Anybody here actually think being award multiple BB degrees at the same time goes "against the rules"?

I too have seen it on multiple occasions (including on the first BB in Finland, if I remember correctly). Even with previous stripes granted from afar, we were two BB:s from 2014 on Gigi's latest seminar in Finland who both, independent from each other, had never put on the stripes until meeting him in person again. When you're loyal to your long time instructor, that is more important than slapping on stripes as soon as possible. And I don't believe for one second that anyone here thinks that makes anyone worthy of a downvote.

Maybe a more appropriate way of documenting these situations would be to add the “Time Served” date on each stripe with an explanation in the comments that, your instructor gave them all to you at one time however he was doing so retroactively do to your time served. This would make more sense in my mind and maintain the three year gap rule. What say you??

I say that would just be silly. To my knowing, no one on Beltchecker has ever downvoted anyone for this given reason before and probably no one ever will again, without just wanting any kind of reason to poorly excuse a revenge vote. Should we also be downvoting those on Beltchecker who were promoted by a 2:nd and not a 3:rd degree or higher BB, if they haven't been registered on Beltchecker with any of their previous belts before?

I’m not sure about the 2nd degree question, I was just proffering a solution to the problem that had issue with the concurrent dates. But it is you promotional history and you get to decide how to reflect that in your profile, no question of you being deserving of it on my end.

His profile was alerted to me when he downvoted me, otherwise I'd have zero reason to click on his name.

So tell me again, what reason did you then have for clicking on and going after my family with the same revenge vote?

I'm not sure how your phone or belt checker works, but for me it sends me something called notifications. These notifications are triggered when things, such as you voting on my profile, happen. As I didn't know who you were, I clicked on your profile and it brought to my attention your illegitimate stripes. Then, after down voting you, you told me to be 'consistent' and downvote other people who had similar circumstances to you, which I agreed to do if pointed out to me. Shortly after that I received a message from someone showing me another profile who had also received stripes under the same circumstances I had previously down voted you for - so I also downvoted them as I had promised you I would. You should be happy about my consistency. But as you said, this is me telling you all this again. You may disagree with my strictness on stripes and not receiving them all on the same day, but its inappropriate for you to try to leverage downvotes to get me to change that, in my opinion. Instead, Insuggest you do better and fix your promotions and I will remove my downvote, otherwise I would be allowing you to bring down the quality of belt checker and have you make this into a site where we can threaten people into verifying our belts. It's really sad you take a legitimate downvote so personal.

So where and when did you pick up this claimed idea of yours about the stripes? From Chris Haueter or another of your past instructors? From IBJJF.s criteria? Or just out of thin air, when it suited your needs?

Isn't there some kind of a middle ground here or are those trenches too deep already?

I think I've already stated what I would need to remove my downvote from him and his teammates promoted under similar circumstances. If someone had a compromise I'd entertain it, but as he is pretty bent on making it personal and trying to just insult me or claim he can read my mind that doesn't seem likely.

Fair enough. You should also know that in this part of the world team dynamics are a bit different. For example my coach (Kari Vartiainen) received his black belt from Pedro Duarte, even though he never technically ever trained under his guidance. Duarte is the 'grand master' of the team who visits big seminars. He basically approves the belt after a bunch of Hilti black belts agree that someone deserves it. With brown belts the situation is similar. For example Kari promoted me to brown belt after consulting other Hilti blackbelts. What I've read in these forums Johan has a similar situation with his stripes. His promoter rarely visits Sweden or other Nordic countries so he gave him those stripes at the same time. Correct me if I'm wrong Johan, but that is how I understand it happened. While all this back and forth is entertaining, it seems a bit petty at times. And that includes both parties. Everyone have a great day. I'm getting ready (again) to watch the Unknown Soldier, since it is our independence day after all.

It is NOT accepted by the IBJJF.. I personally think it is fine damn stripes are meaningless to begin with you lived another 3 years congrats. But is you are speaking of Johan ( of course not the whale guy ) he quotes IBJJF equivalents to justify in his attempts to steer the site but seems to cherry pick the ones he wants to enforce

I just checked their graduation system and Section 4.1.5 states: 4.1.5 Athletes from the Black Belt rank and higher (Red and Black Belt, Red and White Belt and Red Belt): I. The 1st (First) Degree can be requested after a minimum period of 3 (three) years of proven activity in the Black Belt under IBJJF. II. The 2 nd (Second) Degree can be requested after a minimum period of 3 (three) years from the previous graduation or with 6 (six) years of proven activity in the Black Belt under IBJJF. III. The 3 rd (Third) Degree can be requested after a minimum period of 3 (three) years from the previous graduation or with 9 (nine) years of proven activity in the Black Belt under IBJJF. IV. The 4 th (Fourth) Degree can be requested after a minimum period of 5 (five) years from the previous graduation or with 14 (fourteen) years of proven activity in the Black Belt under IBJJF. V. The 5 th (Fifth) Degree can be requested after a minimum period of 5 (five) years from the previous graduation or with 19 (nineteen) years of proven activity in the Black Belt under IBJJF. VI. The 6 th (Sixth) Degree can be requested after a minimum period of 5 (five) years from the previous graduation or with 24 (twenty four) years of proven activity in the Black Belt under IBJJF You have to pay your yearly dues to the IBJJF (Section 4.2 - proof of activity, basically lists things where you either pay or get others to pay under IBJJF), then you can either slap a degree every 3 years or N degrees every Nx3 years. The only requirement for a promoting professor listed I found is for the black belt, not the stripes. So, as long as you pay your dues (affiliation + 1 of the three optional trainings provided by them, Section 5) the IBJJF is okay with both 'time-spent' and multiple degrees being awarded at the same time. Now, what should a black belt degree mean? As you get older your body deteriorates, your reflexes, flexibility, strength... all get weaker, so you actually become a worse athlete, however your knowledge may increase (or not, depending on how much you keep training and how you do it) and make up for some of those aspects. So, I personally don't think 'time spent' should be a valid criterium for skill. I do think however that for accumulated time dedicated to BJJ it is fair.