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Originally Posted by Joanie
"Will bashing" happens because Will wrote the article and used a tree from the ongoing contest to illustrate it. His choices were what precipitated the crisis.
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It appears clear from the rules ( see them here
http://www.artofbonsai.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=994 ) of the contest Mr. Heath was perhaps the only person with access to the names of those who submitted trees. There was an amendment to the rules on March 10, 2007 stating participants will remain anonymous until judging was complete. Mr. Heath posted his article, ostensibly "outing" a participant on June 3, 2007. Mr. Heath appears to have violated the contest's rules, an ethical misstep compounded by the fact that the picture and citation remain (regardless of whether he sought permission from the photographer to use the photo for purposes other than intended) within the article.
The issue itself is a non-issue. Bonsai is a fragmented pursuit. There is no single governing body standardizing or enforcing terminology, process, or ethics for bonsai. A bit like the "States vs. Federal" argument in the US, since there is no "Federal" the jurisdiction for defining standards rests squarely with organizations and organizers of shows and contests. Until a consensus is reached across a broad range of organizations, individual organizations are responsible for themselves and the real or perceived integrity of entries. It is up to them how they define ownership and artistic attribution. As outlined in the thread precipitated by Mr. Heath's article, there may be broad irreconcilable differences between regions/cultures/organizations on this topic. A standard may never be established until enough organizations adopt similar guidelines.
With this in mind, each organization planning a show or contest should clearly outline requisite standards which submissions should adhere to, or accept the outcome of their own ambiguity. For this contest AoB made their own rules, as quoted here direct from the contest rules posted on AoB at
http://www.artofbonsai.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=994
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"Participants can submit bonsai that they personally have designed regardless of if the bonsai is currently in their care at the present or in a collection located elsewhere. Participants may also submit bonsai that they did not design as long as the bonsai is in their care and that the original artist is named. Above all else, this contest is about the trees presented and which region has the best. All trees submitted must be currently living at the time of entry. "
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Clearly Mr. Heath received the provenance of the piece from the submitter, knew the rules of the contest. I am not a judge of the contest and can not say whther the submission complies with the contest rules. Still, Mr. Heath apparently wished to debate the issue of ownership, citing an entry from an ongoing contest with flagrant disregard for said contest's rules, particularly the amendment regarding anonymity which was posted by him on the website.
Simply stating the tree was not discussed in the article, which contains both the picture and citation attributing ownership, or lauding the integrity of the judges is not enough to absolve. In my mind the integrity of the contest is in question, since the rules of the contest have been broken by an organizer.