The publication
Editorial Policy and Legal Notice
Editorial responsibility, the rules that decide what gets published, and the procedure that turns a reader disagreement into a dated correction.
This page carries two things that usually live apart: who is responsible for what appears here, and the editorial rules that decide what appears at all. They belong together, because a rule nobody is answerable for is a slogan.
Responsibility and how to reach it
Marks & Blinds is a publication about organized retriever work in the United States, published by its own editorial desk. Editorial responsibility for everything on this site, including this page, is reachable at one address: [email protected]. That address is read, and it is the correct place for a correction, a complaint, a right of reply, a takedown request or a question about a source.
There is no form, no telephone number and no postal address on this site. Everything that needs answering is answered from the same mailbox, and a message that names a page, quotes a sentence and says what is wrong with it will always be dealt with faster than one that does not.
What is published, and what is written by whom
The subject is the work of the American retriever: the rulebooks that govern field trials and hunting tests, the training that leads to them, the equipment involved, the waterfowl hunting the whole discipline imitates, the eligible breeds and the screenings working lines are held to, and the ground and the seasons of the Northeast. Pages are written by the desk and are published unsigned, which is a deliberate choice: what stands behind a figure here is the document it was read in, printed beside it, rather than a byline.
How a page is sourced
Rulebooks are the primary source and they are read rather than summarized from elsewhere. A precise figure, meaning a number of qualifying scores, a number of marks, a scoring threshold or a condition of eligibility, appears on a page only when it has been read in the governing document, with the chapter and section noted, the edition recorded and the date of reading recorded with it.
Where a figure has not been read at the source, the page says what can be said without it. It is not approximated, it is not softened with a hedge, and it is not copied from a summary. Where a rulebook leaves a value to the judges, the page says so and separates it from any habit the sport has around that value. The whole procedure, document by document, is set out in sources and method, which also publishes the reading status of every rulebook this site depends on.
What is deliberately not published
No results, placements or standings. No names of dogs, owners, handlers or judges. No event dates, venues or entries. No kennels, litters, prices or listings of animals for sale. No veterinary protocols, dosages or diagnoses: screenings are explained so that a reader can tell what a document certifies, and every question about a particular animal goes to a veterinarian. Firearms appear only as a noise a dog is conditioned to accept.
Those exclusions are practical as much as editorial. A reference that prints a result becomes a record somebody has to maintain forever and that is wrong the following weekend. A reference that prints a rule with its edition stays useful until the edition changes, and then says so.
Corrections, and how they are made
A correction here is three gestures, never a silent edit. The field on the page changes and carries its new edition and its new date of reading. The claim behind it is updated in the evidence record that supports the site. And a dated note appears in notes and rule updates saying what changed and why.
Anyone reading a document that contradicts a page here is invited to say which edition they are reading. If the page is wrong it is changed and the change is dated. If the page is right, the reasoning is explained rather than defended, because a reference that cannot be argued with is not worth much.
Text, images and reuse
The text on this site is written for it. Facts and structure are taken from the governing documents; their text is not, no table is reproduced and no sentence is lifted, both because those documents are protected and because reformulating forces an actual reading. Short quotations of a page here, with a link back, are welcome; wholesale reproduction is not, and a request to republish something in full goes to the same address as everything else.
Commercial arrangements
Some outbound links may be part of a commercial arrangement. When that is the case the arrangement never decides what a page says, no product is ranked or recommended in exchange for payment, and nothing is published whose purpose is to carry a link. The rules, the marking and the limits are set out in full on the sponsored content policy.
What this site collects from a reader, which is nothing, is described on the privacy page. What the publication covers and how it is organized is set out on about this publication, and every message reaches it through contact the desk.