Talk:Order of the Arrow

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Scouting Wiki Project Order of the Arrow is part of the Scouting WikiProject, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Scouting and Guiding on the Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to boy and girl organizations, WAGGGS and WOSM organizations as well as those not so affiliated, country and region-specific topics, and anything else related to Scouting. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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[edit] Order of the Arrow article specificity

[edit] This is a guideline that has been accepted by consensus.

  1. A spoiler warning should not be posted here.
  2. Do not include the lyrics to the official song.
  3. Do not include safeguarded material. You may add information available in the public video National released ("The Choice is Yours"), information that is not password-protected on the national site, translate WWW but do not spell it out, no info on details of ceremonies

Contents


[edit] Organization Section

I found the article while searching for some history information, and in the process of reading the Organization section, some things popped out at me... since there seems to be a group already maintaining the page, I thought I'd make sure there was a consensus before changing anything.

  • The claim "Most lodges also have other youth officers such as Vice Chiefs of service and inductions, to lead certain activities of the lodge." isn't citied/sourced, and while it is true for several lodges that I am familiar with, Most might be going a bit too far (not to mention that it isn't wonderful grammar)... perhaps it would be better worded along the lines of "Most lodges also have other youth officers with more specific duties. Examples of this might include a Vice Chief of Inductions responsible for overseeing the induction process, or a Vice Chief of Service responsible for coordinating Lodge service days"
  • "OA activities, primarily meetings and service projects, are usually organized by the chapters." implies to me that the Chapters plan the events. In my experience, they often organize activities, but it might be better to explicitly state that they are in addition to those organized by National, the Region, the Section, and the Lodge.
  • The section talking about conclaves is also strangely worded. I'm not sure how to fix it without completely re-writing the paragraph...
  • I may be mistaken, but I believe that the statement "The sections are subdivisions of areas" is incorrect... I know that the Area is used in the naming scheme, but I don't believe the Area is recognized as being part of the OA organization...
  • The statement "The Section Chiefs in turn elect from their number the Region Chiefs and Vice-Chiefs, and the National Chief and National Vice-Chief, who serve two-year terms." is almost entirely incorrect; there is no region vice chief position, and all three real positions (RC, NC, NVC) are all one-year terms.
  • As part of the adults section, should the person responsible for appointing each adult be listed? (I believe it's Area Director -> Section Advisers, Scout Executive -> Lodge Adviser, Lodge Adviser -> Other Advisers)
  • Side note - in the OA, any position containing the word Adviser spells it with an e

If anyone has any feedback, please let me know. If there isn't any negative feedback in the next little while, I'll make the above changes (if it slips my mind, could someone please make the changes?). I should be able to provide citation for any of the above from the FOG. --EightBall1989 19:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Note that the positions are lower case unless referring to some specific person. Region, area, lodge and chapter are also lower case unless referring to a specific one. National is uppercase since it always refers to the National Council or National Lodge, so it would be National vice-chief for example. You are correct on the spelling of adviser- again it is lower case unless specific (on the other hand Advisor for Venturing is always upper case). See the Language of Scouting for more help. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info on upper/lower case... I guess I've been doing that incorrectly that for a while now. I'll wait for another little bit just in case anyone has any issues with the updates. If not, I'll go ahead and make them. --EightBall1989 21:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
If you look in that guide under "C" there is a section on capitalization. I'm not sure whay we have adviser and Advisor, but that's the way it works.--Gadget850 ( Ed) 22:07, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I missed that section, thanks for pointing it out. As to the whole adviser/Advisor thing, I've heard a several different rationalizations, each as unlikely as the rest... like you said, it's just the way it works. --EightBall1989 23:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

All great ideas, except for the one about sections being subdivision's of the area. Page 15 of FOG mages this pretty clear to me. All sections are made up of lodges from one given area, making them subdivisions of areas. meamemg 21:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I took a look at the FOG and see what you mean. I'll see if I can come up with a better wording, but if not, I'll leave it as is. --EightBall1989 23:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like JGHowes made the changes discussed above. Thanks! A few more thoughts for this section:

  • Should more information be added about the planing meeting election process? (I'd be happy to expand it if people think it would be worth including...)
  • Would a diagram be appropriate? It seems like it might be reasonable to include given the nature of the section, but I'm not sure what the guidelines are when it comes to diagrams...
  • What needs citation in there (I'd be happy to go through and add it if someone were to put the 'citation needed' tags in the right spots)? I'm really terrible when it comes to figuring out what needs a source and what doesn't...

--EightBall1989 00:15, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Election & Membership

As I understand it, in order for a youth to be elected, they have to be a registered member of a troop or team, so they must be under 18 at the time their election. They continue as "youth" member through 21, when they become adult members. Currently, the text suggests that people between 18 and 21 can be elected, but I do not know how that would be possible. Can someone document what the right answer is and fix the text? --NThurston 21:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Committee members and Assistant Scoutmasters under 21 are elected as youth. I don't have a source, but can look around if you'd like one. --EightBall1989 00:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
It should be in the Order of the Arrow Handbook. I can't find my current copy. I think the 1986 version id did find is a bit out of date since it limits it to male adults only. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 00:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
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