KarateForums.com Section Reorganization Coming in December

[Patrick]

Hey all,

For years, we've been planning to reorganize our forum sections here on KarateForums.com, to reflect the current activity and makeup of the community.

We have several forums that were once active, but have now grown inactive as different members have left and entered the community. This is only natural and absolutely okay, but it leaves us with a set of forums that do not display our current activity in the best possible way.

KarateForums.com will celebrate 20 years on May 21, 2021. As I considered this milestone, I wondered: What would be the best way to honor the community? The answer I came up with was to get this community into the best possible shape for the next 20 years by reorganizing it in an optimal way and upgrading our forum software to address some of the silly bugs we've had to put up with for too long.

I can't say much about the software side yet because I haven't gone too deep into it, but the reorganization is finally happening!

Starting in the first week of December, we'll begin to make changes by renaming existing forums, adding new forums, and merging the contents of old forums with other ones that match well based upon subject. The end result will look like this:

Art-Specific Discussions

Beginner's Section

BJJ, Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido, and Grappling Martial Arts

Karate

Kung Fu, JKD, Wing Chun, Tai Chi, and Chinese Martial Arts

MMA, Muay Thai, Kickboxing, Boxing, and Competitive Fighting

TKD, TSD, Hapkido, and Korean Martial Arts

Beyond Specific Arts

Comparing and Combining Different Styles (if we keep it, more on that below)

Equipment and Gear

Health and Fitness

Instructors and School Owners

Martial Arts Gaming, Movies, TV, and Entertainment

Martial Arts Weapons

Pro Fighting Matches and Leagues

Share Your Testing, Grading, or Promotion

General Martial Arts Discussion

Community Center

General Chat

Introduce Yourself

KarateForums.com Announcements

We'll go from 25 forums down to 18 or 17, depending on whether or not we keep a Comparative Styles and Cross Training-type of forum.

These changes will take time, and it'll require our whole team working through all of the threads in several large forums to ensure that they are moved to the proper home in our new structure. Our goal is to have it all wrapped up by December 19. I'll continue to post updates as needed, as we make progress.

That's the high level version, and if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let me know, either here or via private message.

For those curious, I am going to go into even greater detail below, just to break down what is happening with each forum.

Thank you for reading and for being a member of KarateForums.com!

Patrick

More detailed breakdown follows!

Let's look at our current forums one-by-one, and then break down what is happening with each one.

First, we have 11 forums that are remaining exactly the same, but with new names. These are:

• General Martial Arts = General Martial Arts Discussion
• Chinese Martial Arts = Kung Fu, JKD, Wing Chun, Tai Chi, and Chinese Martial Arts
  
• Jiu-Jitsu and Grappling Martial Arts = BJJ, Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido, and Grappling Martial Arts
  
• Kickboxing, Boxing and Muay Thai = MMA, Muay Thai, Kickboxing, Boxing, and Competitive Fighting
  
• Korean Martial Arts = TKD, TSD, Hapkido, and Korean Martial Arts
  
• Equipment = Equipment and Gear
  
• Health, Training and Fitness = Health and Fitness
  
• Instructor Central = Instructors and School Owners
  
• Testing, Grading and Promotions = Share Your Testing, Grading, or Promotion
  
• Weapons = Martial Arts Weapons
  
• Introductions = Introduce Yourself

Some of these new names are just to help people find the right place faster. Others are for clarity. For example, removing "Training" in "Health, Training and Fitness," so that less members think that it's about martial arts training. Same for the Weapons forum changing to Martial Arts Weapons.

3 forums will remain unchanged, title and all:

• KarateForums.com Announcements
• Karate
  
• General Chat

So, that's the easy stuff out of the way!

1-2 forums will be kept in a very similar position, after we completely review their contents. These are:

• Comparative Styles and Cross Training (if we keep it) = Comparing and Combining Different Styles
• Martial Arts Entertainment = Martial Arts Gaming, Movies, TV, and Entertainment

Comparative Styles and Cross Training has become a bit of a catch-all. We want to fully review it, to move any threads that shouldn't be there, and then see what we are left with. If it still seems viable, we'll keep it. Otherwise, we'll move the remaining threads to the most appropriate place.

For Martial Arts Entertainment, we are taking any threads that relate to pro fighting leagues out of that forum. For example, UFC fights. We feel like it's worth testing those conversations having their own forum, called Pro Fighting Matches and Leagues. Meanwhile, any other entertainment-related martial arts content (movies, TV shows, video games, etc.) will remain in the same forum, and it'll be renamed to reflect that clarity.

To that end, we will be adding 2 new forums:

• Beginner's Section
• Pro Fighting Matches and Leagues

Beginner's Section isn't really its own forum. We want it to be a place where people can post if they are not sure where their post should go, and then we'll move it to the right forum. The general idea is to keep it relatively clear, but give new members a comfortable place to start. It's an experiment, so we'll see how people respond!

That leaves us with the last 9 forums, all of which will be removed or merged after their contents are completely reviewed. These are:

• Combative Martial Arts (August 31, 2016)
• Internal Arts and Philosophy (July 17, 2017)
  
• Sport Martial Arts (November 9, 2015)
  
• Getting Started in the Martial Arts (July 6, 2015)
  
• Martial Arts and Politics (June 1, 2014)
  
• Self Defense (November 9, 2016)
  
• Strategies and Tactics (December 20, 2017)
  
• Game Threads (August 1, 2011)
  
• KarateForums.com Articles Archive (September 19, 2014)

Why these 9? Well, if you open each one, take note of the last reply date of the last thread on the first page. That means that since that date, only 30 conversations have been active in that forum. That is what the dates included above represent. So, for example, Sport Martial Arts has only had 30 active conversations in the past 5+ years! As you can see, this is long overdue.

The process for each of these forums will essentially be the same: All of the threads within them will be moved to the most appropriate forum from the new list, with a specific effort to avoid placing them into General Martial Arts Discussion, which is already too full. To say this another way: We are not losing the conversations from these forums. We are just moving them to a new place.

The only exception to this is Game Threads. Any game threads that do not lend themselves to conversations will be removed from public view. In addition, all KarateForums.com Articles Archive thread will have a note added to them that will mention they were originally KarateForums.com Articles (an older forum that we used to have - so old that many of you will have never heard of it!).

And that's the full breakdown! Again, if you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Thanks,

Patrick

[sensei8]

Patrick,

I'm quite excited for the upcoming changes here at KF, that Patrick has just laid out for all to see, across the board. Change is inevitable, and in that regards, is a great thing for us all here at KF. 20 years, in this venue, is astonishing...that milestone that benefits every KF member one way or another.

How about that KF!?!?! Rock solid as the day is long!!

Thank you, Patrick for everything that you do for KF and its members!!

[Patrick]

Thanks Bob.

A note here to say that we have now begun this process. Please excuse our dust as we work through 4,808 threads over the next few weeks. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Patrick

[Patrick]

Hey all,

I just wanted to update the community on this process, since December 19 has come and gone.

In short: We got a lot done! We had 5,886 threads to review, and we reviewed 5,150. Thanks to everyone on staff who contributed! Without your efforts, I'm not sure when this would have been finished!

For the remaining 736 threads, the Senseis and me will be reviewing them as we can, and I'll post an update here when we are 100% finished.

Thank you for being a part of KarateForums.com.

Patrick

[Patrick]

Hey all,

I just wanted to share another update: Those 736 threads have been taken care of. Thank you to Bob, Brian, and Danielle for their help in getting them done!

The new organization of KarateForums.com is now 100% in place, and I think we're already seeing the benefits. It was a lot of conversation built up over a long period of time, and this was long overdue... but I'm really happy to have it done, and I hope you see it as an improvement, too.

Stay tuned for some updates on the other big change I teased in this initial post: Our software upgrade. I'm excited to share it with you as we ramp up to celebrate 20 years online in less than 5 months from now!

Thanks again for your patience.

Patrick