Shinjuken Ryu Kenjutsu?

[Chris Hellman]

I checked Watatani again today, and there is definitely no sign of Shinjuken-ryu on any of those pages. (Actually, they deal mainly with Jigen-ryu).

As for the other references, I don't know - anyone care to guess?

Seems like the whole thing is a carefully worked out, plausible sounding fabrication, put together by someone who has done a little scooting around to see what is already there.

Chris Hellman

[Fred27]

The article was deleted by a user who had dealt with this Shinjuken ryu author before.
Apparently this was the second time this Shinjuken author had created a Shinjuken ryu article .

Dont you love it when a plan comes together?

[Josh Reyer]

I have to say, the frauds are getting cleverer and cleverer. Bogus Watatani references, imaginary Iwanami Shoten books, phony Koryu Books references, this guy had it all down as to how a proper article for a real ryu should look. I've long been a believer that the best way to cut through Wikipedia edit war B.S. was superior citations, and I guess this guy felt the same way.

His only problem, of course, was that everything else in the article was utter crap. An origin date a century before the earliest extant ryu. All the "ryu" stuff, translated as "school", completely unidiomatic. It's funny. Had he been a little more circumspect -- an Edo period date of origin, more idiomatic descriptions of the teachings of the ryu, etc., the article would have stood for years with no one giving it a second thought.

[DDATFUS]

the article would have stood for years with no one giving it a second thought.

Also, he should have never made a claim so easy to disprove. Double-checking the Watatani references requires that someone with sufficient Japanese language skills read the article, smell a rat, and give a sufficient darn to walk over to the bookshelf, look up the pages, and translate. Those fake citations could have sat there for years undetected, in theory. But a fib regarding a living, active, and most importantly online member of the koryu community was just asking for trouble.

[Fred27]

I have to say, the frauds are getting cleverer and cleverer. Bogus Watatani references, imaginary Iwanami Shoten books, phony Koryu Books references, this guy had it all down as to how a proper article for a real ryu should look. .

I hear that!
Have you followed the Gosho-ha Niten Ichi Ryu guys? They've very aggressively established themselves on wikipedia and does everything to change it to their version of "truth".

[Chris Hellman]

I guess it behoves us all to keep a close eye on this kind of thing - he might learn from his mistakes, and we may see a plausible Shinjuken-ryu entry in the future!!

I guess a wikipedia entry is an important form of validation these days, even if you do write it yourself.

Good work on this one, though.

[DDATFUS]

he might learn from his mistakes, and we may see a plausible Shinjuken-ryu entry in the future!!

Come to think of it, aren't we offering would-be frauds a lot of great advice in this thread? Maybe we should rethink that...

[pgsmith]

It's really not worth worrying too much about in my opinion. There have been frauds and shysters for as long as there have been martial arts schools. As one older Japanese gentleman put it when I was complaining about them on my last trip to Japan ... "It is my great, great grandchildren's problem. If the school is still there in three generations, then it must have something that's worth keeping it around. If it's not still there, then there's no problem."

Not saying that I entirely agree with his outlook, but it certainly does save a lot of aggravation.