The Cockatrice Editor is a recognised Deputy of Lochac’s Kingdom Minister of Arts & Sciences. This document sets out the duties of the role.

Cockatrice is currently published quarterly in February, May, August and November.

Aims of the role:

  1. To compile and edit the quarterly editions of Cockatrice.
  2. Distribute and promote Cockatrice to the Kingdom of Lochac.

Tasks:

Compiling Cockatrice

  • Appeals for contributions to Cockatrice are made via the Lochac mailing lists (especially Lochac Announce and Althing) and Lochac social media pages i.e. Facebook
  • Contributors must be given suitable notice of deadlines, currently a month before the due date.  It is also preferable to give reminders leading up to the due date via the mailing lists
  • Contributions must be related to Arts and Sciences within the Society for Creative Anachronism.  They may take the form of:
    • Articles
    • Recipes
    • Book reviews
    • Translations of period material
    • Dance redactions
    • Period style artworks
    • Photos of Arts and Sciences projects
  • All contributions are expected to reference primary and secondary sources used in the research process.  A reference list at the end of the contribution is preferable.
  • All contributors are asked to write a few sentences about their persona for the contributor details at the end of each edition.

Editing Cockatrice

  • Once contributions are collected it is the role of the editor to ensure that the content is suitable for Cockatrice (related to Arts and Sciences in the SCA) and the intended audience (nothing derogatory or offensive to a wider audience)
  • The editor is to check spelling, punctuation and flow of language.  It is not the editor’s job to fact check.  A contributor needs to stand by their own research on a topic.
  • The editor is responsible for the creation and formatting of Cockatrice to ensure tidiness and continuity.  This can include:
    • Cover art work and design
    • Updating headers and footers to reflect the current edition name
    • Including disclaimers and copy write information on the second page of Cockatrice.  This includes referencing all pictures used in the edition.
    • Creation and maintenance of a table of contents
    • Writing a brief column for each edition
    • Use of a consistent font throughout the edition
    • Consistent page margins throughout the edition
    • Reduction of the size of pictures used in Cockatrice to ensure that the data size of the edition is below 10KB.  http://www.picresize.com/ works well for this
    • Use of art work to fill in large blank spaces throughout the edition
    • Maintenance of page numbers throughout the edition
    • Including contributor details at the end of each edition

Cockatrice is currently compiled using Word as it is the easiest method to ensure text accuracy and correct formatting. It is published in PDF format using CutePDF to turn the word document into a PDF.

Distribution of Cockatrice

Cockatrice is currently distributed via email, Dropbox and the Cockatrice website.
The editor is responsible for ensuring that:

  • the email database is kept up to date. This is currently both on a Google doc and by the creation of a Cockatrice email subscriber label in Google contacts
  • each edition is uploaded to the Dropbox folder and ensuring that Dropbox subscribers know that they have done so.
  • maintaining the Dropbox subscriber database on Google docs and the Dropbox label in Google contacts
  • liaising with the Deputy Editor in charge of the website to ensure that editions are uploaded to the website.  The website editor is currently Lord Theophrastus van Oberstockall

Promotion of Cockatrice

Subscriptions and new editions of Cockatrice are promoted to the Kingdom of Lochac
This is to be done via the Lochac Announce and Althing mailing lists and the Lochac Facebook page.
It is a good idea to include a brief content overview when informing the Kingdom of the release of a new edition