Strike Diary - Ultimate Kenpo Alliance - April 12, 2005

The Ultimate Kenpo Alliance, a MSN website with many members from South Beach, Florida and other areas, is involved in a peaceful Website protest. It seems that some of the non-contact people have gone up against the full-contact and kickboxing members. The full-contact people want to be recognized for their contribution to the group. I do recognize them, the arts, and what this peaceful protest represents. I join the "post out." It is important to mention that this is actually a great group to belong to and the protest is in no way intended against the website or the leaders of the website itself. The Elder brothers, pro-kickboxers, go full charge ahead into the protest after site member Hernaldo suggests the idea of not posting for a week.

April 12, 2005 The day before the protest... The HKENPO protest has really gained incredible momemtum. I check in before retiring from the computer for the evening. Many people extend their support including Iron Tiger and Masa "Beat" Suzuki. This is huge. There are a ton of posts giving support to the protest. I read them all. I post my support too. After my post, I notice that the retired kickboxer Sherman Bergman also posts his support for the kickboxers.

My post:

It is not midnight yet here in Connecticut, so I have time to respond that I will support my friends here in the interest of unity for all of the martial arts people. This is also in recognition of contributions to the boards, and out respect for the arts and what others believe in. When all that shows, like it does with all these posts, that is a beautiful thing. I look forward to "seeing" all of you again on the 20th and I hope that will be the end of any "civil war."

I do want to say that I fully realize and remember that Sensei Bill did change the boards as some have requested. [The full-contact people had apparently requested to be on the general board with everyone else rather than separated out.] I was glad to "see" all of you again.

Just as a warning, I won't be surprised if after this is over someone may post something again to get everyone riled up on purpose. (I do not believe that Express [the original poster that may have sparked the protest] falls into this category, since he also has posted kenpo questions in the past too.) It is actually not uncommon for groups to be attacked this way. There is even a word for a person who does this sort of thing intentionally to destroy groups. They are called Trolls. So be careful after this is resolved that trolls do not start attacking in their own form of entertainment. Perhaps it will be a good thing to see exactly who would like only certain kinds of posts here. I have a feeling that it is a very small minority from the looks of things. I don't see any signs so far of the other side's pro-post-protest.

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http://www.hyphenologist.co.uk/killfile/anti_troll_faq.htm Interesting information and story about Trolls.