With the Internet today, the Lawn Bowlers has a lot of opportunities to learn and make decisions on various aspect of their sport. There was a time in the past when black bowls and white cladded Bowlers was building an image of Lawn Bowls and Club Play. At the time there was also a pride in "Respect" for your fellow players, both club members and visiting bowlers.
Ethics is more than how we doing things but also our attitude toward being respectful of the sport and others whom might make a mistake. (stats right show total views of blog approaching 100,000) over last 15 years)
Opinions on what was right or wrong mattered. Last week, I was playing cards on a website and in the Lobby of the game tables someone accused someone else of cheating. Immediately, the host of the game wrote "In here we do not call anyone a cheater, another incident and you will be banded for two weeks". The individual attempted to explain but before more than a few words it was clear that the opinion was given was intended to show the event as cheating.
The host immediately wrote. "I will discuss this with you but because you did not respect my warning you will be banded from play for 2 weeks starting now" and the player disappeared. In the recent month I have been told three or 4 times "That is cheating" by another club member who did not know what I was doing. The event was not important but I was taught to measure close (millimeters) to the jack and if both bowls are so close then call for a measure.Do not touch the jack because if it moves you lose your bowl as point. What was important was members accusing others of something they had an opinion as not being correct. The rules of Lawn Bowls are easily to understand and all players know what is right in play and what is not. "Foot faulting" is not defined as "that is cheating" but "it is illegal" or "it is not permitted".
This example of a Lawn Bowls Discussion on Ethics of counting the points is an example of "Respect"
A simple error made by a beginning player who is learning and more guessing as to if a bowl is a point or not to be counted. The interesting discussion brought a comment of " I was a 2-3 year player at the time... and the other team's lead was a new player also". "I'm seeing that they have 6 counting bowls! But they are all back bowls so the other lead was focused on front bowls only so he signals 1 pt so I do the same. (We can argue the ethics later)" Later in the discussion the author of the inquiry said " The worst part of this question extends to being too quick to accept less points when you see other points that should at least be measured. and as said above " (We can argue the ethics later)" was answered by the following comment "Ethics does not exist with arguments", There are Good Ethics and Bad Ethics only".
To further follow the discussion was "K.J Top contributor "Lost a tournament because of this. Once the count has been given, the end is over" and " GT Top contributor "My understanding is that once both have agreed no change can take place. It would seem as though both agreed." Yes this is the rule.
The author explained that he let the 2nd point be counted as he wrote "I did not answer the umpire when asked "Did both leads indicate 1 point?" and therefore let the 2nd point be counted as it is a club game and to me a learning for the beginning players".
Also from the discussion came the problem when both leads indicated the point was for them and after the jack was removed the umpire asked that the game be replayed. It is shown in the discussion that because of the time limit the question was that maybe the umpire should have allowed extra time . As can be seen in the screen capture of the discussion group the comment given was "An umpire should not be adding any time to replay dead ends" but is this case a "dead end" or is it an error to be corrected.
Regularly there are questions like this which are simply about Good Sportmanship, but Ethics is not just good sportmanship but also respect for mistakes which happen due to inexperience or lack of knowledge.
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