Publishing the Forum

[VANDOO]

THIS IS A FORUM FOR DISCUSSION, QUESTIONS AND THEORY ALL ADD TO OUR KNOWLEGE AND SOMETIMES SPUR SOMEONE ON TO FINDING A ANSWER TO QUESTIONS AND TO PROVING THEORY. I LIKE THE FORUM LIKE IT IS AS SOME OTHER FORUMS THAT HAVE DIVIDED INTO GROUPS HAVE BECOME CLANNISH AND DON'T WELCOME OR ANSWER POSTS BY OUTSIDERS.

PRESENT REFRENCES ARE MOSTLY PROVEN THEORYS BASED ON OTHER REFRENCES OR RESEARCH WHICH IS VERY SELDOM COMPLETE. SO THERE IS A LOT OF INFORMATION THAT HAS NOT BEEN PROVEN YET AND SOMETIMES A PERSON WITH LITTLE KNOWLEGE ON A CERTIAN SUBJECT CAN ASK A QUESTION OR GIVE THEIR IDEA AND START THOSE DOING THE RESEARCH IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION LEADING TO MORE SOLID FACTS. MOST RESEARCH KIND OF GOES IN CIRCLES AND SOMETIMES WE GET HUNG UP ON WHAT WE KNOW FROM REFRENCES AND DON'T SEE THE BRANCH OFF THE CIRCLE THAT LEADS TO NEW INFORMATION. THATS WHERE HAVING A WIDE RANGE OF PEOPLE AND INTRESTS ACADEMIC AND LAYMEN AS WELL AS AMATURES CAN SOMETIMES NUDGE SOMEONE INTO FINDING NEW FACTS.

THE IDEA OF PUTTING THE INFORMATION ON THIS FORUM IN ORDER IS A GOOD ONE AND ELECTRONIC BOOKS ARE GOOD IF SOMEONE WANTS TO DO THE WORK. THE FORUM GOES IN CIRCLES ALSO HOW MANY DIFFERENT DISCUSSIONS HAVE WE HAD ON KERIS,KAMPILAN AND DARE I SAY IT SUDANG THERE IS A LOT OF THE SAME INFORMATION EACH TIME BUT DIFFERENT POSTS HAVE DIFFERENT INFORMATION, QUESTIONS AND IDEAS. IT IS DIFFICULT TO RUN DOWN ALL THE POSTS READ THEM AND GATHER ALL THE INFORMATION, ITS KIND OF LIKE READING A BOOK THAT HAS ALL ITS PAGES TORN OUT AND SCATTERED IN THE BUSHES SO IF SOMEONE WANTED TO GO BACK AND GATHER ALL THE GOOD INFORMATION,IDEAS AND QUESTIONS AND ELIMINATE THE REPETITON AND CONDENSE IT INTO A POST WITH ALL THE PRESENT INFORMATION WE HAVE AND THEN WE COULD DISCUSS THAT TO SEE IF WE MISSED ANYTHING OR CAN ADD TO IT AND KEEP IT UPDATED. PERHAPS SUCH CONDENSED TOPIC INFORMATION COULD BE PLACED IN A SEPARATE FOLDER SUCH AS THE OLD MEDEVIL TOPICS WE USED TO HAVE ON THE FORUM THAT WOULD MAKE RESEARCH MUCH EASIER.

[Tim Simmons]

Vandoo.

Clear sight, sometimes you just have to try it to see if it works, we are not talking of any money above running your PC. We could start on something simple with little dispute like choora, peshkabz and related knives especially as I have just acquired one. With all the members surely a dazzling display can be arranged from old to new. Agree a size, format and colour background, get the pictures in and sort them. Then the coordinator has come up with an agreeable text but not to tame.

The results could be a wonderful CD-ROM full of a most enjoyable display of the styles of a few specific weapons, and a compact and valuable resource for reference.

You said you would think about doing it. Put out the call. My PC skills are limited but I can resize pictures to share the burden. Or are we dreaming.

[VANDOO]

A GOOD EXAMPLE OF WHAT I WAS MENTIONING ON CONDENSING POSTS IS A SEARCH OF CHOORA BRINGS UP 22 POSTS. SOME MAY ONLY HAVE THE WORD CHOORA AND NO INFORMATION AND AS TIM SAID THIS WOULD BE A SIMPLE ONE TO SEARCH. I ONLY SEARCHED THE PRESENT POSTS NOT THE ARCHIVES SO THAT GIVES YOU A IDEA OF THE WORK NECESSARY TO DO EVEN ONE OF THE WEAPONS RARELY DISCUSSED. IT ALSO GIVES YOU A IDEA OF THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION, QUESTIONS AND THEORYS AVAILABLE HERE ON THE FORUM. THE REFRENCE TO IT REQUIREING AS MUCH WORK AS RE- DOING STONES IS NOT FAR OFF THE MARK. IT WOULD TAKE A LOT OF TIME AND WORK TO ARRANGE ALL THE INFORMATION BUT WOULD MAKE AN EXCELLENT REFRENCE SOURCE. THE INFORMATION IS ALREADY THERE BUT IT IS NOT EASY TO ACCESS IT AND CAN BE DIFFICULT TO PUT IT ALL TOGETHER IN THE PROPER FORM AND CONTEXT WHICH CAN LEAD TO MISTAKES AND WASTE A LOT OF TIME. SO IF ANYONE WANTS TO TRY ORGANIZING AND CONDENSING THE INFORMATION PICK SOMETHING EASY OR FORM A GROUP AND WORK TOGETHER TO CRACK THE MORE DIFFICULT ONES. YOU COULD POST YOUR FINDINGS AND SEE HOW IT DOES UNDER DISCUSSION ON THE FORUM.

THE BAD THING ABOUT ONLY READING THE CORRECTED CONDENSED INFORMATION IS YOU WOULD MISS OUT ON ALL THE FUN OF JOKES AND FUNNY COMMENTS AS WELL AS INTERESTING OFF TOPIC STUFF FROM FELLOW MEMBERS

[katana]

Originally Posted by VANDOO

THE BAD THING ABOUT ONLY READING THE CORRECTED CONDENSED INFORMATION IS YOU WOULD MISS OUT ON ALL THE FUN OF JOKES AND FUNNY COMMENTS AS WELL AS INTERESTING OFF TOPIC STUFF FROM FELLOW MEMBERS

I agree, its a joy learning with a smile on your face

[Mark]

Actually, if someone were to go back to their posts on a subject and combine/condense them into a single abstract or article, there is no reason why it couldn't include links to the "source" threads.

From the Staff's point of view, the important thing is that it be done by those who originally put the stuff out there. I don't think anyone would have a problem with making a sticky post out of the results, but it really can't at this point be a formal "Vikingsword" sort of publication. The content & copyright need to remain in the hands of the original authors.

[Tim Simmons]

I have to say, I have been thinking along the lines of starting afresh for a project like this, with plenty of time to invite contributors.

[not2sharp]

Step one would be to locate a storage site for a large number of photos and agree on a standard size, format, and presentation. If were were using these forums as a tool, I would also suggest creating a site with many major forums (one per region), many subforums (by tribe or types of weapons), and then restricting posting privileges for each major forum to only the committee entrusted with organizing the presentation for that area.

A forum for Nepal, might include subforums for Khukuris, Koras, Ram Dao, and Other; with individual threads addressing each specific classification. For instance, under Nepal\khukuris, you can post a thread titled M43 and attach a text discription and all of the photos illustrating variations and markings on the M43 pattern khukuri.

The photos would be added by contributing members to the photo hosting site and then the link would be forwarded to the relevant committee via PM. The committee would decide which photos to use and each photo used would be credited to a contributor unless otherwise requested.

Whatever debate or differences of opinion arise over the various classifications would be worked out on the main forum on a free debate open to all members. The objective would be to create a learning tool rather then a finished work. It would be organized in the sense that it had structure; but, it would remain a living tool subject to such changes as the teams deem relevant or helpful.

n2s

[Rick]

Who will pay for all this ?

[Rivkin]

I think that there are a few proposals here on the table and we need to decide which one to follow. I am against splitting of the forum.

In my opinion we need a formal internet journal. This is not a new thing, there are some really good ones out there. It is surprising that such places like http://www.arxiv.org/ while not having peer-review or editors are very popular since they give you good service (tracking of papers by subjects etc) and do not require the copyright transfer, therefore enabling authors to post selected published papers.

I believe that our journal can pursue the following goals:

a. Publishing proceeding of the conference(s). Standard practice in all conferences.
b. Publishing "review articles". "Review" article is the one that takes already existing discussion and reviews the situation in the field, while not pretending to be original, copyrighted material. These "reviews" can be both invited by the editorial stuff by contacting principal contributors of certain threads, and also written by voluunters.

In 2000-2004 forum 90% of pictures are gone, ebay auctions long deleted, external links broken and one can only guess what Artzi meant by features of "this" jambiya. This will sooner or later happen to 2005-2008 forum as well, unless we preserve the contribution in series of well defined documents, for which, I think, article form is most suitable.

c. Journal for contributed papers. Suppose one of us would like to write an article about kerises. Where one can publish it so it will be read by fellow keris enthusiast, easily accesable, archived and probably even reviewed? Ofcoarse there are historical journals and the Journal of Military Science, but they have a very different goal and ideology. There is also a journal of contemporary ethnography, but their reviewers will probably ask the author to elaborate on the role of pamor in cementing gender roles in contemporary Macao. Moreover, most of arms and armour papers end up in some obscure national journals, and then if one wants to get some constantly referenced Gorelik paper one has to spent a few days to finally figure out that this journal does not circulate outside of Moscow. I understand, that even if we advertise our journal, we will not see huge crowds descending on us with contributions, but I think we are lacking a specialized journal.

Now, Mr. McDougall published his article on USMC mamluk sword - now imagine it buried somewhere in the 1999 archive of the forum, stripped from pictures. Would it be as accesible or interesting ?

Now to the great fears of commiting to incomplete research and possible errors.
There is a classic book on caucasian rugs by Uhlrman. Mistakes in it are truly collosal (for example, Shamil is a cherkes), it helped to fix a highly bizzare geographical names for caucasian rugs - the area between Tbilisi and Erevan is referred to as "Kazak" - not to be mistaken with Cossack or Kazakh. But did this book contribute to the field? Yes, it is one of the definitive works that provided the basis for caucasian rugs' study and classifications. Its errors were later recognized and partially corrected, but without this contribution even correcting such errors would not have been possible, for there would have be no big push on the subject.

Even great articles on theoretical math contain errors, one would expect more so in our field.

In addition, I think such endevour would require a minimal effort from the site's stuff - set up a separate section, then it would be up to editors and the community to develop submission guidelines, and once every 3 months or so to produce series of pdfs containing individual articles. If these reviews will be interesting enough, one can later put them together into a book. Concerning copyrights, adhering to standards, etc - it is all the author's responsibility to do so.

[Rivkin]

Here is what I belive can be a good example for us:
http://www.rugreview.com/orr.htm