Respect, Being a Good Netizen, and Wikipedia

As martial artists we talk about respect a lot. The word is weaved into our culture. But do we weave it into our day?

In both of the Shou' Shu' salutes there is instilled the meaning of respect. In the formal salute when arms are held in a circle with the fingers touching this symbolizes "I come with mutual respect" That fact that the circle we make is big and round symbolizes that is all encompassing. We respect all. In the greeting salute it is the same. We hold our arms high to symbolize high levels of respect and again we hold them in a big circle. When a lower rank salutes a higher rank the arms should be held high to symbolize a great deal of respect but also in a large circle to symbolize that respect is mutually given. Important right?

I am writing this post because due to the lack of respect that was displayed on the the Shou' Shu' Wikipedia page it has been deleted. It is very unfortunate. It's a blow to Shou' Shu' that we no longer have a presence on Wikipedia and probably never will. Millions upon millions of people look to Wikipedia for information and having a page on our art there gives us credibility. This hurts all of us in Shou' Shu'

Many years ago I created the Shou' Shu' Wiki page. It had some very basic information as to what Shou' Shu' is and that's about it. Since then many people have edited it. Some have added to it and thereby helped out. Some have used it as a tool to disparage Shou' Shu'. Some have used it to promote their agenda (I guess in a way we all do that, It's just a matter of whether our own agenda is conflictual.) But this is how Wiki's work.

What this has turned into is called a Wiki War. Over time the wiki page contained postings of who had "official" rank and who was self promoting. Who did and didn't have "true Shou' Shu'", etc. Something that there is an obvious difference of opinion on.

For the most part I minimized my own input. When I saw things that were really bad I jumped in and edited them. I made very small edits knowing full well that the bigger my edits the bigger the negative response to them would be. One thing I did do was to continually change Da' Shifu Clarks listed rank back to his rightful rank. He's a Da' Shifu and if anyone would like the story of how I know that they may ask me personally. I felt it was a very disrespectful thing whoever kept changing his listed rank to 7th and I felt obliged to change it back.

But the edits eventually changed the page from an information page to a page for self promotion and that's why it was deleted. A Wikipedia official found the page and marked it for deletion because it promoted a club of no stated importance. I agree with his decision because that's exactly what the page turned into. It is just very unfortunate.

And this brings me to my point. It's really best that everyone acts on the web the same way they would in person. If you believe that respect is important then it should be important in your web world also. If you believe that mutual respect is important then it is important online also.

The web has changed in many fundamental ways. It's a fast evolving space. One of those fundamental ways is dwindling levels of anonymity. A lot of people haven't noticed this and still act like it is the old web. It is not.

For example, one of the genius yet simple aspects behind Facebook is that anonymity is against the TOS. Sure people still do it, but for the most part there is a real person behind that name on Facebook. On www.shoushu.org we also require recognizable names. Some people haven't caught on yet but it is gently enforced.

Even less noticed is the fact that it has become increasingly easy to identify someone online even if they try to hide their identity.

There was one individual who spent a great deal of time, effort, and according to him, money, discrediting Shou' Shu'. For years he posted his "research" on bulletin boards,etc. he became bolder and bolder over the years and really upset a lot of people. He claimed altruistic reasons. He was "protecting the public from Shou' Shu'". About a year and a half ago I finally found his true identity through a little simple sleuth work. Turned out he was a Kempo guy in Stockton. A business competitor. Altruistic, yeah, sure. I posted his name and address online and he disappeared (at least his online presence).

You are not anonymous online peeps. Don't act like it.

Another example of easy sleuth work.

I can name with a high degree of certainty the person who was responsible for writing most of the additional wiki content.

Here's how

IP address mapped to his location
IP of new posts changed to his new location when he moved
Username , I remember the username from the past.
Language used in edits is very well thought out and elegant. It matches the style used on his blog. Common words and phrases.

100% certain? no. Pretty sure. Yeah.

There are many easy ways to track someone online beyond these.

As the web grows it becomes easier and easier to figure out who is saying what. Being polite is just the way you should be anyway but if your not don't believe your posting from behind a veil of secrecy.

I make it a point to give my name AND my location when posting. Hopefully it encourages others to do the same. Hopefully it encourages more diplomacy.

I run across bad mouthing about myself and Shou' Shu' all the time. A cordial response is what I try for when I do respond. Whether that bad mouthing comes from other Shou' Shu' people or other arts it's all bad for the art. I would encourage you when you see this to try to act as an ambassador of Shou' Shu'.

For example I sent this email today to someone who was bashing Shou' Shu' pretty hard.

"Hello Sensei Scandal,

I am a long time practitioner of Shou' Shu'.
It has been popular to bash Shou' Shu' on the internet and this is understandable. There is very little record of it in the history books.

One thing that many people don't take into account is that history is often written by those in power at the time. For this reason historical accounts can sometimes be incorrect.

It is also my belief that there are many mainstream martial arts, some with a great deal of street cred, that if a person just inspected them with an unbiased eye, they would be very suspect. I've seen a number of very highly "credible" arts that just don't make sense.

My own personal test is "Would this really work on the battlefield?"

So I tend to look at martial arts in this way to establish credibility rather than history.

I am traveling across country this coming week. Where are you? It's possible that I may be near enough to your town to make a stop and we can meet. I find that discussions of this sort are only effective in person.

Regards

Phil Weaver"

I encourage you to do the same. Let's all be ambassadors of Shou' Shu' and give this art the respect it deserves.