TrueJim
Master Black Belt
While we're on the topic of the Taekwondo Wiki ( Taekwondo Wiki ) in that "What did old taekwondo look like...?" thread, I thought I'd provide some background for anybody here who's interested in the wiki:
Ancient History
The Taekwondo Wiki was started in I believe 2009? by some ITF-stylers, long before I had resumed practicing taekwondo. I'm not positive which user started the wiki, but some of the earliest users had handles such as JDStew, Leona RebelSpark, and TKDgirl. I know because I can see their names on the Admin page.
When I came across the wiki in 2013, there were only a couple dozen articles, and most of those were only a few sentences long. It saw almost no traffic. Nobody had added any new information in about three years...it lay fallow, dormant, and forgotten.
Meanwhile, in 2013 my young son and I started studying Kukkiwon-style taekwondo, so of course I Googled for some good study notes, especially looking for poomsae diagrams that even a child could understand. Finding none, I developed my own. (I'm not as smart as a philosophy undergrad of course, but I do have a Ph.D. in mathematics, I used to be a college professor, and so it is second nature to me to be a note-taker.)
The other parents at our school saw my notes, liked them, and wanted copies for themselves. So I started a Wordpress blog ( Poomsae.me Taekwondo with little blue robots at http poomsae.me ) as a place to make my notes available. After a while, I realized I needed a more robust system because my notes were becoming too extensive for a blog.
At first I tried contributing to the Black Belt Wiki (which is excellent!) but there were two problems: (1) It uses WikiDot markup, and I'm a MediaWiki man, having previously implemented a corporate-wide wiki at a very large corporation, and having previously contributed to Wikipedia (I'm particularly please with my contributions to the Wikipedia article on the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus). (2) Black Belt Wiki is not taekwondo-specific, so for example the page on the roundhouse kick describes every style of roundhouse, not just the taekwondo styles. That having been said, I have exchanged emails with a fellow named Will who runs that website (as well as the taekwondoanimals.com website) and I think he does excellent, excellent work. My only point there is that the two wikis are aware of each other and have communicated with one another (we're not provincial).
The Wiki Now
That's when I decided to adopt the Taekwondo Wiki. I asked the Wikia folks to make me the Admin (which they did since the wiki had been dormant for so long), I moved all my study notes to the wiki, and then I started researching in earnest in order to try to flesh it out. It helped that I had recently sprained my right ankle badly while attempting an ill-conceived back-hook kick, so I had a few months of no-taekwondo-evenings in which to play on the Web. At the same time, I finished writing the Poomsae Designer software so that I was finally able to draw poomsae diagrams that even my young son could understand. (If I were a better software developer, the diagrams would be even better, but I'm not, so they aren't. I'm not Andy Jeffries!)
Speaking of Andy, the poor soul made the mistake of performing some good edits on the wiki a while back, so I punished him by promoting him to an admin of the wiki too, though I don't believe he checks it as often as I do. I check it every morning to see if anybody has added anything egregious, but thankfully that rarely happens. Right now, Andy and I are the only admins.
As previously mentioned:
Why a Wiki
Personally, I think wikis are the perfect venue for documenting martial arts:
The Banner
The wiki's banner is my attempt at illustrating its style-agnostic nature. I'm not much an artist, but it's what I was able to do. The yellow kick is intended to represent both "tae-" and Kukkiwon/WTF-style, since those logos tend to look like stylized kicks. The reddish fist is intended to represent both "-kwon-" and ITF/Chang Hon-style, since those logos tend to look like punching fists, and the white partial-taegeuk is intended to represent the "-do." The color scheme is intended to reflect the colors of the tri-taegeuk, while being a little more muted so that they're easier on the eyes.
What's Next
I noticed recently that some folks are trying to make a Spanish-language version of the wiki. I throw some material that way when I can, but my Spanish is rusty. They don't seem to be that active anyway, which is a shame, because I'd love to see versions in other languages. ( Taekwondo Wiki )
There you have it! That's the history of the Taekwondo Wiki in a nutshell.
Ancient History
The Taekwondo Wiki was started in I believe 2009? by some ITF-stylers, long before I had resumed practicing taekwondo. I'm not positive which user started the wiki, but some of the earliest users had handles such as JDStew, Leona RebelSpark, and TKDgirl. I know because I can see their names on the Admin page.
When I came across the wiki in 2013, there were only a couple dozen articles, and most of those were only a few sentences long. It saw almost no traffic. Nobody had added any new information in about three years...it lay fallow, dormant, and forgotten.
Meanwhile, in 2013 my young son and I started studying Kukkiwon-style taekwondo, so of course I Googled for some good study notes, especially looking for poomsae diagrams that even a child could understand. Finding none, I developed my own. (I'm not as smart as a philosophy undergrad of course, but I do have a Ph.D. in mathematics, I used to be a college professor, and so it is second nature to me to be a note-taker.)
The other parents at our school saw my notes, liked them, and wanted copies for themselves. So I started a Wordpress blog ( Poomsae.me Taekwondo with little blue robots at http poomsae.me ) as a place to make my notes available. After a while, I realized I needed a more robust system because my notes were becoming too extensive for a blog.
At first I tried contributing to the Black Belt Wiki (which is excellent!) but there were two problems: (1) It uses WikiDot markup, and I'm a MediaWiki man, having previously implemented a corporate-wide wiki at a very large corporation, and having previously contributed to Wikipedia (I'm particularly please with my contributions to the Wikipedia article on the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus). (2) Black Belt Wiki is not taekwondo-specific, so for example the page on the roundhouse kick describes every style of roundhouse, not just the taekwondo styles. That having been said, I have exchanged emails with a fellow named Will who runs that website (as well as the taekwondoanimals.com website) and I think he does excellent, excellent work. My only point there is that the two wikis are aware of each other and have communicated with one another (we're not provincial).
The Wiki Now
That's when I decided to adopt the Taekwondo Wiki. I asked the Wikia folks to make me the Admin (which they did since the wiki had been dormant for so long), I moved all my study notes to the wiki, and then I started researching in earnest in order to try to flesh it out. It helped that I had recently sprained my right ankle badly while attempting an ill-conceived back-hook kick, so I had a few months of no-taekwondo-evenings in which to play on the Web. At the same time, I finished writing the Poomsae Designer software so that I was finally able to draw poomsae diagrams that even my young son could understand. (If I were a better software developer, the diagrams would be even better, but I'm not, so they aren't. I'm not Andy Jeffries!)
Speaking of Andy, the poor soul made the mistake of performing some good edits on the wiki a while back, so I punished him by promoting him to an admin of the wiki too, though I don't believe he checks it as often as I do. I check it every morning to see if anybody has added anything egregious, but thankfully that rarely happens. Right now, Andy and I are the only admins.
As previously mentioned:
- The wiki sees about 800 page-views per day on average, sometimes as low as 500 (especially on Saturdays), sometimes as high as 1,200 per day (especially in the middle of the week).
- Ironically, even though most of the ITF-type articles are rough, those are the articles that see the most traffic. The Admin toolbox on the wiki doesn't tell me how many page-views each page gets, but it does tell me which pages are receiving the most traffic, and ironically it's almost always pages related to Chang Hon style. And that with the Encyclopedia PDF being freely downloadable!!! Go figure?
- It is a wiki, of course, so literally anybody can add to it. The original authors of the wiki wanted it to be style-agnostic, which I think is a really nice idea, so I've tried to perpetuate that philosophy. "It's all taekwondo to me." I also try to be an even-handed editor: I don't edit anything that other people write unless it's demonstrably false or unclear.
Why a Wiki
Personally, I think wikis are the perfect venue for documenting martial arts:
- First of all Wikipedia doesn't allow "how-to" information, so most of the information on Taekwondo Wiki and Black Belt Wiki wouldn't be permitted.
- Secondly, Wikipedia wants good sources for all the information on it, and for martial arts, so much of the information is handed-down from generation to generation by word-of-mouth, so I'm not sure you'd ever get Wikipedia-level attribution for everything one wants to say about any martial art.
- And thirdly, somebody like Earl Weiss (as just one example) might not be "famous enough" to have a bio on Wikipedia, but he'd certainly be famous enough for the Taekwondo Wiki, so having a wiki provides a place to add information like biographies of pioneers, other taekwondo celebrities, or really just anything that's noteworthy among practitioners but not noteworthy enough for Wikipedia.
The Banner
The wiki's banner is my attempt at illustrating its style-agnostic nature. I'm not much an artist, but it's what I was able to do. The yellow kick is intended to represent both "tae-" and Kukkiwon/WTF-style, since those logos tend to look like stylized kicks. The reddish fist is intended to represent both "-kwon-" and ITF/Chang Hon-style, since those logos tend to look like punching fists, and the white partial-taegeuk is intended to represent the "-do." The color scheme is intended to reflect the colors of the tri-taegeuk, while being a little more muted so that they're easier on the eyes.
What's Next
I noticed recently that some folks are trying to make a Spanish-language version of the wiki. I throw some material that way when I can, but my Spanish is rusty. They don't seem to be that active anyway, which is a shame, because I'd love to see versions in other languages. ( Taekwondo Wiki )
There you have it! That's the history of the Taekwondo Wiki in a nutshell.
