Talk:Swordsmanship/Pre-Revamp Archive

message: see Talk:European dueling sword. dab (ᛏ) 16:06, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: merge?

message: the "list of swordsmen" seems a bit arbitrary, without any context. Any fencer may be considered a swordsman, at the very least, the list should be organized by period or tradition. dab (ᛏ) 14:05, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah that should probably be its own article with at most a link in the see also section of this article. - Taxman Talk 17:19, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)
I guess that's true. It is quite arbitrary. I thought I was doing a favor to merge Swordsmen based on suggestions, but now it does seem odd. Please do what you think it should be. - Aree
no, I quite agree with the merge. The list was out of place even before. I'll just remove it for now, we have categories for that (lists only add something if they are sorted or annotated in some way). dab (ᛏ) 09:36, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: list

message: The Zweihander section of the article, when discussing historical use is inconsistant with the Zweihander article.
It is my personal belief that the Goliath manuscript does not infact protray zweihanders but longswords that are illustrated in a distored way.  And as far as I know the historical fencing community agrees with my view.
Zweihanders are used more in the fashion of a polearm than a langschwert from my experiments with them.
I can cite a swordforum thread that supports my arguement if asked.
:It is not a controversy over the use of any given sword. It is a matter of terminology what we want to call a Zweihander. If we take Tobler's definition, I think the Goliath swords would qualify; please collect as many citeable definitions of the term as you can and we can match them against each other here. I would be interested in the pike-formation-attacking "myth". Do we have any citation of the assertion, and do we have any citeable debunking of the assertion? dab (ᛏ) 20:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wiki contradictions 

message: This is a topic I think that deserves much more work than is visible here. A few questions, with numbers for easy referencing:
# Will the article continue to focus on western swordsmen and swordsmanship? This seems fitting, as noted above, because other cultural groups have entries devoted to their specific form of swordsmanship. A section within this article wikilinking and briefly discussing other forms would not be unwelcome, by any means, however. 
:*The use of swordsmanship as a disambiguation page may also work well, with the content of this article becoming the culturally related European Swordsmanship or Western Swordsmanship. The disambiguation page could then provide broad information on swordsmanship and a list of other wiki articles that view other 'cultural' forms of swordsmanship.
# Are there articles that could be merged into this topic, or topics this article could be merged into? Currently, the article does not stress much about the actual role of swordsmanship, but rather the schools and well known teachers - information found in greater detail in other articles.
# Should the article become more socially and culturally focused? I.e., what constituted a "swordsman" in different time periods, what role they were likely to play in society, and what role in the military? It seems this expansion would provide more information on the idea of swordsmanship as an identity and less on the martial arts surrounding it, a topic covered in other sections.
I think this article, in its current state, needs to be careful not to step on the toes of Western Martial Arts, Historical European martial arts, or Historical martial arts reconstruction. Instead, as I stated, I think the article should focus more on what being a swordsman meant aside from the obvious martial connotations. What was the life of a swordsman like? Did they geneally live richly? Connected to the nobility? Were they the 'average footsoldier' or did they usually hold more prestigious positions among the 'brass'? How did they train? Were there specific guilds or schools that were common? What was the implication of swordsmanship in law? Duels? Where men (or women?) with swords at their hip viewed immediately as 'special'? If so, in what way? Fear, respect, worry, honor? I believe these are the sort of questions this article should answer.--Xiliquiern 03:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: this article should discuss swordsmanship, not swordsmen. "Swordsman" is not on official title or social class. I think it should be in WP:SS, with sub-articles such as Gladiator, German school of swordsmanship, Italian school of swordsmanship, George Silver, Kenjutsu and the like. Obviously, worlds lie between a gladiator of Roman times and gentlemanly exercise in Silver's time, so that if you're going to ask questions regarding "how did a swordsman live", you need to sort answers by century and by country. dab (ᛏ) 08:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The WP:SS was exactly what I was looking for when I mentioned that it may work as a disambiguation page leading to other swordsmanship pages. That would work very nicely. And if any social mention was to be made, chronological placement would be a very important note. -- Xiliquiern 13:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: so we agree :) you are most welcome to adopt this article! dab (ᛏ) 15:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Current state of the article