murvosh

Quartermaster James. Thank you for your reply. I wish you well. Marta

Quartermaster James, As moderator of the Pub, I wonder if you'd be willing to answer some questions about the Pub in general. If so, shoot me an e-mail at mmurvosh@emporia.edu and I can send you them. Thanks, Marta

Everyone, Thank you for responding to my post. I apologize for shorting pirate re-enacting activities to pirate activities. I met no insult, especially to folks who know whether a sword is historically accurate or not. Here are answers to your questions: - Why pirate re-enactors? One of the group members suggested pirate re-enactors because of the upcoming Portland Pirate Festival (this weekend.) The rest of us thought pirate re-enactors sounded interesting and fun. Besides fun, we also thought that developments in technology in the past 10 years likely made for some changes in how pirate enthusiasts and re-enactors communicate about things that are important to the community. We also thought there might be other things affecting how the community communicates and uses information. For instance, did the Pirates of the Caribbean films bring pirate enthusiasts to re-enacting? Other groups in our cohort have picked the Society for Creative Anachronism, people who foster animals and urban chicken keeping. Even though we're grad students, we try not to be too stuffy. :-) Based on my experience with friends in SCA and similar groups, I personally thought that pirate re-enactors would be very aware of how information is shared and used and that would help our research. - In anticipation of the question, our assignment is to: Investigate the changes in the information transfer cycle as it affects a specific professional, social, or cultural community. Describe whether or not it has changed over the past 10 years. - Why Portland? Partially it's convenience. We have to define the community and that includes geography. We meet each month in Portland for face to face classes and the rest of the work is online. Portland also has the upcoming pirate festival and other pirate-related events, as well as several pirate re-enactor groups. Three of the people in my group live in Portland. I live in Northwestern Washington. - Did we get plucked from our sheltered lives in Kansas and dropped us into in Portland and were shocked at the sight of pirate re-enactors (or a pirate bar raid) that we were so overcome by the novelty that we had to study you like stuffy 19th Century Western European explorers? Nope. :-) I can't speak for the other group members, but I have attended a civil war re-enactment (though not in the South, so it may not count,) a couple of mountain men rendezvous (they aren't under the radar in Nevada or Utah,) a few renaissance fairs, several pagan festivals, numerous science fiction conventions and a war horse demonstration. - Why not pirate re-enactors from many locations? A couple of reasons. First, it's not a thesis. We have a couple of months to research and present what we found. We just don't have the time and resources for a big study. - Why not focus on a group of re-enactors? Part of what we're looking at is how information is transferred, used and shared. If we only look at one group, then we might find ourselves unable to observe that. That said we are in the process of contacting some of the re-enactor groups in Portland. We're also - Why not just look at the threads on the Pub? We are. But we can't answer all of our questions, especially about how things have changed over the past 10 years, without interviews. - What to do if you're interested? Send me an e-mail at mmurvosh@emporia.edu or murvosh@yahoo.com. We have more questions than what I posted. They are little more specific. Cheers, Marta Murvosh

Pyracy Pub moderator and members, I'm a graduate student at Emporia State University in the Library Science and Information Management program, which has a distance learning site in Portland. I'm part of a group of four grad students who are researching pirate re-enactors in the Portland area. I'm posting here in hopes that you and your members would be willing to help us. We're trying to learn how people involved in pirate-related activities communicate about where events are, costuming and other things related to being a pirate re-enactor. Obviously Pyracy Pub is one of the places and we're trying to find out how things have changed over a time period of up to 10 years. My group has loosely define pirate re-enactors as people who don pirate garb, attends events, such as the Portland Pirate Festival, at least once a year. This definition also includes people who are hard-core re-enactors who embrace their characters and have accurate costumes or are involved in performances. If you're living in the Portland area and interested in helping us out, one of us would interview you either over the phone or in person. Questions would include: How long have you been involved in pirate activities? How do you learn about activities, costuming and other things? What has changed in regards to getting the communication methods from when you first joined to now? If you belong to other groups, listservs, etc., what has changed about them since you first started? If you are interested, please send me an e-mail either mmurvosh@emporia.edu or murvosh@yahoo.com. Cheers, Marta Murvosh mmurvosh@emporia.edu murvosh@yahoo.com