But then what standards should we use? If you’ve noticed I’ve asked SS not to use legalistic terms, reliable evidence instead of material evidence.
I think it depends on what we wish to prove and who the target of the investigation is. Are we talking abotu fraud? Lying? Teaching certain material? Material not working? What? Who is te intended recipient of the report? Random readers? Students of the target? The media? That would help in the decision of what evidence is needed to convince a reasonable person.
I obtained documents on the Bannon case, I have legal documents for the upcoming Webre article, and on the Franco investigation I pulled Sammy Franco’s Bankrupsy records for information about his corporation.
But how do any of them pertain to MA suckiness? I don’t care if people are morally, legally, or financially bankrupt…that’s not what we’re here to examine.
Video is good, it shows crappling well. It can be discredited based on factors like, it does not show what is fully going on in a scene, it is too grainy or the audio doesn’t work etc, etc. And then it can be discredited by evil lawyers, and I provided the Rodney King example. In that case, for example one cop reached for what looked like his handcuffs, King was resisting at the time, the guy didn’t take his handcuffs out and the sharks sold the jury on the idea that they had to hit him some more then to get him under control. Like anything video is open to interpretation.
I agree, but if what we were examining was whether or not Rodney King could take on multiple attackers or not…we’d have our answer.
Furthermore, I guess you must’ve missed me and Peedee’s “Making Millions the Easy Way with Rodney King” instructional tape 
As far as structure of investigations, I think they should focus on video evidence of Bullshidoka performing poorly under conditions where a reasonably skilled fighter (considering experience level) would perform well. For a website, everything else is ultimately filler.
In Franco’s case the bankruptsy file helps provide basic information that will support any investigation. Addresses ect.
The most important detail I got from the file was the name of his corporation which is different then “Creative Fighting Systems” which is the corporate name Franco uses in his Palidan books. He basically claims to have been teaching since 1983 when he was still in, or just out of high school. If you show he’s lied about his martial arts history, you destroy his crediability.
Well…sort of, but ridiculous claims =/= teaching crap that doesn’t work (what we’re here to expose)
Proving someone’s a liar doesn’t prove they can’t fight or can’t teach good technique.
I think there needs to be a distinction made between people we laugh at for making ludicrous claims and people who are proven to teach bad technique and suck at fighting. The FAR more important thing is the latter. The former is more a source of amusement than anything.
Bart Vale makes ridiculous claims (ie “I KO’ed Ken Shamrock” and “PWFG matches I fought in were real MMA”) but the technique he teaches is not crap and he can actually apply them realistically.
Helio, Whorion, and Rickson Gracie make ridiculous (ie “Gracies are undefeated” and “We invented grappling”) but the techniques are good and can be applied realistically.
Martial artists in general are like fishermen, they like telling stories. Our focus should not be to run around disproving goofy claims, because the targets would be ridiculously numerous and at the end of the day all we would be proving is that people lie…I dunno about you, but that’s not news to me.
Hope on AIM if you can. Wanna chat for a sec.
The primary purpose of this is to develop reputable, recognizably valid standards on which we base site statements of Bullshido. How individual members make that decision is irrelevant to this question.
I’ve brought on people with expertise in evidence-based disciplines: Science, law, etc. We’re combining knowledge of these areas with an understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish.
Plus as Sam and Mantis have pointed out, the issue of the majority of us not having time/energy to pursue Browning-style investigations is superseded by the greater latitude and credibility given to us by having journalistic standards. That entitles us to a freedom of the press defense and gives our conclusions validity & reliability.
We don’t HAVE site statements of bullshido.
Articles, that mention statements of bullshido, are “site” statements.
Just warning you.:rolleyes:
Principle 4: The only statements classified as site statements of Bullshido are those posted on the front page.
Principle 5: Statements & opinions by individual staff members alone and not representative of the staff or site as a whole.
Principle 6: Non-staff members of Bullshido are free to make their own claims, and the site is not responsible.
Principle 7: MCDOJO IS NOT THE SAME AS BULLSHIDO
Principle 8: The typical mark of quality of a martial art, according to this site, is the presence of: Sparring on a regular basis (including high-intensity contact on occasion), participation by students or instructors in events involving full-contact fighting (someone else continue)
Principle 9: Bullshido is a dichotomy of “is vs. isn’t.” But it is not the sole determination. Someone can be Bullshido to varying degrees; there cannot be a full equivalence between someone who teaches crappling in a stand-up school and someone like Ashida Kim, who not only has published Bullshido books, but also has a Bullshido challenge. We can easily assert that Sammy Franco or Ashida Kim is more Bullshido than Rad Ki kid.
Bullshido Investigations, The Guidelines
At Bullshido we encourage investigations into questionable claims made by martial artists about their martial arts skills, achievements, and arts. Recently there have been discussions over what standards Bullshido expects of the investigations conducted by its members. The following is a discussion of some such standards which are also expected to evolve over time. Many of the definitions used below were borrowed from Black’s Law Dictionary 7th Edition, (St Paul, Minn: West Publishing, 1999).
Principle 1.
In its investigations Bullshido should clearly identify the facts and opinions that it is investigating, indicate their source and where they can be located, and accurately reproduce and summarize them for the reader. The reader has the right to expect that when a Bullshido investigation says “X said Y and did Z” that such a statement is is an unexaggerated and accurate version of what was said or done.
Similarly if Bullshido is investigating an individual or art concerning multiple issues the issues should be enumerated from each other and stated clearly. For example if Dan Webre has exaggerated his prison record, (A) and his security work experience, (B) recounting evidence proving B, in a section devoted to discussing A, will just confuse the reader.
Finally the reason why the particular facts or opinions being investigated are important will be explained to the reader.
Principle 2.
Bullshido Investigations will use reliable facts. Facts which are reliable are dependable and trustworthy. Facts are something that actually exists or an actual or alleged event or circumstance.
Facts that are offered in the investigation will be relevent, tending to prove or disprove a particular point at issue. For example if I am attempting to prove that David Bannon did not kill a man in the Byron Hotel in London, it is relevant first, that he claims that the man was killed on the 10th floor of this building, and secondly, that the Bryron Hotel is less then 10 stories tall. By contrast, the age of Bannon’s daughter or ex-wife is not relevant to whether he ‘cleaned’ someone in a hotel suite at this hotel, since whatever the answer is, it would probably not show that he couldn’t have been murdering child molesters in London in the 1980s
Eventually with enough reliable facts, the investigator can render a substantiated opinion which is an opinion based on knowledge of the facts contained within the investigation.
Principle 3.
If the facts are conflicting, the investigator must report such discrepencies in his article or post. Similarly the investigator should not exaggerate the certainty of his opinion if the facts as a whole do not support such a conclusion.
For example, lets say that as part of his claim to be a super-de-duper ATA TKD Black Belt Samuel Browning claims he taught Natalie Portman the martial arts sometime in 2005 in Ragoon, Burma. Kickcatcher is suspicious of this claim because he has been able to obtain Natalie’s itinerary for 80% of this year, and it mentions no trip to Burma. Similarly the one part of Natalie’s schedule that he does not have comes in March, 2005 at around the time of the Academy Awards. Finally Natalie’s publist refuses to comment on Browning/Portman claim but has never heard of her client filming a movie in this country.
Kickcatcher could summarize the facts as follows: “For 80% of the year, we know Ms. Portman was not in Burma, she has never filmed a movie in this location, and the only time we do not know her whereabouts was around the time of the Academy awards last year which is when she would have had business interests in California not Asia. We cannot prove that she never went to Burma in 2005 but such a trip is extremely unlikely, and this claim is dubious.”
Principle 4.
There are several different types of evidence that can be used in an investigation.
a) Direct Evidence is based on personal knowledge or observation and that, if true, proves a fact without inference or presumption. “I saw Master Lout, charge students $500 a piece to learn to levitate.” This evidence is often called testimonal evidence.
b) Documentary Evidence is evidence supplied by a writing or other document which should be traceable to its source so it can be proven that it is real. “I obtained a copy of this court document from the Federal Court at . . .”
c) Negative Evidence is evidence suggesting that an alleged fact does not exist, such as a witness testifying that he or she did not see an event occur. Negative evidence is generally regarded to be weaker than positive than positive evidence, because a positive assertion that a witness saw an event is a stronger statement than an assertion that a witness did not see it But a negative assertion will sometimes be considered positive evidence, depending on the witness’s opportunity to see the event. For instance, testimony that the witness watched an entire game and saw no riot in the stand is stronger than testimony stating only that the witness did not see a riot." (Black’s Law Dictionary, p. 578)
d) Circumstantial Evidence is based on inference and not on personal knowledge or observation. Sometimes circumstantial evidence can be extremely strong. For example David Bannon claims that he was involved in a riot in Kwangju, South Korea in 1981 in which hundreds died. (See this thread for the full details)
Since I did not know anyone who actually lived in Kwangju in 1981 any information I obtained from other sources would be circumstantial in nature. In this case it was also negative evidence, but to make a long story short, newspaper research showed that the Western Media had reported the Kwangju riots of 1980 in detail, and had reported small disturbances in South Korea on this incident’s anniversary in 1981, but did not say anything about an incident in which hundreds of people had died in Kwangju in 1980. Taken together, the comparison between what was reported in 1980 to what was reported in 1981 was quite powerful if circumstantial in nature.
Principle 5
Certain types of evidence are considered reliable, these include:
Legal documents - Arrest warrants and such (see Juko-kai case, Bannon case)
Journalistic sources - Newspaper accounts of events
Video evidence - See Yellow Bamboo and other “ki experts”
Firsthand testimony by recognized expert in martial arts or topical area - Asia, Omega or others observe something firsthand and weigh in.
Pictoral evidence accompanied by substantiating textual evidence. See JFS investigation.
Websites under the control of the person being investigated. (Good for establishing what the person is actually claiming.)
Obviously the reliabilty of different types of evidence will change from one investigation to another. For example videotape can show a clear picture or be shot in poor lighting, and be poorly focused. Court documents can be informative or baseless and self serving. Some newspaper articles are reliable and well written, others are not worth the paper they are printed upon. Each of the above sources will need to have its reliability individually evaluated before being used.
Principle 6.
Testimonal or Direct evidence is an extremely powerful form of evidence, but it is subject to the limitations of all eyewitness testimony and must be evaluated accordingly. Eyewitnesses have been known to be biased or simply wrong about what they have witnessed. Therefore before using eyewitness testimony the Bullshido investigator should attempt to find out if the witness has any biases or hard feelings towards the person being investigated. Such feelings to not invalidate the witnesses’s testimony but they are relevant for determining whether the witness is reliable or credible.
Similarly the witness may be completely honest but unable to provide reliable information. For example a white belt leaves a McDojo and reports his teacher performed Kata poorly. Perhaps the student is correct and the teacher could not even lift his foot above knee level, but the investigator should be careful that he does not repeat conclusions reached by the student about the mechanics of the art that he simply does not have the background to reach. Sometimes there are easy ways around this problem. A student studies crappling at a McDojo and while at the McDojo is unable to evaluate whether the grappling is actually taught. Subsequently he attends Omega’s Sombo school and gets submitted by people who have just started studying this art who are similar in size. When this student reports that he was formally taught crappling it is on the basis of having the context to make a comparison between two systems of instruction, a context he previously did not have.
Finally testimony from unnamed sources is always inferior to testimony from people willing to provide their real names. which helps establish their credibility. While bullshido will sometimes use anonymous testimony, it will be in support of documentary evidence, testimonal evidence from named people, expert opinion, Newspaper accounts of events, Video evidence, etc. Bullshido will try to offer such evidence by itself.
Principle 7.
Steve write something about the use of scientific methods and what sort of claims that they can be used to evaluate.
Principle 8.
Using reliable evidence that is preferrably culmulative, the goal of Bullshido Investigations is to produce conclusions that are highly probable or reasonably certain to be true.
It still uses too many lawyerly words, Mantis you have my permission to edit it by substituting equvalent words that are less complicated.
No one wants to read all that and its pretentious as all fuck.
Getting your article on the front page:
- Provide sources.
Preferably from newspaper articles, scholarly journals, books, etc.
- Use reliable facts.
Just cause your cousin Jimbo said something doesn’t make it correct.
- Report all, even conflicting facts.
Keep the article fair and cover all aspects of the truth within reason.
- Use reliable evidence.
Even if Jimbo is right, you’re gonna have to do better.
Everything I write is pretentious, hell my goldfish thinks I’ve pretentious.
Seriously, it can be trimmed and it has too many big words, but we do need to tell people. 1) what we consider reliable evidence and provide examples. 2) what the different types of evidence are, especially since we use negative evidence so much in investigations.
I’ll do a re-write tomarrow to cut some words out.
I would have to block off about an hour to go through all that.
Speaking of goldfish. I had a guy who threw a fit and smashed an aquarium. You know they charged him with “cruelty to animals”? Wow.
Also guys, one of the reasons why I’ve been pushing the journalistic protocol is so that we can get recognized as a media outlet/firm, and acquire press passes and such to get more information.
Seriously, it can be trimmed and it has too many big words, but we do need to tell people. 1) what we consider reliable evidence and provide examples. 2) what the different types of evidence are, especially since we use negative evidence so much in investigations.
No we don’t. We let people write what they want and let the READER decide how they view what. If there are any blatant fallacies you want to point out, fine, but we don’t need CSI for every article. Depending on what their point is, anectdotes alone may suffice.
Also guys, one of the reasons why I’ve been pushing the journalistic protocol is so that we can get recognized as a media outlet/firm, and acquire press passes and such to get more information.
Problem is, we don’t have any journalists on hand to use it. Whether we demand journalistic protocal or not, if people aren’t actually trained in its proper usage, we’ll get subpar results every time.
What a bullshit charge on the cruelty to animals charge. I agree with you on the journalistic protocol issue. When you have the time I would appreciate the hour review.
We are looking for competently researched investigations. If we don’t have guidelines people will miss some opportunities to make their investigations more reliable, and secondly they are more likely to turn in a piece of crap which could later cause legal trouble. I.E. making allegations the evidence doesn’t support.
Secondly journalism is not brain surgery, if we can get people to follow some of its conventions it will make our articles on Bullshido.com stronger.
Second Draft
Getting your article on the front page: guidelines for investigations.
At Bullshido we encourage investigations into questionable claims made by martial artists about their martial arts skills, achievements, and arts.
Principle 1.
Bullshido Investigations will use reliable facts. Facts which are reliable are dependable and trustworthy. Facts are something that actually exists, or are an actual or alleged event or circumstance.
Facts that are offered in the investigation will be relevent, tending to prove or disprove a particular point at issue. For example if I am attempting to prove that David Bannon did not kill a man in the Byron Hotel in London, it is relevant first, that he claims that the man was killed on the 10th floor of this building, and secondly, that the Bryron Hotel is less then 10 stories tall.
With enough reliable facts, the investigator can reach reliable conclusions.
Principle 2:
Certain types of evidence are usually considered reliable, these include:
Legal documents - Arrest warrants and such (see Juko-kai case, Bannon case)
Journalistic sources - Newspaper accounts of events
Video evidence - See Yellow Bamboo and other “ki experts”
Firsthand testimony by recognized expert in martial arts or topical area - Asia, Omega or others.
Pictoral evidence accompanied by substantiating textual evidence. See JFS investigation.
Websites under the control of the person being investigated. (Good for establishing what the person is actually claiming.)
Obviously the reliabilty of different types of evidence will change from one investigation to another. For example videotape can show a clear picture or be shot in poor lighting, and be poorly focused. Court documents can be informative or baseless and self serving. Some newspaper articles are reliable and well written, others are not worth the paper they are printed upon. Each of the above sources will need to have its reliability individually evaluated before being used.
Principle 3.
What are we looking for?
Investigations will:
a) clearly identify the facts and opinions that it is investigating.
b) indicate their source and where they can be located.
c) accurately reproduce and summarize them for the reader.
d) Sylistically, the writer will also inform the reader early on what they are seeking to prove or disprove, and why this is important.
Principle 4.
To avoid overstating the evidence:
a) Report all, even conflicting facts.
b) Keep the article fair and cover all aspects of the truth within reason.
Principle 5.
There are several different types of evidence that can be used in an investigation.
a) Direct Evidence is based on personal knowledge or observation and that, if true, proves a fact without inference or presumption. “I saw Master Lout, charge students $500 a piece to learn to levitate.” This evidence is often called testimonal evidence.
b) Documentary Evidence is evidence supplied by a writing or other document which should be traceable to its source so it can be proven that it is real. “I obtained a copy of this court document from the Federal Court at . . .”
c) Negative Evidence is evidence suggesting that an alleged fact does not exist, such as a witness testifying that he or she did not see an event occur. Negative evidence is generally regarded to be weaker than positive than positive evidence, because a positive assertion that a witness saw an event is a stronger statement than an assertion that a witness did not see it But a negative assertion will sometimes be considered positive evidence, depending on the witness’s opportunity to see the event. For instance, testimony that the witness watched an entire game and saw no riot in the stand is stronger than testimony stating only that the witness did not see a riot." (Black’s Law Dictionary, p. 578)
d) Circumstantial Evidence is based on inference and not on personal knowledge or observation. Sometimes circumstantial evidence can be extremely strong. For example David Bannon claims that he was involved in a riot in Kwangju, South Korea in 1981 in which hundreds died. (See this thread for the full details)
Since I did not know anyone who actually lived in Kwangju in 1981 any information I obtained from other sources would be circumstantial in nature. In this case it was also negative evidence, but to make a long story short, newspaper research showed that the Western Media had reported the Kwangju riots of 1980 in detail, and had reported small disturbances in South Korea on this incident’s anniversary in 1981, but did not say anything about an incident in which hundreds of people had died in Kwangju in 1981. Taken together, the comparison between what was reported in 1980 to what was reported in 1981 was quite powerful if circumstantial.
Principle 6.
Testimonal or Direct evidence is extremely powerful, but has the limitations of all eyewitness testimony. Eyewitnesses have been known to be biased or simply wrong about what they have seen. Before using eyewitness testimony the writer should attempt to find out if the witness has any biases or hard feelings towards the person being investigated. Such feelings to not automatically or usually invalidate the witnesses’s testimony, but they are important to determine whether the witness is credible.
Similarly the witness may be completely honest but unable to provide reliable information. For example a white belt leaves a McDojo and reports his teacher performed Kata poorly. Perhaps the student is correct and the teacher could not even lift his foot above knee level, but the writer should be careful that he does not repeat conclusions reached by the student about the mechanics of the art that he simply does not have the background to reach.
Testimony from unnamed sources is always inferior to testimony from people willing to provide their real names. While bullshido will sometimes use anonymous testimony, it will be in support of documentary evidence, testimonal evidence from named people, expert opinion, Newspaper accounts of events, Video evidence, etc. Bullshido will try to limit its use of anonymous sources.
Principle 7.
Steve write something about the use of scientific methods and what sort of claims that they can be used to evaluate.
Principle 8.
Using reliable evidence, our goal is to produce investigations with conclusions that are highly probable or reasonably certain to be true.
Note: Many of the definitions used below were borrowed from Black’s Law Dictionary 7th Edition, (St Paul, Minn: West Publishing, 1999).