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List of archived discussions
10 December 2005 – 14 August 2006 14 August 2006 – 16 August 2006 16 August 2006 – 17 August 2006 18 August 2006 – 27 August 2006 27 August 2006 – 29 August 2006 29 August 2006 - 31 August 2006

follow wikipedia rules

Look, the only reason we let you put Funakoshi's opinion - personal opinion mind you-- is because he is someone we can verify and also we just got tired of arguing with you on why fact is derived from research and evidence, not personal opinion... secondly i don't know who the hell this Mr.R.Venkatachalam is - for all i know, it could be you... that is an editorial page on a private website that states that it will teach you the "secrets" of kalaripayattu... anyone even you or i can write a letter stating that we are this Mr. R. Venkatachalam.... Finally, i'm tired of you turning this article into your own POV rant... If you want to be fair, you should agree to this...

1) for every one statement, paragraph or idea that you provide, I or JFD would like to write a statement, paragraph or idea that presents our view. Both of us have to provide verifiable sources - not personal or private websites - and you can't quote people or articles out of context or snippets of articles like you have been doing...if you look at my edit on August 30 at 2:55 that is what i attempted to do. Beleive it or not, this is not your personal soap box to present your whacky biased and possibly racist personal ideas... you're currently discounting people who are academics in their fields because they are white (your quote not mine), blaming the brits for the supposed downfall of indian martial arts, claiming a version of history where indian martial arts is the progenitor of all martial arts, and then making up the history of indian martial arts...and then using private websites to support your beliefs... fair's fair... one paragraph for you one paragraph for us..

2) if we disagreee on a major idea, then we should place disputed or pov tags on the article. Quit removing the disputed tags. Kennethtennyson 02:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Wiki does not work that way. See gaming the system. Bakaman _Bakatalk 01:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Protected

I've fully protected this due to edit disputes and warring, please settle the issue here. Yanksox 00:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Response

Mallayuddha as generic wrestling

• Joespeh alters translates it into wrestling combat, not generic wrestling.
• Joeseph alters describes as archaic, which indicates it's ancient origin.
• Arts which have four forms are not called generic, since you're a fan of drawing parallels, the first one that comes to mind is shoot wrestling, an art which has four original variations in RINGS, Pancrase, Shooto and Shootfighting, so this system is generic wrestling too ??
• The mentions of Mallayuddha are found in the Mahabharata, the battle between the Bhimseni and the Jarasandhi variations, which are two of the four variations of Mallayuddha.

The argument that Mallayuddha is a form of generic wrestling is absued, the Alters translation is literally "wrestling combat", the art has mentions in the epics of vedic India and is practiced in four distinct variations, Kenny just dreamed of the generic wrestling thing and has been making a pest of himself since.

Impact of foreign occupation

• The prof did write this, I'm not going to even argue that poverty helps in martial arts, the point of view is plain sick.
• Modernisation does not end unarmend martial arts, Japan is a modern country with a tradition of martial arts, the removal of kings who patronized the national warrior sect does.
• The british empire took over the patrons of the Kshatriyas, without the patrons, the remaining Kshatriya clans were left to find other businesses and could not engage either in physical maintainence or the regular Dwands. Kshtriyas in the military, were also killed in large numbers in encounters with the invading british armies.
• Gurkhas are not martial artists, they're mountain soldiery.
• Widespread poverty, and the resulting ill effects of the Raj, which saw one of the biggest economies on earth grow abjectly poor, contributed to the decline of martial practices. The Kshatriyas, Knights, Samurai, as martial as they might be, need fianances to practice their arts.

for every one statement, paragraph or idea that you provide, I or JFD would like to write a statement

Not good enough, discuss it on the talk page, build consenseus and then edit. The article is not talk page lite.

you're currently discounting people who are academics in their fields because they are white (your quote not mine)

I said that ?? really ?? direct me to where I did, Kenny.

blaming the brits for the supposed downfall of indian martial arts

The brits occupied the country and the results of the Raj can be found in Company rule in India, the foreign occupation for 200 years resulted in the effects that I've mentioned leading to the downfall, it happened, try living with it.

claiming a version of history where indian martial arts is the progenitor of all martial arts

Paraniod, and childish.

It does'nt say that in the article, neither does it claim it, the version deals with Bodhidharma, Indianized Kingdoms and the influence of india in these area, which has been backed up by citing instituions and authorities.

if we disagreee on a major idea, then we should place disputed or pov tags on the article

If we disagree, which seems to a bit too premature for someone who singlehandedly starts a revrt campaign. I notified the last few edits to JFD and even let go of the BBC mention, try building a consenseus on the talk page before you go all crazy like that next time.

Also, my compromises seem to have gone unappreciated, the withholding of the mention of the official shaolin website, the refraining from building a database of the institutions supporting the majority (and official) POV, refraining from mentioning BBC because the other editor felt it was not proper and letting the "specialists" line stay undisputed for now .......and so on.

All this is about trying to make an art, with four variations, mentioned in epics and described as "wrestling combat" by an academic look generic ??? and insinuating that the occupying british did not harm the warrior sect by chopping off their patrons and killing them in wars too ???

Idoitic.

Freedom skies 09:16, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Mallayuddha

• No one is disputing that mallayuddha is an archaic term for wrestling. What is being disputed is whether the term mallayuddha refers to a specific form of wrestling that is ancient. For example, would an Ancient Indian at the Olympics watching Greco-Roman wrestling or Pankration say, "That's not mallayuddha, because x, y and z". Or would he tell his Greek host, "This is what we call mallayuddha back home"
• Joseph Alter also describes mallayuddha as one of three terms used interchangeably when referring to Indian wrestling. If mallayuddha can be used interchangeably with pahalwani and Bharatiya kushti, that makes it a generic term for wrestling.
• Re: the four forms of mallayuddha – Can you get something more than a website for this, i.e. a book or an article in a back issue of Bharatiya kushti or something?

Impact of foreign occupation

• The prof did write this

Does "the prof" have a name?

• The british empire took over the patrons of the Kshatriyas, without the patrons, the remaining Kshatriya clans were left to find other businesses and could not engage either in physical maintainence or the regular Dwands.
• Widespread poverty, and the resulting ill effects of the Raj, which saw one of the biggest economies on earth grow abjectly poor, contributed to the decline of martial practices.

In Misplaced Pages, making an argument on a Talk Page means nothing because there is no original research on Misplaced Pages.
You still need to cite a credible source for this material. And, again, another Misplaced Pages article does not, as you say, "cut it." You need to cite a credible source for this specific claim about the disruption of Kshatriyas' livelihoods under the British Raj.

my compromises seem to have gone unappreciated, the withholding of the mention of the official shaolin website, the refraining from building a database of the institutions supporting the majority (and official) POV, refraining from mentioning BBC because the other editor felt it was not proper and letting the "specialists" line stay undisputed for now .......and so on.

You are not the only one who has made compromises here.

Miyagi, Funakoshi, Nishiyama et al are honored for their contributions as teachers, fighters and leaders, not as historians.. Tang Hao, Matsuda and Henning are renowned as historians of the martial arts. Those bios I gave earlier demonstrate that.

I have budged from my initial insistence on peer-reviewed academic sources, even agreeing to let the Rickson Gracie website remain. Moreover, the source for this version of the Bodhidharma legend is everyone's favorite cat doctor Alex Doss, DVM, but I've let that slide.

I objected to the BBC article because it was full of inaccuracies and I was under the initial impression that you wanted to cite it in support of Bodhidhara's historicity. If you want to cite the BBC article as an example of how the Bodhidharma legend has reached the Western media, I have no objection to that.

insinuating that the occupying british did not harm the warrior sect by chopping off their patrons
So cite a source for this. Entire forests have been razed documenting the harmful effects of British colonialism! There's got to be a sentence or two about this in there somewhere.
JFD 14:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Mallayuddha Summation:-

The definition, even by Alters is "wrestling combat", not generic wrestling, and will be stated as such.

The arguments of specific POV nature about the nomanclature should not interfere and alter the translation of Mallayuddha from wrestling combat to generic wrestling.

Compromises summation:-

Miyagi, Funakoshi, Nishiyama et al are honored for their contributions as teachers, fighters and leaders, not as historians.. Tang Hao, Matsuda and Henning are renowned as historians of the martial arts. Those bios I gave earlier demonstrate that.

Not good enough, never was and still is not.

I agreed to your "specialists" having as much authority to speak about martial arts as official Shaolin temple, Jhoon Rhee or Funakoshi simply as a as a peace offering and another compromise. The idea that they are in any way superior than any ones I mentioned, and eligible for a "specialist" status about institutes whose versions of their own history differ from theirs is absurd.

source for this version of the Bodhidharma legend is everyone's favorite cat doctor

Correction. It's the Shaolin, and a thousand other souces in case you'd like a list.

I objected to the BBC article because it was full of inaccuracies and I was under the initial impression that you wanted to cite it in support of Bodhidhara's historicity. If you want to cite the BBC article as an example of how the Bodhidharma legend has reached the Western media, I have no objection to that.

Then I will cite it in "Bodhidharma has found mentions in NYT and the BBC , thanks for the no-problem.

insinuating that the occupying british did not harm the warrior sect by chopping off their patrons

First Anglo-Sikh War, Second Anglo-Maratha War, Second Anglo-Sikh War, Third Anglo-Maratha War some of the examples of the invading british ending the rule of the Kshatriya Rajputs and the Sikhs, practitioners of gatka, and killing a lot of them merrily along the way too, apart from dethroning the patrons and the kings, that is.

The economic history of india should more than provide the backdrop for what happened to the country after the native rulers were deposed.Freedom skies 01:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

like is said earlier

like i said earlier, i appreciate your attempts at compromise but what compromise are you talking about? prior to the first lock on the page, you wrote an article that was utterly ridiculous and false... you even claimed that a yoga version of martial arts existed!!! and if you have amnesia just go back to our prior discussions.... and you did write an article that claimed that all east asian and southeast asian martial arts derived from india... you reverted all of our additions, the only compromise you really made was to allow us to write one sentence - one sentence mind you... that includes historians as disagreeing... you haven't allowed us access to any other piece of the article. you continue to confabulate and you continue to cite questionable sources (ie. private websites) on your article.... whenever we attempt to put our viewpoint in.. you revert... the whole article currently is your POV version of what history should be... and the disputed tags were created for a reason... they are meant to be placed on articles where the veracity of the article is in question... which is this article, which is why if there is a disagreement a disputed tag should be placed on it... all of your actions so far have been to try and present a false version of history along with supppresing truth... You still have not answered our questions... many of the sources that you cite to support your claim of india being the progenitor of shaolin kung fu also state that the middle east was the progenitor of indian martial arts - why is it that you have not allowed even a mention of this idea? Kennethtennyson 16:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Listen, I could start off by introducing you to the concepts of Gati and Prahar in Yoga, which would remind you of full contact Tai Chi, then it would do a lot of good but somehow I think it'll fall on deaf ears since your opinion is already made up. The martial traditions of Yoga are known from at least as far back as the Yajur Veda but I compromoised on the Prahar aspect as it was exceedingly difficult to cite anything from old sanskrit texts like Yajur veda, which I an neither type nor dechipher correctly enough, In other words, I postponed the traditions of Prahar in Yoga because I could'nt bring citations to the table. Modern variations like those of Agni are covered in wikipedia itself, but for Prahar, I'll have to get my hands on Yajur Veda and have someone dechipher it for me, the idea that Yoga is one unidimensional stationary art of aasans and that the priests never used the knowledge for combat will be ridiculed by any Yoga historian, I could start of by telling about Parshurama but ah well, same problem there. Too much work, since you created such a dispute I removed the portions containing the martial/prahar aspects of the study of vital points and the gati patterns of yogic kata. Another one of the compromises I made early on.

You keep on citing that you had problems with the article, I keep on saying that it would do a lot of good if you took a look into the present version and let me know where does it say that "India is the source of all martial arts" and such, the flashback routines and your personal attacks have evoked similar responses, which have led me to kinda not taking you seriously. Of course, now I feel that you have legitimate grievance, for the life of me though, I can't figure out what they are, would you list them completely and conciesely with bullet points and everything, the demands I mean.

Also, a form of wrestling with four variations and which has been translated by Aters as "wrestling combat" is not generic , it's a art defined and organised in four variations.

If you'd stop assuming me to be a racist and place what you feel is wrong with the contents of the present form of the article then maybe we could have a discussion, instead of incessent ramblings and one upmanship.

Freedom skies 00:54, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought i was pretty clear on what i wrote as to what i have issues with the article currently...

1) no evidence in any indian religious text of anything that approximates martial arts... the greeks actually had documents, statues, historical evidence of greco-roman wrestling maneuvers and styles that you can correlate with current greco-roman wrestling.

2) the use of a generic term mallayuddha as a specific type of martial arts with no evidence that it existed (don't use e-mails to private websites as a source please)

3) continued blaming of the british for the downfall of indian martial arts with no evidence of that as a fact or even a mention of other factors extraneous to the british

4) in many of the citations that you have written to support your view that india was the source of shaolin kung fu, some of the articles that you used also stated that the middle east was the source of indian martial arts... yet you never mentioned this at all and tried your best to suppress this... why is that? You still have not answered this question.

5) your inability to compromise or to let anyone edit the article except you...

6) your continued reluctance to let anyone place a disputed tag on the article even though it is pretty obvious the article was in dispute.... and then your inability to admit that we are disputing about facts in the article... which i find sort of ridiculous... Kennethtennyson 02:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Impact of Western colonialism

The economic history of india should more than provide the backdrop for what happened to the country after the native rulers were deposed.

I handed you—on a silver platter, mind you—a source on the role of Western colonialism in the decline of kalarippayattu. The source was a professor, and the material came from a book published by the Oxford University Press.

I even took the time to type out the pertinent paragraphs from the book, word for word.

Now, if you don't wish to use it, that's your prerogative.
BUT AT LEAST CITE A GODDAMN SOURCE FOR THE MATERIAL YOU DO WISH TO USE!!
What? Did the library run out of books on the social impact of the British Raj?
You're at a university, for heaven's sake!
Try breaking in that library card—or at least JSTOR—instead of Google once in a while!
JFD 03:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Mallayuddha

Alter also describes mallayuddha as a term that is used interchangeably with pahalwani and Bharatiya kushti.

If you want to say that mallayuddha is something distinct from pahalwani or that there are four styles of it then, as with any material you wish to add to Misplaced Pages, you have to cite a source for it.

According to the official policy Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, "Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reputable source, or it may be removed by any editor. The obligation to provide a reputable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it."

Which means that, as long as you don't provide a reputable source for your material, Kennethtennyson has every right to remove it.

What that also means is that no editor is under any obligation to allow unsourced material to remain in an article while he waits for the contributor to find a source.
The editor has every right to remove it immediately, and the contributor can add it back in once he has found a credible source.

I chose not to as a peace offering and another compromise.
But Kennethtennyson is completely within his rights to remove any material for which you have not cited a reputable source.
JFD 03:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Any material that has no source may be removed by any editor

I can NOT emphasize this enough.

There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be tagged with a "needs a cite" tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all

information

—  , Jimmy Wales, Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information

There you go—Jimbo Wales, founder of Misplaced Pages himself.

NOW STOP WHINING AND START CITING!!
JFD 03:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Challenge

JFD: source for this version of the Bodhidharma legend is everyone's favorite cat doctor

Freedom skies: Correction. It's the Shaolin, and a thousand other souces in case you'd like a list.

Then I propose a challenge (if you accept).

The article says that Bodhidharma was born in Kanchipuram to the Pallava king Sugandan.

Show me that "the Shaolin, and a thousand other sources" say that Bodhidharma was born in Kanchipuram to the Pallava king Sugandan and I, JFD, promise to never make another edit to this article again.

If you can't, then every reference to Bodhidharma in this article must be removed, NEVER to return.
JFD 03:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Compromises

I agreed to your "specialists" having as much authority to speak about martial arts as official Shaolin temple, Jhoon Rhee or Funakoshi simply as a as a peace offering and another compromise.

And I agreed to sources that weren't peer-reviewed, so long as they were third-party publications, which www.kathinayoga.com most definitely isn't.

The idea that they are in any way superior than any ones I mentioned, and eligible for a "specialist" status about institutes whose versions of their own history differ from theirs is absurd
…
Not good enough, never was and still is not.

Freedom skies, what you fail to grasp—YET AGAIN—is that Misplaced Pages standards for credible sources are NOT YOURS TO DICTATE.

Official Misplaced Pages standards consider peer-reviewed sources to be the most credible.

That doesn't just make my sources "good enough," as a matter of fact it actually does make them "superior," certainly in comparison to the ones you cite.
JFD 03:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Another reply

=== Check multiple sources ===

Because conscious and unconscious biases are not always self-evident, you shouldn't necessarily be satisfied with a single source. Find another one and cross-check. If multiple independent sources agree and they have either no strong reason to be biased, or their biases are at cross purposes, then you may have a reliable account.

However, bear in mind that we only report what reliable publications publish, although of course editors should seek to use the most authoritative sources. In accordance with Misplaced Pages's No original research policy, we do not add our own opinion.

==== Cite peer-reviewed scientific publications and check community consensus ====

Scientific journals are the best place to find primary source articles about experiments, including medical studies. Any serious scientific journal is peer-reviewed. Many articles are excluded from peer-reviewed journals because they report what is in the opinion of the editors unimportant or questionable research. In particular be careful of material in a journal that is not peer-reviewed reporting material in a different field. (See the Marty Rimm and Sokal affairs.)

The fact that a statement is published in a refereed journal does not make it true. Even a well-designed experiment or study can produce flawed results or fall victim to deliberate fraud. (See the Retracted article on neurotoxicity of ecstasy and the Schön affair.)

Honesty and the policies of neutrality and No original research demand that we present the prevailing "scientific consensus". Polling a group of experts in the field wouldn't be practical for many editors but fortunately there is an easier way. The scientific consensus can be found in recent, authoritative review articles or textbooks and some forms of monographs.

There is sometimes no single prevailing view because the available evidence does not yet point to a single answer. Because Misplaced Pages not only aims to be accurate, but also useful, it tries to explain the theories and empirical justification for each school of thought, with reference to published sources. Editors must not, however, create arguments themselves in favor of, or against, any particular theory or position. See Misplaced Pages:No original research, which is policy. Although significant-minority views are welcome in Misplaced Pages, the views of tiny minorities need not be reported. (See Misplaced Pages:Neutral Point of View.)

Here, I'll narrow it down for you:-

• The fact that a statement is published in a refereed journal does not make it true, especially when the journals subscribing to your personal POV are very, very rare.
• of course editors should seek to use the most authoritative sources', like official websites, like that of the Shaolin. I'll find as more soon as I have free time.

As for the "Check multiple sources" rule, Let's have a challenge, your version of non contribution of Bodhidharma, against mine of his contributions. I checked a LOT OF multiple sources and at the drop of a hat will mention the mammoth extent of this train of thought in a large database in case you demonstrate the extent of yours. Anyone who even attempts a bluff like that vast majority thing has NO MORAL AUTHORITY WHATSOVER to dictate others about their sources.

Another one of the compromises I made early on, make NO mistake, mentioning three books and three old profs DID NOT cut it, I ALLOWED IT TO STAY AS A PEACE OFFERING.

Your sources and views are strictly microscopic, even then I allowed you to carry on with the "specialist" mention, which reflected a very personal and microscopic train of thought, NOT endorsed by the martial art community and people who actually contributed to martial arts like Jhoon Rhee and Funakoshi. LIVE WITH IT.

As for Mallayuddha, the translation is "wrestling combat" and will be stated as such, not generic combat, no matter how many bizzare POV interpretations of an independent term are done.

And, try going here, The people who provided patronage to the martial artists were taken over by the british and had to either surrender and get a pension or just get killed in the field or get sent to Burma in a prison. The lack of royal patronage made all the difference, want me to cite more battles in which the Kshatriyas were slaughtered/dethroned by the invading british ???

And Kenny,I saw some of stuff you said about me on talk pages which made me wonder if you were crazy, i always attributed the overly confused anti indian thing to the excess caffine and maybe lack of sleep but wow, from what you said, you're plain sick. Buying people off with barnstars for past contributions was a move I did'nt think would work on JFD, but anyways, can't argue with what works.As disgusted as I am, here are the responses:-

1) no evidence in any indian religious text of anything that approximates martial arts... the greeks actually had documents, statues,

historical evidence of greco-roman wrestling maneuvers and styles that you can correlate with current greco-roman wrestling.

The martial art mentioned in mahabharat is called Mallayuddha, translated as "wrestling combat" by Joe alters, has four forms known by common public in India an described in the website i sourced.

anyways, I would like to see some citation regarding those ancient manuals of greco roman wrestling, I kinda tried that art too, and contributed to the wikipedia article on that as well.

2) the use of a generic term mallayuddha as a specific type of martial arts with no evidence that it existed (don't use e-mails to private websites as a source please)

I'll use articles written by practitioners of Indian martial arts, they would know about what they're practcing, would'nt they ??

3) continued blaming of the british for the downfall of indian martial arts with no evidence of that as a fact or even a mention of

other factors extraneous to the british

In case you missed the JFD's reference, try reading the effect of the Royal patronage on Indian martial artists and the removal of it by the british and I can cite more Kshatriyas falling to the british.

4) in many of the citations that you have written to support your view that india was the source of shaolin kung fu, some of the articles that you used also stated that the middle east was the source of indian martial arts... yet you never mentioned this at all and tried your best to suppress this... why is that? You still have not answered this question.

Now you're talking, if we chart the route of martial arts such as karate from Middle East, India, China, japan to the rest of the world, I'm very intrested in the project.I have a lot of other martial arts websites which have similar charting done, since you will of course endorse the POV, we could chart all those from alpha to omega.

Lemme know.

5) your inability to compromise or to let anyone edit the article except you...

I let JFD speak his mind, and still feel that we could have worked if you did'nt go ballistic and interfere.

I had a lot of respect for JFD, but the barnstar changes an academic, the way where he has to tell you to lighten up and let him handle the detalis and that kind of reminds me of an odd Scientist-Gremlin partnership, which is , as you'll understand, sick from my POV.

6) your continued reluctance to let anyone place a disputed tag on the article even though it is pretty obvious the article was in

dispute.... and then your inability to admit that we are disputing about facts in the article... which i find sort of ridiculous...

The disputes exist in your head and not in the article. The article is osurced and you have a history of messing with sourced articles.

The other editors are known to have settled some disputes amongst themselves until you went plumb crazy. Freedom skies 14:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

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