An Open Letter to the OnLine Modern Arnis Community

[Bob Hubbard]

An Open Letter to the OnLine Modern Arnis Community
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In 2001 MartialTalk was launched. It's mission was then and still is to be a friendly place to discuss the arts. A living, growing archive of the thoughts, teachings and ideas that surround the arts and styles we train in. 2001 also saw the passing of the founder of Modern Arnis, Remy Presas. His passing left a void in many lives, and left many who study this art struggling to regain balance. Many things have been said or done, many wounds inflicted, many feelings hurt.

Our goal, is to document the history, the techniques, the people and the concepts of all the arts. We wish to be a lyceum to the arts, a combination reference library and meeting hall. We want people 10 years from now to be able to come here and see the journey we have been on, and find guidance, and friends, and information.

Unfortunately, we appear to be missing that mark, badly.

In the past 4 years, the Modern Arnis forum has suffered from game playing, posturing, arguments, and flat out attacks. Rather than becoming an archive of information, we seem to be an archive of events, ads, and hatred. 66% of recent posts have either been ads, chat or blathering. Some of the crap thats been tossed around here makes me ashamed to say I study this art. I've heard from enough others that I know I'm not alone.

The time has come for this to stop.

We, and I are tired of the seemingly non-stop bickering between a select few parties.

Modern Arnis did not spring into existence over night. It wasn't defined in a few years. It wasn't bought mail order. It was honed, refined, explored and defined by the experience of one man, the late Remy Presas. Over his long life, he touched many people, shared many things, encouraged exploration.

This forum is now running under a new ruleset.
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• Any post seen as an attack against another member will be removed.
• Abuse of the “Report to Moderator” feature will result in a minimum of a 1 week suspension.
• Continued attacks against another member will see the offender removed from this site.
• The focus of this forum will be on Modern Arnis – It's history, it's techniques, and it's concepts. Explore where you've been, envision where you will take the art.
• Announce your new products properly, by issuing a press release that we will happily post for you in the News forum.
• Post your seminar/camp/event notices in the Events forum. “Whos going” and reviews are always welcome here.
• Leave your personal disagreements off this board, and keep your professional ones just that, professional.

Topics that are excellent and desired:

• Techniques
• Concepts
• History
• Event & product reviews
• Positive topics that will build fellowship
• Teaching a seminar? Talk about what you're going to be covering, or covered.
• School building. Times are tough, help each other be better at running a school, or class or club.

What we don't want?

• Politics: We don't care what your affiliation is.
• Game Playing: Act like mature adults and stop using this site as a battleground
• Whining
• SPAM
• Negative, tear you down, cause problems, publically air the dirty laundry type crap.

This forum should be something that has the casual reader thinking “Damn, that sounds like fun. Where can I go to learn this.”. It shouldn't have people going away thinking “What a bunch of crazy ****ers.”

Readers should go away thinking good things, and feel comfortable signing up and posting. Not feeling like they are walking into a war zone, and get hammered because the don't have the right gang colors on.

The challenge here for you, the MartialTalk Modern Arnis community. Clean up this area and make it a solid content area, or lose it.




Can you do it?

 

[Dan Anderson]

Bob,

A couple of questions here.

1. What degree of latitude are we allowed before something becomes "off topic?" One can be very narrow or broad but there seems to be no stated parameters as of yet.

2. What degree of disagreements are going to be allowed? I can understand violation of manners being shot down (a pot calling the kettle black) but if a forum is to have two-way communication amongst its members, disagreements will crop up from time to time, even if it's only of a technical nature.

I am all for a clean and civil forum but as one of the foundations of this country was freedom of speech, it would be a drag to see the forum hogtied.

Yours,
Dan Anderson

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Dan,
We have no desire to become well, nitpicker proofreaders. Threads do flow as they progress, tangents come up (example a thread on stick work might sprout a 'whered you get your sticks' tanget). As long as it's a short side trip, I don't anticipate a problem. A larger trip will most likely see things split to allow the original thread to return to initial focus, and the new tangent to grow on it's own.

Disagreements will happen. We understand this. We expect that our members will resolve them in a mature, professional manner. There is debate, there is disagreement, then there is ranting and screaming. We're not trying to impliment "Roberts Rules of Order" here, but we also want the pointless bickering to end. Many of you are instructors...if the parents of the kids you teach heard you say what you posted, the way you posted it...would you still have a student? Think about it. Look at alot of the comments that have been made here, then think how it looks to an outsider.

I fully expect that we will tweak this as we go. My hope is that we can build a place that the majority of MA interests can be politely and professionally covered, and that everyone feels welcome. It won't happen, but I intend to get as close as I can to that dream.

 

[Tgace]

Sorry for the tangent, but I do find the "This is the Martial Arts people! Stop being nasty to each other, be nice and discuss beating peoples heads in in a civil manner please." tone sort of amusing....

Fillipino Martial Arts especially, I seem to recall a lot of "nasty stories" about practitioners from the Philippines. Fruit-Tree situation? I dont know, but I do agree with Bob, some boundaries need to be drawn.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Like Carlins "What's a Civil War" bit eh?

 

[Tgace]

Pretty much. Im also in somewhat agreement with Kelly Worden and his views on swearing. We are going to teach people how to defend themselves in situations where intimidation, swearing and threats are going to be used (and at high volume), but we get all offended when someone swears. Granted public forums are different, but its the disconnect that is interesting.

I also wouldnt want to foster a "nice face to face" but "Stab you in the back later" atmosphere either. There should be honesty and integrity involved here and the courage to face conflict and deal with it. Outright hostility? No. But pretend "nicey nice"? Not "honest" IMO.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Pretty much. Im also in somewhat agreement with Kelly Worden and his views on swearing. We are going to teach people how to defend themselves in situations where intimidation, swearing and threats are going to be used (and at high volume), but we get all offended when someone swears. Granted public forums are different, but its the disconnect that is interesting.

There is the argument "You hear worse in a playground", which is true. There is also the simple fact that 95% of things can be discussed without resorting to profanity. There is a difference between "When someone calls you a ****er" and saying "you ****er!". There is also fact that we have people from numerous cultures, ages, etc. here. We strive to be as inviting as possible. Or, just as you take your shoes off, before learning how to gut another man, here, one needs to watch their P's & Q's while discussing cussing.

I also wouldnt want to foster a "nice face to face" but "Stab you in the back later" atmosphere either. There should be honesty and integrity involved here and the courage to face conflict and deal with it. Outright hostility? No. But pretend "nicey nice"? Not "honest" IMO.

I've encountered quite a few blades in the back over the years, many recently in fact. I am quite in agreement with you here. I think if someone has a problem with me, they should be man enough to face me and address it, not hide behind supposedly anonymous handles on bbs's. But thats me, and they are honorless cowards.

Understand, I'm not asking anyone to bow down or kiss ***. I'm insisting that the so-called professionals, act as such. At least here. What they do elsewhere is not within our control or concern. One would hope that behavior would be consistant. I don't have to like you. I can still act professionally around you. There is also the "ignore" feature, which is quite useful in ignoring the overly "annoying".

 

[Tgace]

Yeah, the mysterious "anonymous" profiles that always seem to have the inside track are another issue....

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I use my name. Enough said.


One other point: While I don't have a problem clarifying changes in policy, this threads drifting into non-positive areas. Lets not.

 

[kempomama]

I agree with most of your ideas.

Post your seminar/camp/event notices in the Events forum.

However, I disagree with the censorship of posting modern arnis events. Have you ever cracked open an issue of blackbelt or inside kungfu magazine? How many ads are modern arnis? Not enough because the dominating commercialized arts have overwhelmed us. And now you are trying to keep modern arnis out of the mainstream. PLEASE PLEASE please let those who are promoting the late grandmaster's art continue. Most of the events I want to know about, I read about here. This is my version of the ny times.

I met Mr. Parsons and he told me he's in charge of this section. Who's Mr. Hubbard? Where's democracy? Can I get a vote? Remember the 19th amendment!

The problem is too much testosterone. I propose a rule that HALF of all future posts be from women!

"Just relax. Can you do that for me?"

sheryl baber evans

 

[Tgace]

They'll still be here, just in the events forum. The issue I think Bob is trying to address is when we see the repeat posts of the same event on multiple forums....

 

[kempomama]

Just for kicks, I tried looking for the events section and kept scrolling past it. Thank goddess for the control f feature.

It's easy for a busy mom like myself to set the modern arnis section as one of my favorites instead of going to the main martial talk site and scrolling up and down over and over.

As someone in the information retrieval field, one should always consider the user- that's me.

If you have to limit posting events, let's make it in ONLY two or three areas unless it's an over commercialized art.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

The event advertisement rule is in effect site-wide. It's not censorship, but a re-organization. By requiring all flyers be posted in a central location, we can better help all of the arts. Please keep in mind, the rule does not prevent discussing an event, just the 'flyer'.

I'm going to pick on Dan Anderson here for a moment, cuz Dan's cool.
Say Dan's doing a seminar someplace. He, or someone posts a flyer here. It gets read, drifts down the list until someone bumps it, then it drifts again until just before the event when it's bumped again. Really, not too productive.

Now, under our new policy Dan is still doing an event. He posts the flyer in the event forum. Now, everyone can see it. People who may be curious may take a look. Others might see the name and read it. In the mean time, someone else can see that flyer, and post a thread in here. Ask a few questions. "Hey, who else is going?", "How do I get there" "Whats Dan gonna be doing?" and "Just who is this Dan guy and why should I care?". Result? More information, more back and forth.

In addition, with us doing an RSS feed, we can push out to other sites a list of upcoming events easily. (I run MT news on several of my sites)

 

[kempomama]

I would be more open to the idea if there is a way to categorize the events section. I really could not give a care about blank overcommercialized art.

Can you set the events section where one can open it and go to the specific art? For Dan's example, I click on events and scroll to modern arnis. Click on that and there's Dan. Also PLEASE make the list of the arts alphabetical. Having to scroll back and forth hunting for modern arnis in the out of order sequence is too much.

Another tip, move the events section to the top since it will be getting more usage under your plan.

BTW, you're right. Dan is pretty cool, not very pretty though, so don't get your hopes up Dan if you're reading this.

 

[Mark Lynn]

Bob

I have to agree with Kenpo mama here. I get very little time to be on the computer at home and I often scan MT first to see what is going on and what if any events are coming up that I would like to attend.

Considering that many of the events people are doing promote Modern Arnis (at least in this area of the forum), I think this is a good way to let people know what is going on etc. etc. I mean if it wasn't for MT I wouldn't have gone to the Symposium, Dan's International Modern Arnis Summer Camp, Andrew Evan's seminars with Dr. Willy and Dr. Presas Jr. or Kelly Worden. For me this is how I get my news and try and plan out where I can go to train. I really would rather not have to scan another forum/page etc. etc.

Plus after these events I and others have generally shared what went on, what was covered etc. etc. and I believe this helps people to see what others are teaching. However if these events are listed in another and then reviewed or talked about here I don't think it has the same flow so to speak about the event.

And if people don't want to discuss the events or even go to them they don't need to read the threads. But I have no problem with people writing in and talking about going etc etc.

I think you should reconsider and allow people to post their events that they are putting on.

Mark Lynn

 

[Bob Hubbard]

There isn't an easy way to do it, short of setting up a forum there for each art. I'll see what I can do though. My goal is to add an "Events" page, so it may be possible to add a few links (complex searches for the geeks reading) to make things simpler.

The events forum is the 6th from the top. We used to have it there, but moved it to the bottom when we started to allow in-forum postings. This moves it back up.

One other thing is to start an "upcoming events" thread which we can make sticky. Each event can also be posted there in addition to the events forum. This can help maximize exposure while minimizing "litter".

 

[arnisador]

One other thing is to start an "upcoming events" thread which we can make sticky. Each event can also be posted there in addition to the events forum. This can help maximize exposure while minimizing "litter".

I think this is a great idea. Keep that thread "clean"--just announcements. Then I won't miss them.

I will say that the Upcoming Seminars forum on E-Budo is something I check regularly in case there's anything in my area. A single place for events from all arts can be handy!But, please people--put the location and the art in the subject line!!!

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Something like Arnis: Rochester NY Dec 32, 1842 ?

 

[arnisador]

That'd be great. I find it frustrating to open a post that says Modern Arnis Seminar--Must See Instructor! only to scroll through a looooooong announcement to learn that it's being held in Perth, Australia. Adding the instructors name would be fine but what you suggest is fine as it is too.

 

[Dan Anderson]

I'm going to pick on Dan Anderson here for a moment, cuz Dan's cool.
"Just who is this Dan guy and why should I care?".

Just another pretty face.

Actually, here is an idea. One could do a one or two line post of an upcoming event or book sale ( ) and then a much longer post in the appropriate forum slot. Or one could post first in the appropriate forum and then a short heads up with the link attached. Howzat?

Yours,
Dan Anderson