I lived within an hour or two of major bases.)

[beckishadow]

They can... when they're not deployed.