Accuracy of blog post and website originality challenged by two UJ committee members

A question on the accuracy of a recent March 12th blog post 'Leader of United Jousters makes agenda clear' was challenged by two United Jousters committee members leaving the following comments:

‪Julie McGuire /react-text ‪react-text: 74 · /react-text School of Visual Concepts‪so sad....the SLTA continues to publicly slander and bully and yes, mimic as there are no original ideas, this website included. Just shakes my head. That is not how the meeting went at all, and I am sure that your "quote" was likely Forester's or Bella's. Captain Blinker has been the FIRST voice to speak about cooperative scheduling, and continues to do so. You embarrass both Darkwolfe and Highgarden by including them in this unfortunate blog post. Bad form and very poor sportsmanship, and sadly not surprising.‪Like · Reply · Mar 30, 2014 5:06pm

Valkyrie Catherine MacLamont /react-text ‪react-text: 43 · /react-text Castle age

‪aye capt is a good man, if it was'nt for his Concepcion of the idea to other leagues you'd be out of business .you causes all the elder realms to leave your league . you stole ideas concepts etc. even your league sight here.

‪Like · Reply · Mar 30, 2014 5:02pm

We take such accusations seriously, so in response to the validity of the quote attributed to Capt. Blinker, the Jousting League's source was taken directly from an item in the United Joutsters public minutes of March 1, 2014 available on the UJ website:

3 & 11) Open Discussion from the Membership and the Committee on Any Item(s) Not on the Agenda (Limit: 30 Minutes)

Tom brought to the table the discussion of a weekly United Jousters joust, similar to the "Intersim Joust" hosted by SLTA. In the same ways, the single-elimination joust would be hosted by a different team every week. Tom suggested scheduling the joust on Fridays. Fied made mention that Tintagel will be hosting a grand opening sim joust on Friday at 4pm. Belladonna mentioned that scheduling the joust on the same day as the Intersim joust might cause conflicts. Jordan mentioned that it will be important that a calendar of all jousting events be made so to see a visual picture of the jousts to aid with planning the inclusion of more jousting events. Nyza revealed he was not comfortable scheduling a joust over one that already existed in SL, feeling that it was a long standing tradition as such to not schedule jousts when the spot was already used. Capt Blinker suggested everyone submit times and dates when they would like to see a "Intersim-like" joust be scheduled. Capt Blinker revealed he only cared about conflicts with people in the group, not other grouped. Kzebo asked the group to turn in days and times for UJ single-elimination jousts and was not concerned about the "Intersim-like" joust at this time. It was agreed by the group to try to refrain from using "Intersim" Joust, Nyza suggested "Inter-League" joust and Kzebo and Capt B thought that was a good term. The matter was closed.

This sufficiently validates the attributed quote to the owner of the UJ group. It further validates protests over the policy from various UJ members, including the UJ chairperson. And it makes it clear the commentor who claims "the meeting did not go that way at all" was in attendance to know its source.

As to the question of originality, the minutes also show the UJ proposing to copy the SLTA Intersim format, suggesting it be held on the same day and time with a slight variation in name.

Chief steward of the SLTA, Forester Lowenhart was contacted for comment, and verified the 'League' concept first began with SLTA Team Leagues in October 2012. The Jousting League was announced June 2014, 6 months prior to the UJ's formulation.

He also provided validation showing 'Cry The Tournament' Intersim website was the first to track jouster points and provide information on jousting as early as November 2011, three years prior to the UJ's existence:

[2011/09/30 17:32] Bono Niekerk: I going to start a new job rl soon ... so i'm going to pass all the miss intersim joust to you

[2011/09/30 17:34] Bono Niekerk: but i'm sure intersim will be good in your hands

[2011/09/30 17:39] Forester Lowenhart: Is there a way for me to update the website?

[2011/09/30 17:40] Bono Niekerk: i have to restart the whole website. It crashed completely.

[2011/09/30 17:40] Bono Niekerk: i'll set up a new one on your email.

[2011/09/30 17:41] Bono Niekerk: or you can start yourself ... it's very easy to do. Have a look at Http://www.wix.com

Considering the UJ's new website iteration and Jousting League website debuted within a day of each other, it is very difficult to argue a case for duplication of materials for two websites released at the same time.

What can be compared is similar featured sections on Equipment, Training, Places to Joust and Reference Links on both sites. On the UJ website they are empty of any content except for the sentence:

'Hold on to your lance....we're gathering the information and will post it soon!'

By comparison, the Jousting League sections topics were complete with informative content and at the time of this posting, the information on the UJ site is still missing and may be for some time.

Lowenhart suggested that when the information does appear, it may rely on SLTA and DDA information in much the same way the United Jousters Fellowship's first website did.

He offered the following screenshots from the United Jousters original 'Webbly' pages first introduced at the start of the year. They clearly demonstrate SLTA and DDA information and their hosts were used to build the UJ website. He further comments...

"Above right is information on the SLTA Intersim joust. To the right is a list of SLTA hosts (outlined in blue box) 'ordained' into the UJ group prior to gaining their permission or participation in any UJ event. Several of these no longer exisited on the grid, which made their inclusion all the more inappropriate.

At the same time the UJ was boycotting the DDA it would use its joust videos to enhance their website's offerings, below left.

Below right, is general joust information taken from SLTA materials prepared by Bella Denver who clearly requests information be sent to her for updates.

Often the the UJ chairperson would add his name to inormation researched and compiled by DDA and SLTA to make it his own.

The DDA, SLTA were never contacted for permission for use of their materials in the UJ website. Not that we wouldn't have given it, but considering UJ's hostile position towards the DDA and SLTA, the group has uniquely distinquished themsleves for stiking others down with one hand while helping themselves to their goodies with the other."

On one final point regarding originality, Lowenhart noted the display images used on the current United Jousters website may be in violation of copyright laws and subject to a DMCA take down if permission was not gained from the original creator for their use.

"Fantasy images on the computer can be traced back to two sources. The original artist, or an internet 'wallpaper' site selling computer desktop backgrounds the artist granted rights for. Downloading images for any use other then a computer desktop background is in violation of the fine leagal print on those 'wallpaper' sites, and publishing the materials on a public website, without permission is an infringement of copyright."

By comparison, Lowenhart noted all images on the Jousting League website are originally concieved and have the permission of their copyright owner.

UPDATE 3/2016:

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