New Forums

Hi everyone,

I just started up several new forums here in the AikiWeb Forums on an experimental basis.

The first is the "Voices of Experience" forum which is open for posting for people with at least twenty years of active aikido experience. The forum is viewable by all, but you'll need to fill out a form if you wish to get permission to post in it. You'll find more information in the forum's charter located here.

Also, I just opened up a handful of forums specifically designed for people who wish to discuss aikido in a language other than English. I have tentatively opened up forums for the German, Spanish, French, Japanese, and Portuguese languages. You'll find them at the bottom of the main forum page or you can follow this link to get to them.

I'm hoping these experimental forums will enrich the already fertile enviroment for discussions that we have here already. Please feel free to let me know if you have any feedback, suggestions, or thoughts!

-- Jun

Jun,

The "Voices of Experience" forum sounds like a great idea; a relatively chatter-free environment may encourage some very experienced aikidoka to de-lurk. I hope it builds critical mass soon.

BTW, my thanks for your continued good work and energy in maintaining Aikiweb.

Regards,

Jun,

The "voices of experience" forum is an excellent idea and it will be interesting for all of us to see. Are you going to float some topics out there for the VOE to get started on? do you have any idea what percentage of your readership/participants have that much ACTIVE experience (I've got 20 plus, but two were inactive, so I've got to wait another year plus)?

Thanks for the great job you've been doing with this website!

Rachel

Rachel Massey (rachmass) wrote: Are you going to float some topics out there for the VOE to get started on?

One idea I had was that I could "moderate" the forum for questions people may have of these people with experience.

Any thoughts, oh those of you already with access to the "Voices of Experience" forum?

do you have any idea what percentage of your readership/participants have that much ACTIVE experience (I've got 20 plus, but two were inactive, so I've got to wait another year plus)?

I don't think it's a very high percentage, but I sure hope it'll go up!

There's only a handful of people who have access to the "Voices of Experience" forum currently. I personally have quite a while to go before I can post there!

Thanks for the great job you've been doing with this website!

You're very welcome! Without everyone's contributions and open communication in the spirit of sharing, the website wouldn't be the place it is.

-- Jun

Also, please feel free to let others know about the new "Voices of Experience" forum as well as the new foreign language forums. The more, the merrier!

-- Jun

Thanks so much for the foreign languages forums and all the work you put into the website, Jun.

Is Kami "in charge" of these forums or something like that?

Tom Grana (IrimiTom) wrote: Thanks so much for the foreign languages forums and all the work you put into the website, Jun.

You're welcome!

Is Kami "in charge" of these forums or something like that?

No, Ubaldo is just another one of the prolific polyglots here.

I may have to try brushing off my Spanish and German myself, huh?

-- Jun

Hi everyone,

In hopes of helping people read some of the foreign language posts (as well as help translate English posts to various languages), I put in a "translation" feature at the bottom of every thread.

You should now see a "Translate from" drop-down box near the bottom right side of the page when you're looking at a thread.

It may not provide the best translations and puts the page into an ugly frame, but, hey -- it's free...

-- Jun

Jun Akiyama (akiy) wrote: You should now see a "Translate from" drop-down box near the bottom right side of the page when you're looking at a thread.

Following up here, I just put the same "Translate from" drop-down box at the bottom of pretty much all of the static pages (articles, interviews, book/video reviews and such) here on AikiWeb.

Hopefully, this will enable non-English speaking folks who are interested to read a rough machine-translation of what's here on AikiWeb.

I have to admit, though -- some of the translations are pretty darned weird!

-- Jun

Jun,

This forum leaves a strange taste in my mouth: a forum where senior people can talk to each other and others can only read what they say. If they want to communicate with each other this way, fine. Keep it private and don't let others in on their conversations.

A bit elitist for aikido, is'nt it?

Jim23

Hi Jim,

I hear what you're saying, and I've had the same kind of thought myself.

However, I've received feedback over the years from people who participated in (or tried to, in any case) different kinds of aikido communication venues. One piece of feedback that I received was that some folks wished there was a way to communicate with other "experienced" people. I wanted to create that venue but still keep it "public" in the sense that the general public could read what they were writing.

There's nothing preventing anyone, of course, from starting up the same kind of thread in the other forums and inviting the experienced folks into it.

As I said, the "Voices of Experience" forum is something experimental. I'd like to see where it goes before I label it as anything.

Thanks for the thoughts, in any case. Anyone else?

-- Jun

Hello Jun

Glad you enjoy the Camp. I *really* wish I was there . It sounded like lots of fun. Oh well maybe next time.

I like the idea of the New forum. From what I've read there's nothing stopping others from discussing the posts.

Perhaps others (with less experience) on this forum could put requests to those on the New Forum for discussion. Kind of like a question to the panel of experts. You as the moderator could vet these questions. Just a thought.

Btw..great job with the website. Thanks

One of the reasons this is a great forum is the frequent contributions by Ledyard, Clark, Goldsbury, et al, and it makes sense to condense that knowledge. I'll be an avid reader of the new forum, but I wonder if it would be less 'elitist' if it functioned more like the polls and articles forum. What if there was a link at the end of a VOE thread to a separate forum where all the aikido-obsessed and bored-at-work 5th and 6th kyu like myself, who are long on opinions and shortish on knowledge, could discuss the VOE thread amongst our ignorant selves?

This would make the VOE thread function a little more like school. It's more complicated, though, and that's rarely a good thing.

Whatever, that's my $.02. Thanks for aikiweb, Jun. May I never get work done at my desk again!

Deb

When the elitists take control, all dissenting voices will be crushed by those with the biggest tire around their waist! Long live the new world order!!!

P.S. Look before you leap.

Mike,

I think you have a good point. That's why its good that the VOE forum requires a specific choice before you click to enter it. If you don't like the idea, you have the choice to not enter. Problem solved.

This is an art that takes a really long time to learn; dojo function as meritocracies, they aren't democratic. Of course they are - we are all there to learn.

I feel like I have plenty of rope on aikiweb already - as a 5th kyu I can expound like crazy on a multitude of topics and use the knowledge that I do have - this is part of learning.

So is listening. I think there is a place for listening to people who have done it longer on this forum.

... or it could just be part of an aikido plot - the VOE forum could take over the world! Whoahahahahahhahaha!

Deb

Hi Mike,

I agree with what Chuck said and would also like to point out that there are 22 other forums here in which everyone (including one for anonymous postings) can post. There's nothing stopping people from starting the same topic thread on another forum and there's nothing stopping the folks participating in the Voices of Experience forum from participating in the other 22 forums.

As I have mentioned before, The Voices of Experience forum is an experiment. Let's see how it goes for a while before declaring it a "new world order," huh?

-- Jun

The VOE forum is a great idea. I'm really looking forward to learning a lot from those eligible to post. I am very lucky to be part of a Dojo that has a lot of people in it with over twenty years experience, when they talk I listen, I don't have to agree with what is said but I do listen.

Have fun.

Hi Jim,

Do you ask questions too?

Personally, I don't like it.

Let's see, we listen to the senior people (just a handful) discuss various topics, then we can either discuss their views in another thread (sort of behind their back) or start a new one and maybe they'll respond (again, sort of behind their back).

And the comment about not entering the forum if you don't like it ... right.

Although I have no problem with the content of the forum - interesting reading so far - I think it reeks of ego which supposedly has no place in aikido.

I seem to be alone on this one, but that's my opinion. Only time will tell.

Jim23

Hi Jim. Yes I do ask questions, mostly of myself. However, the VOE forum is not open to me as a poster. I will keep an open mind and also I will probably post on any other discussion regarding their forum. I hardly think a side discussion thread is "behind their back" as it's on the same server and is available to the members of VOE!!.

Have fun.

Let them pump up their egos and their spare tires while we pump up our training.

Mike, surely you're not suggesting that they don't train?

Have fun.

So let me get this straight Mike. Chuck, Chris and whoever else gets to be in VOE got togeather and offered various assorted inducements for Jun to come up with an idea which by its very nature excluded him. Yeah right.

And what was that idea? For some people to discuss issues that might be of interest to a wider group but free of the chatter delivered by the rest of us plebes. Face it there is an awful lot of that.

What burned your toast - did you try to get into the group and fail. For infos sake how often do YOU train. Why do I get the distince feeling its a lot less than those you are attacking.

Refer to my previous post on making assumptions.

Mike Lee (mike lee) wrote: Refer to my previous post on making assumptions.

You seem to be making some pretty broad assumptions yourself.

Let them pump up their egos and their spare tires while we pump up our training.