About

Where to from now?

Well, between a full time job, keiko, social life (not that I have one…), and the myriad of normal daily things we all have to do in out lives, its sometimes hard to keep writing for this site. At some points over the past 3 years we were churning our new articles every week, sometimes more than 1 a week. That was a bit crazy! From now on I intend to edit and release articles at a more casual rate. Also, I want to spend more time writing that kendo book I’ve been talking about for the last few years…

Can I contribute?

From day 1 we have been looking for people to contribute to the site. The only thing we ask is that:

1. You are an active and experienced practitioner of the content you are writing about. You don’t have to be kyoshi 7dan, or a menkyo-kaiden holder, but a good lump of experience is generally required;
2. The content you submit is interesting and informative. We also except the occasional “bloggy” post as well!! If English is not your first language don’t worry, we can edit it for you;
3. Supplied content (including pictures) be your own work. Of course, if you have permission to use pictures, or are using ones that are in the public domain then that is fine.

That’s about it!

Unfortunately the budo community being what it is, many experienced people seem quite reticent to publish things online, which is a shame. Also, many people have made comments to me about how they can’t match the quality of the articles on here. I assure you, nobody writing here is a professional writer… we are all impassioned amateurs!! Unless you try you will never know!

The other way you could contribute would be to donate some funds to us for website costs (domain, hosting, themes, etc). I’ve always been reticent to ask this before (as the site is non-profit), but if you do want to, just get in touch and I can tell you our paypal details.

Content (written and image) usage – creative commons and fair use

All content on the site falls into some sort of combination of the following (of course, there may be exceptions):

1. Written content that is 100% the authors original work
2. Images that are 100% the authors or kenshi247.net supplied work
3. Translations of written work that are in the public domain
4. Images that are in the public domain (copyright expired or made available to use freely, e.g. via flickr)
5. Partial translations of written work of items still under copyright

For items 3, 4, and 5, we do not hide the fact. We supply thanks, urls, source information, etc, where possible. For item 5 in particular, we are careful not to overdo things. We use that type of material on the basis of fair use, and hopefully do the original author a favour by promoting their work to a wider audience. If you are an author and you think you see something that is dodgy, please contact and we will review the content immediately.

Items 1 and 2, however, remain our (the authors) property. In general we do allow you to download pictures for non-commercial use, and to translate articles freely. Its best to check with particular authors if you wish to use their work. kenshi247.net does not own authors work… it remains theirs.

The public licenses found at creativecommons.org will give you an idea about where we generally stand with our work. As we quote and respect the authors whose work we use, please respect ours.

Read more about the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Thanks

Lastly, thanks for your support! Most of the comments have come via facebook, or personally via people I’ve met online or off. Cheers!!

- George, Jan 3rd 2011, Osaka.