Reputation System Reset Pending...Dec 07

[exile]

Thanks for the responses, guys!

Only if I get to be part of it. Seriously, great idea, Ex.

But of course you can be! Knowledge and motivation are the two things something like this requires... and oh yes, one more thing: a feasible plan. It's a huge (but I think worthwhile) undertaking, and projects that meet that description have be broken down into (much) smaller subprojects in order to get anywhere, I've found in my own experience. The really good thing about this particular kind of project is that it kind of lets us revisit our own posting pasts, and that of our fellow members, with the focus not on the shiny shiny `swag', as Cap'n Barbosa would say, but on the content that we all provided.

See, I think that there are things of enduring value in the discussions here, and the problem is that while archives preserve the work of the past, they're not particularly user-friendly. What I'm kind of dimly groping towards is a way to take advantage of the electronic format of all these discussions—the ease of retrieval—to provide a kind of contextualized, informed `roadmap' of (some of) the incredibly rich and interesting terrain we've covered over the past while. The archives of the threads can stay where they are, but the point of this roadmap that I have in mind would be to kind of... extract the essential content, leave the pissing contests and the personal frictions/misunderstandings out, and just focus on the essential cut and thrust of the substantive discussion, which is often very well-informed, fascinating, and probably unavailable anywhere else.

There's already the associated WIki which would be a convenient place to prepare such info., I would think, even if it were then transferred here.

Yes, that's a very good place to start! So in thinking about how to...well, how to start thinking about this project, it occurred to me that there are a few über-topics which could be used to guide the structure of this roadmap (or maybe topographic map is more like it):

• historical issues (I'm thinking big-picture history here, not lineage-rivalry details type stuff);

• technical issues (e.g., the optimal way to deliver a punch, or the right striking surface for a side kick, or a Z-lock, or the best bunkai for such-and-such kata/hyung/hsing/etc, or...)

• training techniques (the kind of stuff I've been fretting about lately, the best conditions to train on or specific routines for hip flexors, or balance; stuff about weight-training, stuff about breathing exercises, should you use a bag or a makiwara.... etc.)

• health/safety issues...


... all those kinds of big topics, divided into coherent, connected linked discussions. There's overlap in some cases (history and technique issues meet in the `worth of kata' threads, e.g.), but the electronic format is well suited to this kind of multiple access route situation.

I think that something along these lines would be good in itself, but it would also allow us to reconnect to the many contributions that people have made which led to those rep scores and pretty stars in the first place. The enduring stuff is the content; the rest is the icing on the cake...

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Change and Strife are the natural order of the universe. (they are a constant) Embrace change and you succeed! Fail to embrace change and you will have lots of strife and agony. :mst: The reputation system got to big and now we will reset it and it will be a good thing for everyone involved in the long run.

Exile's idea of an archive/ebook on the best of MartialTalk is an excellent idea and something that hopefully we can do!

 

[Xue Sheng]

Reset The four horsemen riding through the night, :anic: cats and dogs mating in the streets, doom and gloom surround us:tantrum:…… oh what the heck… reset it

It is just not that big of a deal

 

[Kreth]

It is just not that big of a deal

Exactly. If you (general you, not you XS) need rep on an internet forum to validate your opinions, well...

 

[shesulsa]

Exactly. If you (general you, not you XS) need rep on an internet forum to validate your opinions, well...

You know, whenever I say this or something similar, I get dinged and told I'm way off if I can't validate other people's feelings about the rep system ... but any good psychologist will tell you it's true.

That'll be $10 please, Charlie Brown.

 

[kidswarrior]

You know, whenever I say this or something similar, I get dinged and told I'm way off if I can't validate other people's feelings about the rep system ... but any good psychologist will tell you it's true.

That'll be $10 please, Charlie Brown.

Maybe you get dinged because you're always asking for money...Now, where the heck did I put that ding button?

 

[morph4me]

You know, whenever I say this or something similar, I get dinged and told I'm way off if I can't validate other people's feelings about the rep system ... but any good psychologist will tell you it's true.

That'll be $10 please, Charlie Brown.

There's adifference between validating and agreeing. I understand how people feel about it, I just don't think it's that big a deal. I think the people with the most rep now, will continue getting it the future, because of their consistent thoughtful and enlightening posts. I personally, will just continue to suck up to the people who can do me the most good

 

[kidswarrior]

Thanks for the responses, guys!



But of course you can be! Knowledge and motivation are the two things something like this requires... and oh yes, one more thing: a feasible plan. It's a huge (but I think worthwhile) undertaking, and projects that meet that description have be broken down into (much) smaller subprojects in order to get anywhere, I've found in my own experience. The really good thing about this particular kind of project is that it kind of lets us revisit our own posting pasts, and that of our fellow members, with the focus not on the shiny shiny `swag', as Cap'n Barbosa would say, but on the content that we all provided.

See, I think that there are things of enduring value in the discussions here, and the problem is that while archives preserve the work of the past, they're not particularly user-friendly. What I'm kind of dimly groping towards is a way to take advantage of the electronic format of all these discussions—the ease of retrieval—to provide a kind of contextualized, informed `roadmap' of (some of) the incredibly rich and interesting terrain we've covered over the past while. The archives of the threads can stay where they are, but the point of this roadmap that I have in mind would be to kind of... extract the essential content, leave the pissing contests and the personal frictions/misunderstandings out, and just focus on the essential cut and thrust of the substantive discussion, which is often very well-informed, fascinating, and probably unavailable anywhere else.



Yes, that's a very good place to start! So in thinking about how to...well, how to start thinking about this project, it occurred to me that there are a few über-topics which could be used to guide the structure of this roadmap (or maybe topographic map is more like it):

• historical issues (I'm thinking big-picture history here, not lineage-rivalry details type stuff);

• technical issues (e.g., the optimal way to deliver a punch, or the right striking surface for a side kick, or a Z-lock, or the best bunkai for such-and-such kata/hyung/hsing/etc, or...)

• training techniques (the kind of stuff I've been fretting about lately, the best conditions to train on or specific routines for hip flexors, or balance; stuff about weight-training, stuff about breathing exercises, should you use a bag or a makiwara.... etc.)

• health/safety issues...


... all those kinds of big topics, divided into coherent, connected linked discussions. There's overlap in some cases (history and technique issues meet in the `worth of kata' threads, e.g.), but the electronic format is well suited to this kind of multiple access route situation.

I think that something along these lines would be good in itself, but it would also allow us to reconnect to the many contributions that people have made which led to those rep scores and pretty stars in the first place. The enduring stuff is the content; the rest is the icing on the cake...

Well I'm just a lowly teacher, but having done a small bit of writing/publishing, your outline looks like a great pace to start, Ex. I've long wanted to be able to easily access some of the past threads which have been so good they'd qualify for ongoing reference to me. This project would seem to do exactly that.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Some good ideas there, and distilling things and putting them in the wiki would be great. Seems no one but spammers use it anymore and I have been considering deleting it all as a result.

Anyone wants to help manage the wiki, let me know and lets talk.

As to the rep, it will rebuild. Y'all earned it for a dozen reasons, and most are still doing what they've always done to be stellar members.

 

[exile]

Well I'm just a lowly teacher, but having done a small bit of writing/publishing, your outline looks like a great pace to start, Ex. I've long wanted to be able to easily access some of the past threads which have been so good they'd qualify for ongoing reference to me. This project would seem to do exactly that.

Well, I'm hardly in a position to agree that any teacher is lowly, since that's a good chunk of what my `day job' consists of, eh? And I'm very glad to have your interest and willingness to consider doing something along these lines, KW. The access thing has been bothering me too, for exactly the same reason you mention... I'm afraid that the good stuff will get away from us if we don't start doing some systematic distilling and consolodating. We've all put in a good deal of time and thought into a lot of our posts, and I keep being astonished at how much depth of knowledge there is on the board....

Some good ideas there, and distilling things and putting them in the wiki would be great. Seems no one but spammers use it anymore and I have been considering deleting it all as a result.

Anyone wants to help manage the wiki, let me know and lets talk.

Well, you got me and KW for starters, Bob! I'm thinking that we can maybe be a little bit more proactive, as they say, in our wiki; that is, we can bring new information to bear on the threads, in the way of commentary/context, instead of waiting passively for it to simply show up as seems to happen with the Wikipedia directors (and as the current Modern Arnis thread makes clear, there seems on occasion to be a lack of expertise amongst those directors where it's most needed...)

As to the rep, it will rebuild. Y'all earned it for a dozen reasons, and most are still doing what they've always done to be stellar members.

I, and I think everyone else, appreciate(s) the kind words, Bob. I think a project of this sort would be good for morale, and it would have a valuable side benefit: getting back into all those old threads, mining for gold, is probably going to lead to some interesting new spinoff threads. For me, say, being on the board has been a tremendous education, and looking back over some of the past discussions with much greater background now than had when I first read them is very likely to get me thinking in new directions about that material.

And as KW has pointed out earlier, change is good, doing new things is good. Song lyrics seem to have lead to topic drift here,so I don't want to make to make too much of it, but there's a great old Eric Bogle song, Leaving the Land, in which he says, we'll never see what lies ahead if we keep on looking back. At my age and stage, I have to believe that the best is yet to be.... :wink1:

 

[Drac]

You're all mad! Mad I say!!!

Ditto I say...

 

[MBuzzy]

Exile, sounds like a great idea to me - I would love doing the research to go back through threads and pick out the relevant info. In terms of a Wiki, it could be distilled pretty easily. For example, take "Bassai," with simple searches and some reading, one could go back through all of the thread, pick out the relevant information and use the posts themselves as the references. That way any reader could easily go back and find where the info came from and read the original debate.

 

[exile]

Exile, sounds like a great idea to me - I would love doing the research to go back through threads and pick out the relevant info. In terms of a Wiki, it could be distilled pretty easily. For example, take "Bassai," with simple searches and some reading, one could go back through all of the thread, pick out the relevant information and use the posts themselves as the references. That way any reader could easily go back and find where the info came from and read the original debate.

Good on ya, Craig—this is clearly going to require a lot of people to carry off. I'm hoping that Bob will have some ideas, or suggestions, about the format of the final product, which, ideally, would turn out to be something that one might fairly call `readable', though structured in a way which would allow someone to hope in fairly quickly on a particular topic, and pick up some useful background information along the way.

The topic `Bassai' is a good example of how much ground there is to cover: we've had threads about the meaning of the name (with interesting debate about the standard `breaching a stronghold' translation), the history of the form itself, the most practical applications of the movement for street defense... lots of imporant stuff about the relationship between the Okinawan and Japanese forms of karate, the relationship between Japanese and Korean karate, and the place of forms in the curriculum, as well as the role of the Korean superorgs in jettisoning O/J elements that had been in the proto-TKD syllabus and now only persist in TSD and some very conservative-lineage kwan descendant TKD schools. There are probably a dozen different threads that would be useful to someone who scanned the `Table of Contents' of this hypothetical resource we're talking about, looking for information about bunkai/boon hae in the `Technique' subdivision but seeing cross-links to stuff in the History and Teaching subdivisions... It would be an immensely useful research and learning tool, something that would be completely unique in the world of web-based MA discussion fora.

I'm hoping that some of the most active and authortitative members will become interested in this project and help think through just how it should be organized and carried out, and what the final format should look like...

 

[Xue Sheng]

Exactly. If you (general you, not you XS) need rep on an internet forum to validate your opinions, well...

Easy for you to say you have 8 stars and I only have 7 :uhyeah:

You pretty hit the nail on the head with that one :asian:

 

[terryl965]

Exile I will try and help as well, just let me know what you need.

 

[Rich Parsons]

Reset The four horsemen riding through the night, :anic: cats and dogs mating in the streets, doom and gloom surround us:tantrum:…… oh what the heck… reset it

It is just not that big of a deal

Did someone call?

I agree that it is not big deal.

 

[theletch1]

Did someone call?

I agree that it is not big deal.

Nope, I passed gas.:uhyeah:

 

[shesulsa]

Nope, I passed gas.:uhyeah:

:fart:

 

[exile]

Exile I will try and help as well, just let me know what you need.

That's great, Terry—I think the Korean MA discussion in particular will benefit from a lot of participation by experienced practitioners and instructors, given the often combative nature of the discussions that have gone on in the KMA forum. I'm very glad this sort of project looks good to you!

 

[MBuzzy]

That's great, Terry—I think the Korean MA discussion in particular will benefit from a lot of participation by experienced practitioners and instructors, given the often combative nature of the discussions that have gone on in the KMA forum. I'm very glad this sort of project looks good to you!

Agreed - I know that just within the KMA, there have been MANY times that I'm looking for all of the consolidated knowledge on this site on a single topic. It takes me a very long time to find what I'm looking for and is frustrating to do it again if needed.

(by the way, would it be possible to split this discussion out to another thread? Might be a better way to keep track of ideas, suggestions, and volunteers. Although maybe I'm just a touch OCD )