American Bonsai Society Announcement

FALSE.

Juan wrote a letter to the ABS board, of which all board members received -- and read -- on their board room chat forum they use. In it, Juan named Adam, and others (perhaps people very close to this thread). NOBODY from ABS investigated it. I read Juans complaint, all three or four pages and all fifteen or so paragraphs. It was sent to my by three of the board members when this started circulating. It is more fictional than the Lord of the Rings. Juan and his wife have lied, fabricated and provided false commentary to events that never occurred -- anywhere -- at any time -- by anyone named -- of which rebuttals were provided to the ABS of which were ignored, and ABS never issued a retraction or a response.

ABS should be sued for defamation, Juan should be sued for the same, Adam should not be banned anywhere. If you dont like adam -- That's great. He probably doesnt like you either. But this is abhorrent and you should be ashamed of yourself for promoting this if you are involved.

THAT is the truth. The MOB took over, and you guys won for a while. Juan named Adam. ABS didnt do any investigation, they just read it and VOTED ON ADAMS REMOVAL before even asking Adam what happened. Have a ABS board member confirm, this is the truth. AFTER they voted Adam to be removed, and wrote their defaming post on the Internet and promoted it to all of their Facebook viewers, AND THEN said "fuck you Komorebi" by never even announcing the show that had EQUAL ATTENDANCE to the US NATIONALS by the way -- because they dont like Adam.

Stop this embarrassment to the bonsai community now. Drop this bullshit and stop your tree politics. I have encouraged Adam -- AND will financially back the lawsuit -- should he decide to go that route. I know I'll get the attorney fees back. Those involved at ABS should be forced to resign or be re-elected out next year. That is why I am not a member, until they issue a written, and public apology, to Adam Lavigne.

Why have I taken a side? I have not. I am friends with Adam, as many are. If the accusations were true, I'd burn him to the stake too and unfriend him. This is nothing more than mob mentality and us versus them. There is no them. There is only us. We are all bonsai. We are all welcome here and if you dont "like" someone, just dont hang around them and leave it as that -- as adults should.

Thank you for entertaining my rant. I promise they wont happen but once every few years and only in times of having to set the false records straight.


WOW. I.....I'm kinda speechless.....this is basically the nightmare, worst-case version of what could've happened (I'd been doing my best to give everyone benefit of the doubt, til now I've been thinking "maybe Juan didn't even have a problem with Adam, maybe it was someone at ABS who wanted to 'stir the pot' upon knowing Juan was leaving the US")

If I didn't have respect for your account already I'd be reading through your posts to try and fault you but I've always held your account/avatar in high regard, this is...this is pretty damning. Do you think there's sufficient (court-worthy) proof of what you're saying? If so then I'd say those responsible need to publicly apologize (if Adam would even accept it after all this) or be sued, this is a whole different story - is there any chance you could put dates to when that was submitted? Would love to see a timeline, but fully understand if you can't (honestly this sounds like it legitimately could, nay- should, be pursued in civil court because it seems quite clear that the chasm between the truth of Juan's departure, and the ABS statement, is incredibly wide and that's slander!!!

Wow I'm just at a loss....am almost eager to keep looking through your posts trying to fault you somehow because it's just hard to believe such malice, I mean it's one thing if it's a game of telephone gone awry but this seems less that and more intentional....

Is the ABS the main american org? Are there any 2nd-best(s) that are close?

Thanks a ton for posting, between Adair's explanation of Juan's circumstances and your explanation of Juan & ABS's actions things are so much clearer, I truly hope this is pushed to court because that is just insane, and truly hope ABS isn't the end-all for american-bonsai shows because I'm new but I hoped that, some day, I'd have trees I'd want to compete with and would have no interest if I thought the organizing body wasn't impartial :/
 
And for those asking about the artist links in the sidebar, that was something done in anger by the original mod who posted the open letter, and we didn't notice it for a long time. Adam's page has been added back in, and I've sorted the pages alphabetically. A little unintentional drama there.
 
None of this is good for anyone. Assuming Juan wrote a letter defaming Adam, and none of it is true, that’s not good. If it is true, thst’s Not good, either. This is a lose-lose. For all concerned.
 
FYI - I just posted this over at /r/bonsai.

Open Letter to the Bonsai Community: Follow-up on Adam Lavigne (adamaskwhy)

Ok, I’ll admit that I’m more than a little hesitant to re-open this particular can of worms, but here goes.

No matter where you stand on this particular issue, I ask that you read this with an open mind. In the interest of transparency and moving forward together as a community, I’m going to lay out everything as best I can.

A few months ago, there were some pretty serious allegations levied against Adam Lavigne, a long time member of this community. Specifically, the allegations were racism and xenophobia towards another member of the bonsai community. One of our mods took it upon himself to write an angry open letter, which none of the other mods approved, and that resulted in a whole lot of drama, much of which I’d just assume leave in the past. Those of you who were following along know exactly what I’m talking about. The end result was that Adam received a temporary ban until we could figure out exactly what was going on.

At the peak of the drama, I can say this. I observed some pretty atrocious human behavior. I saw people who I know for sure knew even less than I did (and frankly, I didn’t know all that much) suddenly willing to pick up pitch forks and throw somebody who was previously very well-respected all the way under the bus, then stop the bus so they could back up and run over him another 3 or 4 times. All without anything other than hearsay and 2nd and 3rd hand accounts.

No matter where you stand on this issue, I think that is something we should all pause and reflect on. What burden of proof are you willing to accept before you are willing to punish somebody for something? I learned, much to my dismay, that many people’s bar for evidence is very, very low. The willingness to attack someone without any hard evidence was actually extremely disheartening to me, and it really soured me on the sub for a few months. For those wondering why I haven’t been around as much lately, that was why. I needed a bit of space to contemplate.

So let’s lay out some facts about the issue at hand:
  • The alleged incident did not occur here.
  • The alleged victim has never come forward to corroborate anything.
  • The vague public details that were available all came from third parties
  • Literally everything I’ve ever heard about this has been hearsay from 2nd and 3rd hand accounts. I’ve still never even gotten a clear run-down of precisely what is alleged to have happened from anyone who was directly involved.
  • So essentially, we were given zero transparency into whatever occurred, yet we were asked to punish somebody based on a leap of faith.
  • Full disclosure: I was shown a couple of things that were presented to me as evidence, but imho, they weren’t evidence of anything but interpersonal drama. Certainly nothing even remotely on the level of what Adam was accused of.
Here are some facts about what has happened since:
  • In the time since this happened, there have been no further accusations. Zero.
  • BSF (Bonsai Society of Florida) investigated, and an email was sent out to about 600 Florida bonsai people asking for corroborating evidence, and it resulted in no additional evidence or corroboration of anything that Adam was accused of.
  • Additionally, the Central Florida Bonsai club took a vote of confidence, and 90% of members voted in full support of Adam.
  • Numerous well-respected bonsai artists who do know Adam have come forward and vouched for him, some of whom know both Adam and Juan.
  • Adam has an impeccable track record here. I don’t know Adam all that well personally, but I do recognize a good teacher and a good person when I see one, and my interactions with him have not only been 100% positive, but I’ve only ever seen him be helpful and positive to other people. So I feel pretty comfortable vouching for him too.
So based on all this information, in good conscience, I personally don’t feel that we can maintain this ban any longer. If anything, it has stayed in place much longer than it should have.

So at this point in time, we would like to welcome Adam back to the /r/bonsai sub as a full member of the /r/bonsai community, in good standing, effective immediately.

I’d also like to take personal responsibility for the duration of the ban. It did not imply guilt or anything else. In truth, facing down the Internet mob was incredibly overwhelming for me over the summer at a time when I really couldn’t afford for it to be. It had a huge impact on my life, my business, and my family. I’m sure it was nothing compared to what Adam had to deal with, but it was pretty intense to say the least. So I needed to let it drop for a while, and I needed the angry mob to put down their pitch forks. I can say this though - may you never need to face down an angry Internet mob. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I guess I can now check that one off my bucket list.

Believing victims

For those who will say that we should believe victims, I will respond that I agree with you. That was where we started, and that’s why we left the ban in place while we looked into things. But when the alleged incident does not occur here, no victim or directly involved party comes forward to corroborate, and no satisfactory details ever emerge, I would ask you in response - just how far should one go to punish somebody based on something that may not even have happened and for which you have no evidence?

I’m OK with the fact that we issued a temporary ban until we could get to the bottom of things. I do think the ban lasted too long, and again, I’ll take full responsibility for that, but I also think it was reasonable to look further into things given the very serious nature of the allegations. We do take this stuff very seriously, and protecting the overall community was first and foremost on our minds.

And just for the record - I don’t know Juan, but I do know plenty of people who do know him. He sounds like a great guy, and I honestly wish him the best, and I hope to meet him some day in my travels. And also for the record, I bear none of the parties involved any ill will, and I hope that we can all come together as a community and heal the rift that was opened here.

As part of this, we have added a more explicit anti-harassment policy to the sub rules. We already had civility rules in places, but we’ve taken that a level further.

The new rule in the sidebar and wiki is:
  • Hate has no place here. Harassment on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sex, sexual preference, age, etc is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
This was pretty much always the case, but hopefully now it’s crystal clear. Again, we do take this stuff very seriously. I tried to cover the obvious bases there, but if anyone feels strongly about something I may have missed, please PM me and let me know. Also, I’m aware that those on mobile aren’t seeing the sidebar as intended. There’s a technical reason behind that, and I’ll fix it as soon as I have the time. In the meantime, everything is in the wiki.

I’m sure that some of you won’t agree and have already made up your minds, but I ask you - do you really know what happened? Based on the information available to me, I choose to believe Adam, and to take him at his word when he says that he did not do the things we was accused of. I have no satisfactory evidence to back up any of the allegations, and I have every reason to believe that he’s telling the truth. Whatever did happen between Adam and Juan, I’m going to just let stay between them at this point. In the interest of moving forward, I ask that you all do the same.

And even if you don’t agree, I respectfully ask that you accept our decision and judgement on this. This was not an easy process, and there was no clear cut right or wrong answer here. No matter what we did, somebody was going to be mad at us. Sometimes in life, when you’re in a leadership position, you just have to make the best judgement call that you can with the information you have available. We’ve done our best to look at the facts and draw the best conclusions we can. For those of you who have been around a while and have interacted with me, you’ll know that I try to be extremely fair and objective with people, and tend to give people the benefit of the doubt whenever I can. I hope you know that if any of you were in Adam’s shoes, I would expect the same level of evidence before throwing you under the bus.

Closing Thoughts

I learned throughout this process that two of my most cherished core values are "Due Process" and "Innocent until Proven Guilty". In the absence of any sort of guide or precedent, those were the guiding principles I chose to follow here. Just know that we did the best we could in an impossible situation. Other people may have handled things differently, but I can pretty firmly say that nobody could have known the 100% right thing to do. This situation was a series of tough judgement calls based on extremely limited information. No black & white answers here for any of this.

As far as I’m concerned, we followed reasonable due process and then some, and we have reached a fair and reasonable conclusion to the best of our ability. Along the way, we kept the best interests of the community at heart at every step of the process. I honestly don’t know what more could be expected.

This entire situation was gut-wrenching for everyone involved, and I ask now that we come together as a community, forgive and forget, and let the healing process commence. Both Juan and Adam are extremely talented bonsai artists who have added tremendous value to the bonsai community over the years. I ask that we do our best to let this be water under the bridge, and let’s go back to learning from them, and working on little trees together.

If any of you have any questions about the process, I’ll do my best to answer them in the thread below. But I’ll warn you now - I’m not going to re-litigate this, and I won’t hesitate to remove any comments that I feel cause damage or re-open the rift. The decision has been made, and that’s that. Let’s do our best to move on from here.

I sincerely hope that I don’t lose any friends over this, but we cannot in good conscience leave a ban in place that is harming somebody’s reputation and career without sufficient evidence to justify it.

I look forward to many more years of working on little trees together as a community.

Cheers,

~MM


Can't express how thankful I am to hear this, IMO nobody should be silenced when they want to talk trees with other enthusiasts, glad to see this!! Cheers man!!! And as I said on reddit, well, I couldn't say it better myself- I look forward to many more years of working on little trees together as a community :D
 
@SU2 just Post it and link it here lol

I will say this.... The world needs more friends like you @SU2

It won't be necessary, he's been reinstated!! And thanks but, while Adam's been a good dude so far as I've seen, we've only seen each other twice- this is "paying it forward" and doing what I thought was right, nothing more / nothing less, as stated I literally wouldn't be into bonsai if I hadn't stumbled-upon his blog (I was on reddit, arguing politics for sport, and somehow stumbled onto a posting of his and from there I was hooked, as he's in FL and was doing crazy things with bougies and I immediately was racing to find my own bougies and "got the bonsai-bug" from that moment!!!) Would love to meet him more, does seem the personality-type I find friends in, but I'd have acted the same in this drama whether I'd ever seen him in person or not, IMO it'd be 'cheap' of me not to, I (and many others) owe a ton to his efforts in spreading knowledge here and furthermore even if he hadn't been so valuable to myself&others, well, there's something inherently wrong with letting one group release a damning indictment to the public while a main channel is then blocked so the accused can't participate in the proverbial tarring&feathering everyone was so eager to do because, well, "ABS is official"....
 
Who knew bonsai could be so exciting? :)

You know... sometimes I wonder whether this whole Internet thing was a good or bad invention :(

A wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he heard, the less he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard.
Now why can't we all be like that wise old bird?
 
None of this is good for anyone. Assuming Juan wrote a letter defaming Adam, and none of it is true, that’s not good. If it is true, thst’s Not good, either. This is a lose-lose. For all concerned.

Hate disagreeing with you so much here when I like you everywhere else on this board, but how is it bad for everyone? If Juan BS'd and the ABS was quick to run with it & publicize it, while ignoring Adam, then righting that most-certainly IS good for Adam. If Juan had been telling the truth (again, seems hard to believe when you basically already said he had to leave because of immigration, despite ABS saying he left due to malicious slander that was hurting him psychologically...), well, then Juan can sue Adam- that's tort, not even a criminal offense and call me crazy but I don't think minor incidents offline should be grounds to bar someone from talking trees online if their online speech is in-keeping with board-rules..... Maybe I'm reading you wrong but it seems you're trying to make some moral equivalency here that just isn't remotely valid :/
 
Who knew bonsai could be so exciting? :)

You know... sometimes I wonder whether this whole Internet thing was a good or bad invention :(

A wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he heard, the less he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard.
Now why can't we all be like that wise old bird?


Lol this is the first, and hopefully last, time things will ever be 'exciting' (barring some truly exceptional trees haha!!)

And yeah the internet is, on the whole, probably bad - don't get me started on 'fake news' and the problems with most people getting their "news" from facebook....but bonsai (til this single incident at least) has been pure, I literally stopped all my other forums once I found bonsai, it's great speaking to others who share your passion!!!
 
No, you misunderstand my point.

I’m just saying that the whole thing, regardless of whose fault it is, has been bad for everyone. It’s been bad for Juan, Adam, the ABS, and the whole bonsai community.

No matter how you look at it, everyone has been harmed. Juan felt that someone prevented him from extended his stay in the US. The ABS removed some board members and issued statements that created a lot of controversy (to say the least), Adam was implicated and his business and reputation has been harmed, and the general bonsai community doesn’t know what happened, and we’ve lost access to talented bonsai artists.
 
I hate how you always seem to view me as so much worse than I am, seeing me here as looking for free info (Adam's is great but there's no shortage of free info online, plus that means my problem here is a personal one and not a concern about the community at-large), or that I'm being so naive that I think Adam is trying to promote bonsai entirely for free / wouldn't want to make $....I don't ever expect to quit bonsai and do plan to start going to shows at some point, I hope to meet you someday as I'm pretty damn sure you won't think so poorly of me if you'd met me IRL, I feel like I rubbed you the wrong way when I first got on this board and you've disliked me ever since and am at the point I don't think there's anything I could say/do online to change your opinion of me unfortunately :/[/QUOTE]

Of good Lord, I don't dislike you. I just find you exhausting.

This issue simply doesn't belong here. It belongs in a direct discussion of your concerns with the ABS board and/or the mods. Of course it helps if you actually know what ABS is and are an actual dues-paying member to make your voice actually count. If you are concerned with how Adam was treated BY ABS or REDDIT, TAKE IT UP WITH ABS or REDDIT. If you don't get satisfaction at first, either keep at it, or move on. 1,000 word posts here don't do any good THERE.
 
Who knew bonsai could be so exciting? :)

You know... sometimes I wonder whether this whole Internet thing was a good or bad invention :(

A wise old owl lived in an oak.
The more he heard, the less he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard.
Now why can't we all be like that wise old bird?

My grandpa (1911 - 2003) used to say that Television was both the best and worst invention he'd ever witnessed. I'm not sure what he'd think about the internet today.
 
It won't be necessary, he's been reinstated!! And thanks but, while Adam's been a good dude so far as I've seen, we've only seen each other twice- this is "paying it forward" and doing what I thought was right, nothing more / nothing less, as stated I literally wouldn't be into bonsai if I hadn't stumbled-upon his blog (I was on reddit, arguing politics for sport, and somehow stumbled onto a posting of his and from there I was hooked, as he's in FL and was doing crazy things with bougies and I immediately was racing to find my own bougies and "got the bonsai-bug" from that moment!!!) Would love to meet him more, does seem the personality-type I find friends in, but I'd have acted the same in this drama whether I'd ever seen him in person or not, IMO it'd be 'cheap' of me not to, I (and many others) owe a ton to his efforts in spreading knowledge here and furthermore even if he hadn't been so valuable to myself&others, well, there's something inherently wrong with letting one group release a damning indictment to the public while a main channel is then blocked so the accused can't participate in the proverbial tarring&feathering everyone was so eager to do because, well, "ABS is official"....

Adam has helped me many times and I am a total fucking stranger on the Internet. I don't see how people can hate a guy like that.
 
As a complete outsider to this issue, living on the other side of the world, having zero experience with anyone involved, this is how I see it:
The more you guys discuss the issue, the more both Juan's and Adam's names are dragged through the dirt.

Apparantly nobody knows exactly what has happened here.
And nobody has any evidence to provide, or if they do, they don't wanna make it public.
It's never enough to say "Juan/Adam is such a nice guy, there's no way he's done or said anything like this".
We are all capable of doing and saying bad things even though we are generally good people.

After reading all this "crap" I'm probobly always gonna look at both Juan & Adam in a slightly suspicious way, which is a real shame.
Maybe just one of them did or said something wrong, maybe they both did or maybe none of them did.
Either way they both seem a little bit "tainted" to me now even though I try my best to remain unphased by it all.
A true shame indeed.

I highly doubt that Juan and Adam want the community to keep on discussing this on "their behalf".
So I think they are both better off with us putting the whole thing to rest.


@Bonsai Nut :
Since Juan and Adam are not members here and can't defend themselves from us;
- I would actually suggest locking this thread or better yet; deleting it completely.
- To protect both men's reputations from any further injury here at bonsainut.
 
Why do people today care so much about what others think and say about them....
Cant people just be themselves?....even if theirselves are a-holes???
It someone wants to be an A-hole, so what...let them...and those who feel that way can choose to disassociate themselves with said a-hole....
Why so much drama all the time?
Sheesh....
 
@Bonsai Nut :
Since Juan and Adam are not members here and can't defend themselves from us;
- I would actually suggest locking this thread or better yet; deleting it completely.
- To protect both men's reputations from any further injury here at bonsainut.
I don’t have a problem with locking the thread. Locking the thread just acknowledges that it is an unproductive discussion going nowhere. However, I think deleting it goes too far and would be a harm to the truth. We don’t know for sure what happened, but it’s not right to pretend that nothing happened. There was an allegation of bad behavior. There was action taken by both ABS and the bonsai moderators at Reddit. There was considerable discussion in the bonsai community about whether or not the actions taken were justified or not. To delete the thread altogether would be an act of censorship and historical revisionism.
 
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