A Suggestion to Help Clear Up Misunderstandings

[shaolin_mike]

Hello everyone,

the recent discussions with Wu Jing got me thinking about how every so often we have someone on the forum who practices another style or martial art and sometimes the situation ends up less than amicable. There are various factors involved but I think one of them is a misunderstanding of the purpose of this forum.

We Shaolin Wahnam members and forum regulars come here to give and receive knowledge about the Shaolin arts, and also to stay in contact with each other. We also can learn about other arts in this forum and have discussions with practitioners of other arts but the main focus is to uphold the Shaolin teaching. Others might come here and think this is a forum like any other where they can discuss and intellectualise or even correct our training methods.

This is (one possible reason for) the problem, now to think of ways to avoid similar incidents that might cause bad feeling between our school and other schools in the future. Like Sigung Ho Fatt Nam said "Make friends not enemies" if I remember correctly.

One idea I had was to make a thread with a title to the effect of 'What we expect from guests', which we can refer guests to. It could even be a sticky to make sure it gets read. In this thread instructors can write down explicitly the behaviour they expect from guests. Some examples:

• We respect people's opinion but if they wish to be taken seriously on this forum we expect them to write under their name and to provide either a photo or video of them training.

or

• Please spend some time on your presentation when writing in this forum as if you were writing a letter. Sloppily written posts will most likely be taken as a sign of disrespect.

These were just some of the thoughts I had, and I felt it might be useful to share them. I would now like to open this discussion up to everyone to see what you think.

Peace to all
Mike

[Charles David]

Mike,

Thanks for sharing your very good ideas. I like your thinking.

Still,


Chas.

[Chiahua]

Another possibility is to allow people to "vote" or rate people's posts, similar to Slashdot or Digg. This "buries" posts.

The disadvantage of this is that you lose some discussion opportunities, though it helps to keep things focused.

[shaolin_mike]

To Charles, thanks

To Chiahua, that is a practical idea but like you said we will lose or bury posts and that will modify how threads develop. Besides it is hiding the problem not directly addressing it in my opinion.

[Chiahua]

There could be lots of things done with the rating system--what I described is practical for slashdot or digg where posts that are off topic or irrelevant are hidden. For the purposes of keeping a thread on topic, hiding might be practical. However, you can choose to still show posts that might be construed as trolling.

[Andrew R]

Mike,

You make an interesting point about people not understanding the purpose of the forum. But, I'm not sure certain people would really care, because they're simply looking to please themselves. They don't come genuinely looking to contribute, they only want to take, and the seniors who handle things see this and act accordingly.

Anyone who visits the forum occasionally has seen at least one example of someone who comes here simply trying to make a name for themselves, as if to prove themselves to be better than anyone here. This generally leads to a less-than-optimal situation.

But, there are also people who genuinely come looking for a positive experience. A good example of this, as described in Sigung's latest Q&A, is Matt, someone who frequents the forum. He had practiced martial arts for a long time before finding Shaolin Wahnam, but when he did find it and the forum he didn't let his ego keep him from possibly learning something, and now he's enjoying the benefits of that openness. He gives positive contributions to the forum and the school instead of riding in on a golden chariot looking for people to build him a throne. People like Matt let us see that things are just dandy, even if sometimes discussions get stirred up a bit.

Toodles,
Andrew