Ok ladies and gents, a polite request. Recently the self defence forum has been plagued with two particular evils.Firstly, people touting inexperienced opinion as fact and good technique. Secondly, a propensity for some people to inflame the situation with posts containing the words "crap" "knob" and other unhelpful feedback. I've deleted a few posts thus far for simply being "you're a knob" "no im not, you are" posts. This is not what this resource is about. EVERYONE is entitled to their opinion and i encourage EVERYONE to post. HOWEVER please if you are inexperienced and/or a novice, please just state your opinion in the context of your experience and/or ask for advice, DON'T put yourself forward as being highly experienced
- inexperience is not something to be ahamed of. Secondly, if there is anymore of the juvenile name calling i'll simply lock or delete the whole thread. Sorry it's come to this but i think this policy is fot the best.

Regds
MrVigerous

If I went overboard with my criticism and negative feedback with the thread that Julius was on, I apologize. I try really hard to keep an even keel and try not to take a definitive side, trying to catch everyone's opinion. My problem in this particular case was that someone was dishing out information that if you don't know better, could get someone hurt. I don't know the demographics of the post, but was guessing not everyone was a Black Belt or have studied alot of years. Bad information I feel, begets more bad information. If someone who hasn't trained long listened to some of the idelings, and take it to a dojo, how much would it proliferate? If I went overboard I do apologize, but I also feel that the Martial Arts as a whole face numerous problems. As we can see in the posts, we all can't get along without bad mouthing one another, what happens when we are all in 1 room? People outside the arts think we are arrogant, selfish, egotistical brutes. we have to overcome our images all the time. I have been told we are cults and nothing but crude people who like to hurt others. Once again, bad information. I was recently told that when people talk about training, who they trained with, what rank they are,,, its 95% true, but it's the 5% that proliferates bad information. So and so says this, so and so says that, and bad information continues. My Sensei and Soke have asked me to try and bring people together, and cut out this 5% of bad information. That is why I am on the board, to try and get people together and show what we do is basically the same. I have gotten some personal e-mails so this is good. If I got carried away, again I apologize.
Senseilou

Well said, Mr. V. This is a valuable and interesting resource, but it can quickly and easily become just like a junior school playground if left unchecked for too long.

Like Lou, I have fairly strong opinions on most subjects and I hope I have always managed to put them across in a polite and reasonable manner. My apologies to anyone and everyone if I haven't done so.

I also think it might be valuable if we could have some idea of the experience of our fellow artists, even if only by distinguiushing black belts from non black belts, but I don't see any way of acheiving that. So, self regulation with personal integrity is the best we can hope for.

Budo

Good point Mr.V. A subject we are all guilty of from time to time.

I have a suggestion (see site suggestions), which may go some way to resolving some concerns.

Budo.

At the risk of being the sh~~-disturber, I have to say that I'd rather see the occasional "juvenile" post over censorship and over-regulation. I know MrV and the rest will use their discretion, but personally...except for a post full of obscenities and derogatory comments (which I'd rather see deleted simply because minors can get on here), I'd rather see the moronic arguments and dismiss them for myself.

Personally I think our profiles should include a "belt rank" or "years trained" category that shows as a small icon next to our names. Nothing flashy, but something to give an idea of where we're coming from at a glance. Granted, it'll be honour-based, but most of us are here to talk anyway, and aren't likely to "cheat". I'm sure we can all recognize the blatant liars anyway...the self-taught 15-year-old 10th Dans from Antarctica. :P

Regards,
CrimsonTiger

Thank you for your support of my initial post. Have absolutely no doubt that i detest flagrant censorship and will not indulge in that practice on any issue of opinion as regards this forum. The only exception being posts that are so flagrantly unhelpful and or offensive that they really serve no purpose other than to insult. Secondly, no apologies were required from any of those who offered them. Vigerous expression of opinion and defence of an arguement is what we are here for.

Regds

You know what, as terrible as this may sound...I don't even know if I would have been among those people with deleted posts. LOL! As I'm sure many of you are, I'm so busy during my day that I don't remember every post I send. (And yes, a couple of times I've looked back and said "I WROTE THAT?! Egads!...What hideous grammar!" :P)

I think we're all big boys and girls (are there any women?) here...no need for apologies, just respect.

Regards,
CrimsonTiger

Doesn't anyone care about self defense anymore? Noone's posted anything in the self defense forums except for this thread for days...