NJCubScouter

Only with regard to one requirement, the merit badge requirement. There are other requirements for Eagle, in which the Scout could have done far more than the minimum. Comments about "doing just enough" remind me of the old joke: Q. What do you call someone who graduated last in his class in medical school? A. "Doctor"

Yes, but "completing" those palms (the "pre-Eagle" palms) will only involve earning 5 "extra" MB's per palm. No additional "active" requirement, no SM conference or anything else. Well, it isn't just guys "who make Eagle and don't have any palms completed." Under the new rule a Scout could have BOTH pre-Eagle and post-Eagle palms, or only pre-Eagle, or only post-Eagle. The post-Eagle palms will still require the 3 months for each one, and the "active" requirement will no longer be limited to the troop and patrol, but can be satisfied by any BSA activity. The examples they give are OA, Venturing, serving on camp staff or NYLT or NAYLE staff. And there will be no more BOR's for any palm. I don't think that is a great loss. I have participated in several of those and they are really just formalities.

That's true. I think a merit badge sash at an ECOH with (say) 60 MB's on it is impressive enough, without the extra little bits of metal.

Hmm. I liked it better the old way. It provided at least some incentive for Scouts with "extra" MB's not to wait until the last minute, which in this case means having the EBOR after the 17-year-9-month mark, and that's for just one palm. Not that I think any Scouts in my troop actually speeded up their Eagle journey just to get palms. My son would have gotten at least one palm if he had moved faster, but as it turned out he completed his requirements two days before his birthday, and had his EBOR after his birthday. If this new rule had been in effect back then, he would received the palm, maybe two. The same is true for a number of other Eagles in the troop, and I suspect, many others across the country, probably including some members of this forum. (Not me though, I'm a Life for Life.)

Ooh, a geometry joke. You can't get that on just any old Internet forum.

Well, what can I say? Apparently I bought it hook, line and sinker. And I was one of those kids in high school wearing a "Question Authority" button. Go figure.

"BSA regulations prohibit sheath knives."

You may be right. I have never marked a thread "solved". I prefer to let threads reach their natural conclusion. But if the usage is limited as you say, I think it's ok. Maybe I assumed that since I have the "solved" button, everybody does.

Well, my mother taught me that you shouldn't go swimming within an hour after eating. I never questioned it and told my kids the same thing. I suspect it probably goes back long before 1911, but I have no evidence to prove it.

Yes, I have my Life "not".

Hmm, would that mean that the rank I ended up with would be "Nearly Eagle"? Can I get half a knot for that?

I agree, but be fair, I think that's pretty much the case already. The vast majority of the flag reports we get are for (alleged) violations of forum rules, or other legitimate reasons. I cannot remember any reports that are simply about someone disagreeing with someone else, unless it reaches the point of an (alleged) personal attack, which is against the rules anyway. I agree with that one, I think only OP's should use the "solved" button. I don't know whether the forum software is capable of "enforcing" that.

Well, if "Second Class" is not considered self-esteem-building enough, I guess that spells doom for my proposal (from when the "new" requirements came out, just about 2 years ago I guess) to have the "new" Scout rank renamed Third Class and to have the Scout badge turn back into the "joining badge" and basically be given out just for showing up at your first troop meeting. I realize that's never going to go anywhere. Correction: I got my own proposal wrong. It was to rename what is now Tenderfoot to "Third Class", what is now the "Scout rank" to Tenderfoot, and make the Scout badge back into the "joining badge" that can be earned in the first or second meeting. So in other words, Scout, Tenderfoot, 3rd Class, 2nd Class, 1st Class, Star, Life, Eagle. Not that it matters, since it isn't happening.

If there is a consensus (with a lot of people participating) on a specific proposal to change the forum features in some way (either on this subject or any other), the moderators will report it to Terry and see if (a) the change would be technically feasible and (b) whether he wants to do it. So far I am not seeing anything close to a consensus

I strongly urge people to stop downvoting Sentinel's post. As he said, the experiment is over. I am concerned that at some number of downvotes, the "results" of the experiment may change, and I have no idea what will happen then. Thanks to Sentinel for volunteering to be the "lab rat".

I have no strong feelings about where the boxes should be placed, but I do find one piece of terminology in that chart to be kind of odd. "Boy Scout Committee Members"? How about "Troop Committee Members"? That's what I am.

My guess would be that he decided that the good outweighed the bad. I can relate to that.

Or several assistant principals, as the case may be.

I knew some people like that in college and law school, they did not like any kind of "hierarchy". Some of them were willing to overlook their objections and become part of organizations that had a hierarchical organization, some did not. I remember once in college that a group of what I would describe as radical leftists decided to form a new newspaper because the established college daily paper (on which I was an editor and reporter) was not to their liking, and they tried to run it under "collective leadership" because they did not like hierarchies. I remember telling one of them that it's really tough to run a newspaper that way, and he agreed with me, but he apparently had been overruled by the rest of the "collective". I think they probably published one or two editions and that was it. Barry, I am somewhat surprised that your ASM was so focused on the terminology. A Boy Scout troop is a hierarchical organization regardless of what the positions are called, so if you are philosophically opposed to that sort of thing, you probably don't become a Scouter. Not to mention, he didn't like the word "leader" but he accepted a position with "master" in the title? Isn't that "worse"? As others have noticed, this thread has gone completely off the rails, not that we have an actual rule against that. It is probably a sign that we have said just about everything there is to say about the original topic, multiple times.

I hit the green arrow in a relatively small number of cases. I have never really thought about what my "standard" is, but I think that in order for me to hit the button, a post needs to not only say something I agree with, but say it in a particularly outstanding way - either in a very convincing or eloquent way, or it cites a source that is particularly persuasive, or it is a genuinely "new" argument, or something like that. Also, on posts by my fellow moderators in which they take some "moderator action" or make a statement in their role as moderator (as opposed to posting on the subject matter of the thread), I will usually hit the green arrow to show my support for that action or statement. I do not think I have ever hit the red arrow on purpose. (I have clumsily hit it a few times by accident.) That does not necessarily mean I will never use it, but I am not sure under what circumstances I would use it. If a post is so "bad" that it does not belong in the forum, there are more effective ways of dealing with it, such as reporting it, or if one happens to be a moderator, dealing with it directly. As for spam, which someone mentioned, that problem has been almost completely eliminated (from the standpoint of non-moderators) since Terry turned on the feature of the software that requires moderator approval in order for the first post of any new account to actually appear in the forum. As a result, the (non-moderator) members of this forum have seen very very few, if any, spam posts in the almost two years since that feature was turned on.

I'm having difficulty imagining who would have federal standing to file a lawsuit challenging the charter. And if someone did have both standing and motivation to do so, it seems odd that they haven't filed a lawsuit in the 45 years since female youth were permitted to join the Boy Scouts of America. Which will NOT change its name. I usually shy away from making predictions, but this seems like a safe bet to me.

I think there is approximately a zero percent chance that the name of the organization will be changed regardless of what other decisions they make. After all, there have been girls in BSA programs for 45 years and it is still the BSA. "Cub" is a gender-neutral word, so that stays the same. I guess that for coed and all-girl troops they will come up with a name other than "Boy Scouts." As for changes to handbooks, uniforms, etc., let's remember this is the BSA we are talking about. They will find a way to do it on the cheap. And they also know how to spread the pain around, meaning prices for everything will probably go up a little - but they probably would anyway. They can get away with charging $2 more for registration, $2 more for a handbook (including all the various Cub handbooks), $3 more for a uniform shirt, $5 more for uniform pants, and so forth and so on, and I'm probably being conservative on those numbers. We'll live with it, like we always do. Who knows, maybe the West knot will go up to $1,050. I also think there will be something of a transition period after they start letting girls be Cub Scouts and "Boy" Scouts, in which they will phase in handbooks with gender-neutral text, photos of both genders, etc. etc. They already have a new "printing" of the handbook every year (or almost every year), and they do make tweaks almost every time, and as someone here recently pointed out, sometimes the changes in a new "printing" are so significant that it is almost like a new "edition", they just don't call it that. I don't think the cost of a change would be anywhere near as significant as some people think. Or to put it another way, there are reasons enough to oppose this change, or to have reservations or concerns about it, or other levels of unease, without adding things that aren't really all that much of an issue.

Evidently the last one is so difficult to get that they won't even tell you what the requirements are. I had never heard of this either, but it's interesting what different councils and districts come up with on their own.

Well, there is probably some little-known codicil in the Faber College constitution, I mean the BSA rules and regulations, that allows the CSE to waive all that. I mean, his signature is on the thing...

Is it the autographed version?