Patrick

This was announced early this month, but the sixth season of Cobra Kai will be released in 3 parts. July 18, November 28, and a finale in 2025. I'm ready.

The new KarateForums.com is now open for member testing! Thanks again to DarthPenguin and Zaine for volunteering. If anyone else would like to join them, please let me know! I'll keep it open for now, and will provide some advance notice here when we close to new folks. Thanks, Patrick

I will be opening up testing tomorrow. At that time, I will send you private messages with the details, DarthPenguin and Zaine, and invite you to a private forum to share feedback. If anyone else would also like to join, there is definitely still time - just let me know. Thanks!

Will do, DarthPenguin! Thank you for your kindness and your help, too, Noah and Brian. It means a lot. Everyone - it's definitely not too late if you'd like to be a part of the group who tests. If you're interested, just drop a reply here or send me a PM. As mentioned, I am expecting to let folks in toward the end of this week, but the invite will remain open for a while after that. I'll continue to update the thread here as that process moves forward. Thanks again, Patrick

Thanks.

Thanks so much, KarateKen, Montana, DarthPenguin, Zaine, and Bob, and for being a part of what has made this community enjoyable for so many. DarthPenguin and Zaine - I appreciate your interest in testing. I'll be in touch, probably toward the end of next week. I look forward to it. Thanks, Patrick

I'm a Rangers fan.

Hey all, Today is a big day. Not just because KarateForums.com is now 23 years old. Although yes, that is a big milestone, and I'm grateful for everyone who has contributed to the community over the years. I'd like to give a special mention to our biggest contributors over the past 12 months: KarateKen, bushido_man96, DarthPenguin, sensei8, aurik, Zaine, Fat Cobra, Montana, Wastelander, Spartacus Maximus, Nidan Melbourne, ashworth, Luther unleashed, ryanryu, Drew, Wayofaswede, opr1945, JazzKicker, Himokiri Karate, Wado Heretic, and Revario. Thank you for making KarateForums.com a part of your day. In honor of this milestone, I have some big news. After several years of work and mentioning it at various stages, we are now close to migrating KarateForums.com to new, current generation forum software. If you have a great memory, you might recall that I teased it when KarateForums.com turned 20, a full 3 years ago. Job switches, moves across the country, getting married, and having a son all pushed this back. But we are now finally here. And I'd love for your help in testing. I don't want this post to be 2,000 words, but it is hard for me to succinctly sum up the work it has taken to get to this point. It has had a substantial time and financial cost. Beyond a lot of my own time, I have also brought in a programmer friend of mine to help who, while paid, isn't charging anywhere near his actual hourly rate. And part of the overall effort included the forum reorganization in 2020, where our staff did a lot to reshuffle the deck to present our community activity in the best possible way. What the New KarateForums.com Represents The new site will have all sorts of enhancements. I wouldn't describe them as big new features. Mainly, they are focused at making the site easier to use and modernizing it. Among them: - A responsive, mobile-friendly website. - Robust, customizable notifications and the ability to tag members. - Making it easier to follow conversations. - Reactions (not simple likes, but ways to express respect, gratitude, and support without making a short reply). - Links to sites like YouTube will automatically embed the linked video within the forum. And so on. But I think it's important to highlight the 4 key most important things about this move, and why it isn't something I'm doing for fun, but out of actual need: 1. Preserving the future of KarateForums.com. If you're an engineer or software developer, I don't have to tell you that running old software is risky. Each day, we move closer to a reality where something here simply breaks - and that's it. I don't want that to happen. I've run this community since pre-launch to now, 23 years old. I don't have any plans to stop, but if I do, I want it to be able to continue without me. This move helps to make that possible. 2. Migrate all posts and profiles. It may not seem like much, but making a move like this without losing a single post or any profile data - especially passwords - is very hard. It's taken a lot of work and consulting with not only the developer of our new platform, but with others. It was always my goal that we don't lose anything and that people be able to login using their existing passwords. That last piece was the trickiest, but we got there. And we aren't just migrating the conversations - they look amazing, with BBCode and formatting preserved. Not jumbled garbage. It took a lot of fine tuning and not simply settling for "well, that's close enough." Which is mainly a credit to my programmer friend. 3. Fix the problems. As you may know, features here are slowly breaking. Avatars have been broken for years now, and the use of curly quotes causes posts to be rendered blank. There are other issues, too. This is a result of the outdated software. All of these are fixed on the new site. 4. Stay familiar. I don't want too jarring a change. When you see the new site, it will look different, but it won't be a completely new experience. The overarching point here is simple: Although the site will have so many random new features, the emphasis has been on keeping things familiar and ultimately saving this community to live another day. It's not been on trying to reinvent it or trying to look like Facebook or Reddit or any of that. Help Test! As we work through the final tweaks, I would love to have you test and offer your feedback. If you would like to do so, please reply here or send me a private message. Please note: I am requiring that you have at least 10 forum posts at the time I post this message, in order to test. You aren't able to send private messages until you have 25 posts, so if you have 10-24, you'll have to reply here. At some point over the next 2 weeks, I'll create a private forum, add all testers to it, give you some steps to test, and ask for any other feedback, and then we'll go over all of it together. I don't think of it as a massive time commitment, but it will take at least 20 minutes probably, and I'd love to have you. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and Happy 23rd Birthday to KarateForums.com. Patrick

Congrats Ken.

Thanks for the rec!

I am very slowly working my way through this compilation of Edgar Allen Poe stories referenced in the Netflix show, The Fall of the House of Usher. I watched the show. Specifically, I am currently reading The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

My bracket is: Stars, Avalanche, Canucks, Kings, Panthers, Bruins, Rangers, and Hurricanes. Then Stars, Kings, Panthers, and Rangers. Then Stars and Rangers. And finally, Rangers. Here's to hoping.

Hope you had a great day, Noah. Patrick

I find the whole "parents will pay for kids where they won't pay for themselves" thought that Montana and Noah shared to be really interesting framing. I hadn't thought of it that way but as a relatively new parent (less than 2 years), I can definitely see that coming true. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks all. Yes, this was our April Fools' Day 2024 prank. A follow up: https://www.karateforums.com/april-fools-no-casual-fridays-vt55821.html Patrick

Hey all, As you may have guessed, our April Fools' Day joke this year was Casual Fridays, where we would ban all martial arts discussion on Fridays and only allow off-topic conversation. I do not actually believe we bond more strongly in off-topic conversations than in martial arts ones. They're both great, and I wouldn't want to have one without the other! The guideline change, while actually in effect, will not be given the chance to be applied as it has been rescinded. I hope you had a great April 1! Thank you for being a part of KarateForums.com. Patrick

Edit: This was our 2024 April Fools' Day joke. Hey all, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. Martial arts are great and all, but we do our best bonding when we aren't talking about them. As such, I'm happy to introduce a new policy here at KarateForums.com: Casual Fridays. Every Friday, martial arts discussion will be banned from our forums. All of the forums related to the martial arts will be closed, and only the General Chat, Introduce Yourself, and KarateForums.com Announcements forums will be left open. This will be for the Eastern time zone (or UTC/GMT -5). The martial arts-related forums will close promptly at midnight, and reopen on the following midnight. This includes an update to our User Guidelines, which reads as such: Thank you for your attention! Patrick

Hey all, Today marks 10 years that Noah (Wastelander) has been a moderator on KarateForums.com. It was just over a year ago that we were celebrating his 10 years on staff. In case that is confusing at all, you can be on our team without being a moderator. So, that was 10 years on staff, and this is 10 years as a moderator. As I said then, it has been a joy to watch Noah grow from a young martial artist to an MMA fighter, an instructor, a school owner, and more. It's been a delight to see him grow as a man and to attend his wedding. Noah participates in KarateForums.com in a way that sets a standard for others. Knowledgeable, but not forceful with that knowledge. A person with ideas, who is also open to ideas. And, of course, kind and welcoming. Thank you, Noah, for being a thoughtful contributor to both our community and our team. Your dedicated approach to moderation and the careful way that you think through the decisions that you make is something that is both noticed by me and appreciated by our community. I have been fortunate to have multiple moderators reach 10 years and what has become tradition, as a token of our appreciation, is to send them and their family out for a great dinner. I've spoken with Noah's wife, Stephanie, and have a place in mind, but I will send Noah a private message after I post this, just to arrange those details. I hope that you'll join me in congratulating Noah on this mark. Thank you for reading. Patrick

Congrats Ken.

Thanks for sharing, all! My wife and I collect in this area, too, just kind of randomly and when we bump into a store. Are you into anything in particular? Yes, we connect Funkos, too! We love down the street from Funko Hollywood. If you ever make it here, I'd be happy to go with you! Fair point on hoarding, haha, but good call out here! I have kept most of my tickets. Though it's harder these days because it's all digital so often.

Hey all, I had posted this thread about sports cards a while back, but I wanted to open it up a bit beyond that and ask: What do you collect? I have sort of honed in recently on Yankees game used jersey cards. They are widely available, are often cheap, and I think I want to make some display out of them. I also collect a lot of Ghostbusters stuff. Patrick

Interesting! I haven't played the games, either, but have seen billboards for it up around Hollywood. Will make a note of the recommendation.

I'm so happy to hear that, Himokiri Karate. Don't feel bad. You responded to the second time. Patrick

Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community. Our honoree for January is... Himokiri Karate for the third time! August 13 will mark your 15th year here at KarateForums.com, Himokiri Karate. Thank you for all of your contributions over the years. Thanks, Patrick

Found some discussions here! https://www.karateforums.com/you-can-now-get-a-b-a-degree-in-ma-in-the-usa-vt30350.html https://www.karateforums.com/degree-in-martial-arts-studies-vt49316.html