Steven, I know exactly what you're saying, and I couldn't disagree with you less. I'm not sure whether we're arguing at crossed purposes or whether I'm being deliberately misunderstood. But my point of view is quite simple really.
Regardless of what you keep repeating to try and convince me otherwise there is still a contradiction in terms at the heart of this discussion caused by the wording of the judging criteria that has become so controversial, "Recreation of a natural habitat for fish". And that can not be explained away by logical fallacies or any other contrived philosophical mechanism no matter what your opinion is.
And that criteria awards half the marks. The remaining 50% are distributed evenly between 5 other categories so clearly the "recreation of a natural habitat for fish" is significant and central to the IAPLC's philosophy and values.
To follow your logic and the thread of your repeated argument don't you think the IAPLC should have awarded those 50 marks to a different category?
"Presentation of natural atmosphere in layout work", springs to mind. Surely that represents far more adequately what you describe above and in your previous posts than a "recreation of a natural habitat for fish"?
It may seem like I'm arguing the toss on a point of pedantry but I don't think I am. Words used in the English language have precise meaning for a reason. They are not open to wild interpretation by you, me or the IAPLC, otherwise no one would have the faintest idea what anyone else was talking about.
So I'm still scratching my head wondering why you and the IAPLC insist on trying to convince me that night is day and black is white. And why you keep hanging on to this essentially delusional idea that a phrase with a precise meaning "recreation of a natural habitat for fish", can be legitimately interpreted as a small scale version of a large terrestrial habitat in a glass box flooded with water?
Exactly why is that phrase "recreation of a natural habitat for fish" so important to you and the IAPLC? Especially, when the IAPLC already has a far better category for describing exactly what you are both trying to achieve, "Presentation of natural atmosphere in layout work".
It's a simple question and I'd really be interested in your point of view on that precise topic.
If you’re really making the above argument, it means—
“I’m fine with the IAPLC’s direction, it’s works, it’s evolution. The layouts are fantastic each year, but I don’t like the naming of this one category and the rubric is hard to understand.”
If that’s really your argument (not my impression based on the thread, but okay) we’ll take that as the starting point. We’re putting a pin here and cementing this as the starting point, the basis for argument.
Frankly I don’t think it’s a very important point if the rubric is giving the kind of results we want to see.
I think the layout of the rubric has less to do with some truth of Amano’s ethos and more to do with historic trends (the re-weighting was around the time of his death— maybe even after it, but it feels fuzzy in my memory whether it was in effect 2015 or 2016).
If we go back through the history of the IAPLC, originally all categories were equally weighted. But that’s also the conditions where we really reached the zenith of diorama style (2014-2016) where there was a real dominance by the most dramatic diorama style tanks. China/Indonesia style forests and cliff/mountain style layouts totally choked out the top ranks, and there were barely any plants used except moss/HC, with very little recognition of the artwork as art in an aquarium. That feels like an extreme even to me.
That said though, 2016 was also the contest’s peak year in artistic excellence imo, and the top 7 is quite diverse with traditional NA style, Brazilian, diorama all represented, along with Tanaka-san’s first mirror layout that was innovative but also a hybrid between NA and diorama. And, the king seat belonging to Fukada-san’s Mighty Cave, probably an early exemplar of what an aquarium diorama layout should be, and I would argue the single best and most creative use of fish in the contest’s entire history— making it a noteworthy work for this “recreation of natural fish habitat” category.
The diorama over-crowding Choke hold was mostly an issue in ranks 8-40, rather than the top 7 or top 100 overall (at the time, judged scapes were the top 100 not 127).
The dominance of the diorama style in the honor ranks drew critique and alarm, and demands to re-balance so that NA style would see more representation and diorama style would also consider its identity as aquarium art.
The re-creation of Natural Habitat category was changed from 10 pts to 50.
And the contest evolved as a result.
Even before the adjustment, I think works like Fukada-san’s, impact diorama with an NA-style sensitivity was going to be dominant regardless, but the shift in rubric really paved the way for NA style to come back much more and even win in 2018. I mean Josh Sim did just also take rank 3 with it in 2020.
It also forced the diorama style to evolve to how you see it now, with Indonesian and Chinese scapes showing a LOT more volume, variety, and focus on plants than they did before. (Compare Herry Resio’s layout this year to rank 8-10 from 2016 and you’ll see what I mean)
Unfortunately, I would say, the average level of technical skill in top ranking diorama works took a hit and never recovered (the absolute top diorama scapes is still high, but the average level of the diorama works in top 127 ranks is inferior to 2016 and possibly 2015).
Though this decline may be more of a fault line in international politics than having to do with ADA’s rubric (Japan relations worsening with China and Korea resulted in fewer entries from veterans of both countries). Industry relations also worsened across country lines. These things coincidentally have overlapping time period.
Finally, the change in rubric secured that the absolute top diorama layouters would be greatly determined by this aquatic-oriented sensitivity. It paved the way for the hybrid styles Fukada, Josh, Siak and I (and others) are exploring with our works in recent years. Essentially the change in rubric is felt most heavily on these points:
1) More representation of NA style overall in the top 127
2) Pure diorama that doesn’t put emphasis on plant or fish use becoming very inconsistent in performance, often skilled layouters finding themselves in the 2-400’s as I mentioned earlier.
3) The absolute top layouters, especially in the progressive arch being the ones who have a sensitivity for NA style, for an aquatic sense or special care for fish. Hybrid styles taking the throne.
ie. these 50 points have the biggest impact in separating the men from the boys, from separating the top 1% from the top 3-7 people in the world.
This may be why top competitors are probably the most sensitive to how these points shape the results, and how they must be considered.
Now, going back to the original point that we’re happy with what the contest has become and the direction it’s going and annoyance with the wording of the rubric—
If the rubric is doing it’s job, I say leave it be. Scaper’s needing to struggle with its meaning has also driven creativity and forced layouts to evolve in a good direction.
The rubric may be literally false, in that the English words don’t mean what they should mean—
But that doesn’t stop it from being metaphorically true; in the adaptive sense that it is driving the contest results to evolve in a positive direction aligned with what Nature Aquarium should be. The words are a stab at getting the meaning they want, and creating an ecology in the contest driving its evolution in a desirable direction.
It’s also adaptively true for ADA, in that the words let it virtue signal and brand position itself well, while commanding an effective fandom from conservative and progressive aquascapers alike.
So imo, there’s no reason to get wound up over just wording.
