Patrick

Glad that you all found these numbers interesting. Did anyone notice any interesting names near the bottom of the list? Haha. I apparently allowed people to nominate me in the very first year of the awards (I didn't win in the category I was nominated in). I had totally forget about that; it was so long ago.

Hey all, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. The 14th annual KarateForums.com Awards will open to nominations next week and so I thought it would be fun to take a look at the history of the awards, by the numbers tied to nominations. Previously, our awards page has listed how many times each person has won an award. Winning is awesome, but I also think that being nominated is really special, too, because it means that someone took the name to put your name forward. Without the nominations, there are no votes. 128 unique members have received 340 nominations for 89 different awards, which have been won 101 times (it is more than 89 due to ties). 1,523 total votes have been cast. I was curious to see how many times each member had been nominated, so I went back and counted all of the nominee lists. These numbers reflect the number of times a member appeared as a nominee in a category. If the member was nominated more than once where that is allowed - for example, more than one article by that person nominated for Article of the Year - then each nomination is counted. The number of times this occurred is noted in parentheses after the username. If your name is on this list, that means someone else took the time to nominate you. I think that is pretty great. Just 128 different members have been nominated. When you consider how many active members our community has had over the years, that is a really small number. Of course, Brian (bushido_man96)'s total of 31 nominations in 30 unique categories is staggering. That really speaks to how the community has valued his contributions over the years, just like it speaks well of everyone who has received multiple nominations. Given that Bob (sensei8) is tied with Brian for the most award wins (13), I was surprised to see that he was fourth in nominations with 17. That's incredible. I hope you find these stats interesting, and I look forward to see how everyone nominates in the 2015 edition of the KarateForums.com Awards. Thanks, Patrick

Thank you for your kind words, Kanku65. It means a lot. I appreciate that you are a part of what makes it true. Patrick

Hello and welcome, Lugh.

Thank you for sharing this with us, Shawn! 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. The October selection is... Kanku65. Congratulations! Thank you for the great contributions that you have made to our community. Sincerely, Patrick

Congrats Doire. Patrick

Welcome Maybetrue. Patrick

Cowboys up 28-25 as I write... which is good, since I picked them. The Dolphin defense has been really disappointing to me, so far. Our defensive line was supposed to be one of the league's best, and they just haven't dominated the line. Hopefully that's just a temporary thing.

Bryant has had an awesome season! Congrats. The Cubs have already clinched their wild card spot and will be playing against the Pirates (most likely in Pittsburgh) in the one game playoff. If you make it, you never know what could happen. Exciting times. Definitely excited that the Yankees will probably be back in the playoffs. Even though we've been really fortunate since the mid-90s, I always tried not to take playoff baseball for granted. Being out of it these last two years has stunk. (I realize that sounds ridiculous if your team hasn't seen the playoffs for many years). Unless a collapse occurs, the only playoff spot still seriously in play is the second wild card slot in the American League. Astros, Angels or maybe Twins.

Hey Paul. Welcome.

Here's a clip from the film:

Looks good!

Haha. Nice one, Bulltahr. Patrick

Congrats on the launch, Luther unleashed! Good luck with it. Patrick

Great speech, Bob! To be a great member here, I believe you have to be willing to listen and willing to share. If that means you have a big mouth, so be it. But I wouldn't describe it that way. The Pred, JR 137, Bulltahr, Kanku65, mazzybear, Titanium, Heidi, hammer, chiliphil1 and Alex - really enjoyed reading your replies and sharing your thoughts. Patrick

Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. Our community has been around for a long time: 14 years, 3 months, 2 weeks and 5 days, to be exact. During that span, 9,340 members have made 528,244 posts. Until today, only 2 had made 10,000 posts or more. sensei8 (Bob) has become the third. Bob is very popular in our community. It starts with a willingness to help people. His 50+ years in the martial arts have afforded him with a lot of experience, which he readily shares with others. It's fair to say that his contributions here have helped thousands of people. That's a huge mark. That long history of study has earned him many interesting stories that members enjoy reading. His continual prompts, encouraging other members to share their stories, have led to countless people opening up and allowing us to get to know them better. This trait probably gets overlooked, but it's so valuable to our community. It brings new people into the fold and helps them feel more comfortable. The list of members, who can say that Bob made them feel more comfortable here, is not a small one. For many of them, Bob was the first person they ever talked to at KF. That's a big deal. I believe that the respect that members have for Bob is furthered by his openness and willingness to grow, through our forums and elsewhere. The flexibility to learn and to change perspectives, even with a long history in the arts, is something that makes him someone who is not just respected, but approachable. Bob has been a member of our community for 7 and a half years, a staff member for almost 4 years and has racked up a record (tied with Brian/bushido_man96) 13 KarateForums.com Awards, including 3 consecutive Member of the Year honors, until he lost eligibility due to becoming a staff member (though that was followed by 2 consecutive Staff Member of the Year awards). This is a fair representation of how the community feels about him. For those who would like to know more about Bob, check out the interview he did for our 500,000 posts celebration. Bob, I'd like to thank you for the amazing, awe-inspiring contributions that you have made to KarateForums.com. Thank you for your efforts as a member of staff. Thank you for making so many feel welcome here. I am grateful for all of your support over the years. (And thank you to Brian for introducing our community to Bob). Please join me in congratulating Bob, and I'd love to hear any Bob-related stories and/or how Bob's posts here have impacted you. Thank you for reading. Congrats Bob! Sincerely, Patrick

This is Noah's blog: http://www.karateobsession.com/

The second video is marked as private, but the first one looks fine. Thanks for posting them.

Thanks for sharing, Nidan Melbourne. Patrick

Is it time to resurrect this sucker?

That image is meant to divide people. I question the intentions of whoever created it. They could have been trying to troll people (provoke a negative, emotional responsible). They could have wanted to boost their Facebook engagement numbers by generating a lot of likes/comments/shares. They could have been a traditional martial artist wanting to rally people against MMA. They could have been a mixed martial artist who wants to rally people against traditional arts ("look at how they portray us!"). No matter what they were trying to do, their intent wasn't noble. When it comes to the martial arts, I have no bias. I don't practice them, and I've made no secret of that. I just like connecting people. When I launched these forums 14+ years ago, I had no preconceived notions of martial artists. During that time, I have probably interacted with thousands of martial artists. I have banned hundreds of them from this community. When you aren't knee deep in a specific art, looking at your friends vs. the school down the street, comparing yourselves to those you encounter, the martial arts world probably looks a little different. From that view, there really is no correlation between the art and the quality of the person. There is no "most of the people in this art are good, but only a few from this one are." It just doesn't exist. I believe that any "evidence" to the contrary is anecdotal at best. Our community is a wonderful mix of traditional martial artists, mixed martial artists and people who would consider themselves to be both. No matter what group you are a part of, whether you are a UFC fighter or a strict traditionalist, the person who created this image is not your friend. You are all martial artists. Don't let people divide you for their own gain.

Congrats Kwon_Artist!

Thanks for the replies. No worries. Haha, this was definitely a bust. No worries, maybe we'll try again in the future. 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. The September selection is... Titanium. Congratulations! Thank you for the great contributions that you have made thus far. Sincerely, Patrick