It is a popularity contest, but it is also a very interesting social experiment, on using community assessment of fitness, or goodness, or value.

I encourage you to play,

so we can all see how the dynamics end up working out.

It will likely get really fun, when petty down voting starts occurring.

But, it's all part of the fun of getting to see the experiment unfold.

And, it may reveal something about human behavior, and the behaviors and perceptions of the Jiu-Jitsu community.

Omar,
I'm with you dude. It pretty ridiculous that we can't verify our own students. I get what William is saying about it being a popularity contest, but that seems counter to the point of being "verified". For dudes who are legit IBJJF blackbelts, but are not active competitors or part of the globetrotters crew, I don't foresee this being useful at all. I think the verification process needs to get re-looked at. I think legit proof of rank (IBJJF belt cert), team promotion cert, and/or confirmation from their professor should be enough.
For Example:
-IBJJF Cert and/or active being an IBJJF certified blackbelt should count for 1000 points.
-IBJJF certified Professor promotion verification should provide all the associated points for the rank, etc.
Whats you guy's thoughts?

Carlos, with your kind permission, let me speak for myself.

I am not only an IBJJF black belt not affiliated with Globetrotters, who has not competed in BJJ for a while,

but ironically, I am also the highest ranked person on the site.

And, I am having a dandy of time, enjoying the site,

and watching what happens, as it unfolds.

I think it is fascinating.

Then again, I have always viewed chaos as potentially beneficial, when embraced, and accounted for, as best we can.

By the way, I am not verified yet.

But, I don't mind.

I get the experiment.

I just think the voting things takes away from the legitimacy. Especially when people who have never met you can vote for you, I know I have been receiving tons of requests from people I have never heard of.
In other words if a professor cant certify his own students, but complete strangers can, it defeats the point of being "verified".

What about, as Christian G as brought up,

Conflicts of interest or bad judgements from individual instructors who possess the power of their pen?

I always advise people in my network to not promote their spouses or direct family, but to engage others to do so.

They do not always take my advice.

I do not throw them out of my network when they ignore my suggestion.

And sometimes they make perfectly fine promotions.

And the darker suggestion that Christian G makes, is what if promotions are bought or sold, or traded for favors.

We already see the potential for a favor economy here.

And it surely exists outside of this experiment, as well.

Sometimes it is virtuous, and sometimes not.

But all of these systems are flawed.

In truth, my opinion is: belt ranks are ridiculous.

And humans over emphasize paradigms of social hierarchy.

On the other hand, I make the practical concessions that I knew what I was getting into,

I am honored that my teachers chose to put a belt on my waist,

and I owe it to my students to be a good steward of the traditions,

so that they may choose for themselves as they earn their spurs.

Then again, as Napoleon crowned himself, if you think Ben Askren cannot wear the black belt,

then you take it off of him, if you can.

If he comes into my room, I am perfectly content to have him wear any belt he likes,

particularly if he should consent to teach us a little, and maybe even give us a roll, for the pleasure of it.

dang bro...you make a strong point with the spouse promotion....
In regards to promotions being done as favors or bought....theoretically the same could be done on here.

Yes, this is true.

No system is perfect, and neither are we.

I’ve reached out to many, only had one vote me “verified” (apparently after some alcohol, which I dig that).

I’ve not attended any globetrotter events, not because I don’t want to, but multiple jobs/family/being broke has prevented me from doing so.

I can’t afford to fly out to a “ref seminar”, per IBJJF requirements. However my social media presence, my legit lineage, and competition and instructional vids online def prove me being “legit”. My school and myself are registered with ibjjf/usbjjf (my black as competitor, not certified).

I think this is a great idea for those who don’t wish to jump thru those “ibjjf hoops”. However I’ve also run into (albeit my third day here so I’m seeing what happens), persons ignoring my messages, asking them to just check me out for verification.

Obviously this is mainly a globetrotter spot, which is fine, and they don’t know me from anyone. However just looking at my social media link, or googling me, will show I’ve been in the “trenches” since ‘98.

I am however enjoying the forums, and have linked up with other association members.

Be patient.

The site did not exist two or three weeks ago,

So, you were not worse off than you were.

And, if we count this conversation as productive entertainment,

then in that regard, you already have profit, for no investment except your time.

As power nodes appear, more black belts will get verified exponentially more quickly.

As stated def feeling it out and enjoying this!

@michael. I'll have you know I've made some of my best decisions in my life, while under the spell of Bacchus.

As squire @murphy pointed out. This is an experiment started by one bloke who got a handful of his friends on board to play along. Fully intended to release it into the world for anyone to use. But first we wanted to play with it some more, and a bunch of adjustments were made.

Think of radical rogue "goodware", trying to break the spell of the ibjjf pyramid scheme.

Thing is. We were still beta testing this beast when someone wrote that article. And the beast got out.

So now we're figuring out how to tame it.

Currently, BJJ is punk. There are no common rules for the award of belts. There is no unified association that brings together all the people who do BJJs, such as in judo or other Olympic sports.

Belts basically have no weight, because very often competiters have lower belts than they should have. In my opinion, in the BJJ, you only need to divide people into categories at the tournament so that people do not hurt themselves if the more experienced ones want to use dangerous techniques.

In terms of needs, in my opinion, it would be sufficient to divide into beginner, advanced and elite.

And this portal? I have to evaluate the skill of people around me based on my own belt ie. Should I say that people with black belts that I beat on tatami (with my purple belt) aren't black? Or is the problem that I'm not purple and should I have a higher belt? And is the goal of the portal to confirm belts or existence of people?

I like this project mainly because of introducing people and gives me references that I can use if I go to visit foreign clubs abroad.

Hi Jan, the concept of a belt has been difficult for me. Like you wrote belt does not meassure/indicate skill. It might give a glue, but not how good a person is at a given moment. If it did, older persons would need to down grade because an 80 year old red belt just can win a young bull.

Competitors belts are one system and instructors belt is a different kind of animal. Both very strange systems. For a regular person at own club belt has no value. Your friends know your skill and the way you roll with or with out a belt. It can be a "sticker" or a lollybop from an instructor to make you happy. (Works for me). You get a stripe as a sign that instructor has seen improvement - or wants to keep you hanging around so that you pay your gym fees...

Do you think that a foreign club will argue about your belt? Why should they?

Omar calls it a popularity contest and Carlos says ridiculous but it fits with the Globetrotters Theme of having more then one person decide promotion, the higher the belt the more it needs to be discussed.

If a person want to be promoted through Globetrotters it is not the decision of only one man and while yes, you need to pay for the camp (obviously) but you don't need to pay for the promotion.

This is not absolute and coaches can promote without others consent ( again, obviously).

Beltchecker is not absolute, but in my opinion is the better option in the sense of having multiple people sign off on you. If you can verify someone on only your vote the system would have no meaning .

But make no mistake, this is not a extension of Globetrotters, just partially shares the same idea, the site is new and things will evolve, nothing is perfect.

However, I am confident to say that you are more "legit" when 10 other black belts say you are, most from different places and backgrounds, rather then one old guy with IBJJF that requires payment.

But hey, that's just a 22 years old's opinion, dumb kid over here (some salt may be required to take this in)

I don't see why people are saying this is just a globetrotters thing.
Ive moved countries so ive moved gyms and my gym is mentioned on globetrotters a lot because it is a friendly place.
However, ive met a lot of people through competition which will be able to say if I deserve my belt (well currently stripes).

people have sent me messages asking me to verify them, god knows why as my vote means nothing, but this comes down to honor.

I would suggest tho, that maybe a coaches points be worth double that than their normal voting points? Then it does mean it gets their student closer to the verified status but also does give power to the masses.

As I wrote in another thread:
I would like this environment be something more than just "documents seem legit" page. As I've said previously - then it'd just double IBJJF certs. BJJ has reached a stage where people buy belts, jump ranks (without merit), are promoted online, do some weird kata-ish stuff to "pass exams" etc. To me - it's a sport as well as a martial art. You have to display skill AND/OR display coaching skills in a way that your students can display skills. In regards that - picture with a BJJ historic figure and/or signed cert are not enough for me.

Validation from a network of people isn't the same as a popularity contest.

There are illegitimate coaches out there. Giving the community a platform to comment on that matters. If some random coach I don't know says their student is a brown belt, cool. I don't know that coach. Probably they're fine, but who knows?

On the other hand, if they have a profile here where they are vouched for by a dozen people from different backgrounds, and have no listed disputes, that will say a lot more to me.

I would argue that this type of vetting does not have any credibility associated with it because people who have never seen or heard of you can "verify" your rank. Sure people can buy rank(which tends to be more common in Asia and Europe than America....Gracie university being the exception), but "verification" on here could also be bought, so that is a moot point. At least with IBJJF there is an independent governing body that requires signoff and does a background check.
Here, as stated above, its a popularity contest associated with the globetrotters. IF you have attended a camp or people recognize your name you'll likely get verified. If you don't, it won't.... at least not for a really long time. Mind you, we run a BJJ Globetrotters affiliated academy with matsurfers coming through on a monthly basis... so this ain't a knock on the the Globetrotters, simply playing devils advocate when it comes to asking questions that should be asked.
That being said, I do think some weight should be given to professors to verify their own students on here.....regardless this is turning out to be an interesting experiment.

The initial group of verified profiles have to come from somewhere. Randomly it was BJJ Globetrotters. The site has been online for less than 5 days, you need to have patience with the user base growing.

Today alone, 50 profiles have been verified and 70,000 vote points given. It is spreading world wide and also outside of the initial seeder group but it does take time (although a few days is really nothing, but people are quick to be impatient).

How long does the verification process take with IBJJF? I bet you this will be faster for most people in a few weeks.

Given these professors are legitimate, it should be very easy for them to reach out to a few friends in the community and ask for help with verifying his/her students. Extra voting weight to instructors, based on community trust.

You are probably correct about it taking faster...but I am simply not sure that will be a good thing. I guess we will see in a few weeks how this all shakes out. Keep up the good work bro.

Yes, but you can be disputed, and you aren't likely to get verification votes from the community if people don't know you.

This is still technically in an experimental phase, and Christian has said anyone can verify according to whatever their personal criteria is, but my hope is that it becomes strongly encouraged that one only approves people one has personally met in the future. I think it would be a good idea if we had a checkbox by the approval button that you had to check that indicates if you personally know them.

I am making small exceptions to that at this early stage to help get things going at times, if people I know validates someone and their stuff checks out, but I also mention in my comment in such cases that it is provisional, what it is based on, etc. If there would ever be a dispute, I'd rescind the vote, since I don't know them.

It's worth noting, the IBJJF verifies people they know nothing about all the time... That is their model. And if you buy verification, you'd have to pay several verified people, and you could still be disputed at any time.

I think people who are unverified shouldn't take it so hard. I can understand a natural sense of offense a black belt might have at having to "earn" the recognition from this network, but the "unverified" status shouldn't be thought of as a negative. "Verified" just means it's the next level of trust acknowledgement from a more neutral system.

I was thinking about this in the last few days. I think instead of a binary verified/unverified system, we should instead have a visual representation of how verified you are. The more points, the more community-verified you are. I think it would likely also be a good idea to have how many points your vote is worth connected to that community trust, instead of "can't vote" going to "has 100 pts" it should be that you can give 1/10th of your trust level, perhaps.

This could also help remote areas with no network access to the core users to start building up local sub-nodes, maybe?

What’s better, being verified by one black belt or 7-10 of them? (With the community having the power to dispute it, should you be illegitimate)

Honestly, I think its better to be verified by one legitimate person that knows personally knows the person in question than by 7-10 or 20 people who dont know who that person is, yet vote to verify because they like that persons online personality....and that at the end is the core of my argument. The fact that strangers can vote to "verify" someone, takes away from the validity of the thing.
That being said, this may change as you say once user numbers go up. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how this experiment shakes out. Thanks for you and your team's hard work on this. At the very least it seems like we are building a cool online community that may lead to new friendships.

Yeah I do think that the whole verification thing is not the core of the site in the long run. There are so many interesting community, registry and data visualization potentials here if it’s being adopted.

Right, agreed in theory, but the problem is: who is that one legitimate person?

I've heard of terrible, really bad black belts who received their belt at seminars from some very famous Gracies, for example. They have a legit looking lineage, association/affiliation, etc. And they refuse to roll, teach junk, and have "questionable morals".

Someone like that has no problem being IBJJF certified.

Someone like that would have a decent chance of being shredded here.

I agree with Christian Graugart's sentiment; allow some time for the culture of the space to develop.

While any social network has the potential to digress into a popularity contest I believe that we will see a lot of benefit from this experiment. Consulting a group of peers and experts to confirm rank will establish greater legitimacy of not only each individuals rank, but also the legitimacy of the professor assigning that rank. I think any reliance on favors or popularity will quickly be identified and pushed to the margins.
If we look at Micheal DesRosiers 'in the trenches' example; the documented history of each practitioner speaks to their legitimacy. That history and legitimacy is then verified by known and respected authorities within the greater social group.
I'm excited to see this resource available and eager to participate in the solidifying of its processes.

It is possible to discuss the potential value of this site's modality,

without suggesting that the IBJJF rank process,

or that individual dojo rank processes do not also have merit.

One does not need to kick another modality in the ass,

for one's own preferred modality to also provide a value.

In fact, they all have their merits, and their flaws.