What can we do to get new members?

[kingoftheforest]

Which is interesting, because the thread was civil and largely constructive before your involvement. It has since been steered in the same direction both you and TT take the vast majority of discussions you contribute to....which is moany, stroppy, defensive and antagonistic.

I've said this before, so let me say it again - I don't know why either of you bother being here. You never have anything positive to say, its all about what everyone else says that is wrong, or boarspear being banned, or people bitching about CMA, or sport guys who don't know what they are talking about, or Mike B and his visine, or jubs, or.....well, pretty much everything.

If you don't like defend.net, which you clearly don't, then why don't you go somewhere else. Because I would class both of you as one of the reasons why some people don't bother posting here.

......sigh

Nothing I say could prove my point better than this very thread.

Which is interesting, because the thread was civil and largely constructive before your involvement. It has since been steered in the same direction both you and TT take the vast majority of discussions you contribute to....which is moany, stroppy, defensive and antagonistic.

I've said this before, so let me say it again - I don't know why either of you bother being here. You never have anything positive to say, its all about what everyone else says that is wrong, or boarspear being banned, or people bitching about CMA, or sport guys who don't know what they are talking about, or Mike B and his visine, or jubs, or.....well, pretty much everything.

If you don't like defend.net, which you clearly don't, then why don't you go somewhere else. Because I would class both of you as one of the reasons why some people don't bother posting here.

[TTEscrima]

I will point out that the troubles in the CMA area aren't necessarily with sport MMA, I see there is currently a flame war over lineage, which pops up every time someone comes in and tries to speak of a style or a particular system or instructor.

I have seen quite a bit of belittling people and their instructors and styles in that particular forum.

Well, when people claim to have 267 year old teachers, or the ability to KO people without touching them, or to to be able to move the opponent with their mind, someone should step in a point out the Woo has gone too far, especially if it's in a style they teach or train in currently. If you claim to teach a traditional Martial art then your lineage is traceable, it tells people what lessons you were taught, which types of attacks your particular school emphasizes, as well as what weapons and doctrines you are familiar with. If you claim a lineage you should be able to discuss it's intricacies with others who share the linage and style, that's the whole point to claiming a lineage in the first place, if you can't discuss your lineage you probably shouldn't claim it.

EVERY CMA topic does not turn into a flame war BTW, that's a BS cop out. I can think of two lineage discussions that were hostile, Painter's and that of the "most legitimate Tai Chi teacher in the world" claim that was dis-proven to the point the poser went back and changed his story.

[kingoftheforest]

Nothing I say could prove my point better than this very thread.

Good day.

[TTEscrima]

Ding-Ding... Back to your corners gentlemen! LOL

Idea thread, remember?

Actually you couldn't have asked for a better example of why the post count is where it's at. No one want's to be attacked every time they post, if the forum let people discuss their arts without constant peanut gallery harassment people might be willing to put themselves out there and post. There were several members who had the entire forum marked out as theirs and they pissed on all discussion in topics they didn't approve of to insure those topics died from lack of participation, some of the higher profile offenders are gone but some are still around. If Sports minded people want to discuss sports there are forums for that, if people want to discuss Urban or TMA's there are forums for that too, yet all those are patrolled by MMA people with attitudes and agenda's. It doesn't take a genius to see that this limits the forums participation to MMA fans because anyone else is volunteering to enter a war zone where all TMA discussion or Urban SD is turned into MMA is better, most people aren't going to put up with that, hence you have nearly no one posting in those forums anymore.

[jubaji]

Funny how some folks seem to think that limiting discussion is just the thing to stimulate more discussion. Just the same prickly children who want nothing more than to be isolated from anything that doesn't soothe and affirm their tender little sensibilities.

[kingoftheforest]

I think maybe you're starting in the wrong place with trying to attract new members. Maybe you should think of ideas that will get current members to participate more.

Hence I refer you back to post #12 in this thread.

People won't exchange new ideas when they know


A. Some one is going to belittle their view on certain MA's by other member who have little to no experience in them.

B. People off track the topic by discussing things that have nothing to do with it because it's not the art they practice or they feel it some how threatens their personal doctrine about what MA's should be.

[Tant01]

Ding-Ding... Back to your corners gentlemen! LOL

Idea thread, remember?

[kingoftheforest]

Prime example

i was trying to have a discussion with you about body mechanics. Which you didnt want to have. BUt oh well. You were the one that was run off this forum for ages because of your total lack of understanding of boxing, which was hilarious because you were/are so far off the mark and so totally dont have a clue that its laughable.
That made a lot of people on here angry though and you had to leave for a while didnt you.
do you remember? Or do i have to find a link to post for you.

Its you that his the issue with MMA and so on. You see things as an attack when its simply a discussion then you link up crap that you dont understand. I can link your posts for you if you like, its all on here.

I have never been made to leave this forum at any point. I have chosen to not post on it.

And this post is exactly what I mean. All I had to do was say CMA or combatives and the very next poster comes in and drives a thread about getting new posters off topic at the same time s talking about MMA and boxing because somebody said CMA.

As for my explanation being laughable...that's your opinion and doesn't jive with numerous other martial arts schools. Many top level instructors agree holey with my explanations. You just have to stop fooling yourself.

And my explanations are based on the classics of the CMA's not on a ring sport. My thread Basics of CMA's is a prime example of practitioners attempting to discuss non-MMA or ring sport principles, only to be repeatedly and rudely interrupted by some one attempting to bring ring sport principles into a CMA discussion.

You wanna discuss boxing principles, there is a whole forum for that. Post in there it'll be the first one in a while.

[Ghost]

i was trying to have a discussion with you about body mechanics. Which you didnt want to have. BUt oh well. You were the one that was run off this forum for ages because of your total lack of understanding of boxing, which was hilarious because you were/are so far off the mark and so totally dont have a clue that its laughable.
That made a lot of people on here angry though and you had to leave for a while didnt you.
do you remember? Or do i have to find a link to post for you.

Its you that his the issue with MMA and so on. You see things as an attack when its simply a discussion then you link up crap that you dont understand. I can link your posts for you if you like, its all on here.

[kingoftheforest]

Make it more friendly to non-nuthuggers

Maybe if people could get a good conversation going in the non MMA/BJJ forums on here without some one coming in and talking about their sport art in other forums.

The CMA people and combatives people don't come here a lot because every time they talk some one from a sport art comes in and begins a fight about how CMA/combatives is crap.

I think that uneven censorship is the problem here.

Since we're not getting ban for ideas I thought I'd throw that out there.

I know the group I'm with has tried to get those forums going, I've been on this forum a while and I've seen some worthless shits kill some worthwhile stuff.

And recently I've seen some worthless shits throw out as well.

Unfortunately before they were tossed they wreaked havoc on the readership here.

[Ghost]

Not true, there are private forums and pay to participate Martial art and gear forums.

yes thats true but most forums on the net are free, at least the vast majority are.

[TTEscrima]

but all forums are free, this forum used to be really busy, it was like THE forum for martial arts.

Not true, there are private forums and pay to participate Martial art and gear forums.

Just a couple of points from me:

I don't think this forum is heavily censored at all, in fact the opposite is true. I lurk on a few other forums and they are so sanitised that if your point of view doesn't match with the powers that be, you're not even allowed to express it. Most of them are just big love fests between the people who set them up, its mostly for self-promotion. On here I see heated debate all the time, between the regulars and also with regulars and new members. Some of it crosses the line over into personal abuse, but we're adults and we can handle that, I think the mods do a great job in knowing when to stand back and when to step in.

The boards have been dry for quite some time. The problem is, and its not exclusive to this forum, all of the key topics have gone through the discussion cycle many times already. When new members join the forum, they typically want to discuss topics that the regular guys have seen ten times over, and its often met with boredom and indifference. Sometimes, rather than the regular guys jumping on a topic and killing it, maybe we should stand back and give it room to breathe, allow other new members to comment. If all the lurkers see is the same old names saying the same old things, and jumping on the topics of new members, they won't feel encouraged to join in.

From looking at Google Analytics and a few other programs, this is definitely one of the most, if not the most, prominent martial arts discussion forum on the web. We always tend to come up first in natural search on discussion topics, and the volume of people viewing the site at any time is as high as any forum I have seen. So the profile and the audience are definitely there, I think maybe we need to get better at prompting discussions that will attract people in, but also not killing discussions because of our own personal preferences.

[Ghost]

but all forums are free, this forum used to be really busy, it was like THE forum for martial arts.

IMO i think the open access/general sections is what makes a forum. and ours is too stuffy.

not enough light hearted stuff and not enough general topics, too much politics.
Usually the general/open access bits are like where you have your chats with people, well it is on every other forum ive used but here its more of a debating society.