From The Martial Arts Encyclopedia

If you would like to leave a comment, hit "edit" at the top of the page and type your reply. Just put a : (colon) before each paragraph to indent it (so it is clear it's a reply) and end your post with ~~~~~, which will add your signature and a timestamp (You can also hit the signature button in the edit bar at the top of the form).

Welcome

Thank you very much for taking the time to contribute to this project. I am trying to found this site on the basis of mutual benefit and cooperation, so it is heartening to see people from different schools and different parts of the world uniting for the greater good of all of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

BJJ.org - Why I started this

BJJ.org is a great asset to the BJJ community. No other site contains as much information about instructors, their ranks, their lineages and their schools. It is how I found my school, and I know it has helped many others find and verify the credibility of many instructors. I cannot imagine the amount of work it took Don to create and maintain the site all this time, and I am extremely grateful that he did.

But as time goes by and the art continues to grow, BJJ.org is falling more and more behind. Many belt promotions are never included in the profiles, ranks and degrees are getting more and more inaccurate, many instructors and schools are not even listed, and information about BJJ outside of the US is minimal at best.

I attribute these issues to two key factors:

1. All updates and edits have to be done manually by a single webmaster.
2. The site is still composed of a decade old static HTML website.

With these as root problems, I figured that for any alternative to be successful it would need to solve this issues by:

1. Distributing the workload. Updates cannot rely on a single editor.
2. Using a modern content management system that is easily edited and maintained.

I have been thinking about this on and off since some time last year when one day it just struck me -- make it a wiki.

There are several fundamental concepts that I feel are very important to the sucess of this project. They include accuracy, verifiability, the transparency of the process, responsibility and accountability. I am still trying to decide how the directory should be run to encourage and enforce these ideals, and there are several key issues I am dealing with with I would appreciate some open discussion on.

Registration

One of the main benefits of a wiki system is the ease of editing and adding content and how the community can produce, update and improve its own content, making the site virtually self-creating. But with this freedom comes problems like innacurate and false information, vandalism, spam, trolling, gossip and politics. Many of these issues will need to be resolved as they arise, but I think many of them can be prevented (though doubtfully completely) by determining how and why people are allowed to edit the site. Namely, registration.

There are several ways to go about registration:

1. Registration is voluntary and editing is open to everyone, even anonymous users. This is the system Wikipedia currently uses. The theory is that the majority of the editors will develop and improve the content and handle any spam, vandalism, disputes, etc. on their own. This has worked remarkably well for Wikipedia and many other wikis, but in my opinion is too open to abuse for the purpose of this BJJ directory. While open editing allows the wiki to grow as rapidly as possible, it can sacrifice its accuracy/factuality and credibility. Wikipedia is more of grand experiment, and while I want to use many of their same practices and polices and encourage the sense of cooperation Wikipedia enjoys, this site has a definite purpose for its content and needs to hold some authority when saying that someone is ranked in BJJ.
2. Registration is required to edit. This would prevent most idle vandalism and trolling and allow of easier user management and banning of offenders. There is still threat for abuse, but the potential for a growing membership would hopefully put many well-intentioned editors on the job handling it. This is what is currently in place (i.e. registration is open), and I think it may be the best setup overall.
3. Closed registration with membership being invitation-only. This would put very tight control on who edits the content and would make user management very easy. The downside is that it puts a major damper on the expansion of the wiki and doesn't distribute the workload as broadly. It also goes against the spirit of wikis, which have always succeeded by being open to anyone and encouraging contribution and open discussion.

While I have been trying to come to a decision on this issue, I have been doing a sort of mix between 2 and 3. Registration is open, but no one knows about the site so there is no real threat of vandals or trolls registering. At the same time I am seeking out people I have seen act responsibly online and who I know the true identity of, and asking them to help. I am currently thinking that the best plan is to recruit a base of credibile and knowledgeable verified editors to develop the site before its launch and monitor the content and manage the new members that register once the site is officially launched.