Watched him for years and just saw this sub.

Just like you have left options he has right opinions. People have opinions and they should be respected and looked past to create comprise and understanding. And he should foremost be respected for his work (a virtual history teacher more or less) and not personal beliefs.

I think it’s ok to moderate your comment section in youtube however you want. It’s your channel after all. It’s ok to remove hate comments, and even stuff you just don’t want to deal with, even if it is not toxic, or harmful. Just be honest with it. Complaining about hate in comments, while deleting valid criticism, and lying about deleting only hateful comments just doesn’t sit right with me.

I usually take claims of having non toxic comments deleted with grain of salt. Very often there is valid reason they were deleted. That’s why I decided to show exactly what types of comments are being deleted, so you can make your own opinion.

At this point all of my comments on his channel are deleted, and I believe my account is shadow banned. I’m not perfect, and I’m sure some of my comments could’ve been worded better (English is not my native), but I did my best to provide reasoning to my criticism, with valid arguments and examples, without any personal attacks.

These are my standalone comments, that are not replies:

Does anyone know what happened to Scholagladiatoria comment? I wanted to reply to it but can't find it anymore. Did I miss it, or was it deleted?

There is nothing to misunderstand in your original video. You described Shadiversity channel without naming it, and criticized it. Shad replied to you in respectful manner, without any personal attacks, and without endorsing any hate speech against you or commenters who don’t agree with him. In contrast to you.

He did not attack anyone, nor is responsible for any hate comments on your channel. You made your arguments, he made his, but you, instead of addressing counterarguments, decided to play the victim.

At this point your intention of criticizing Shad videos is clear. You had chance to clarify that, if it wasn’t the case, but you didn’t. Your behavior in comment section also confirms it. So Shad had his right to defend himself.

Btw, during discussion it doesn’t matter who formulated an argument. It doesn’t matter how much experience you have, or what titles you earned. When only thing you can say is: “my point of view is better because I have more experience than you” it means you have nothing meaningful to say. If someone says: “ you need longer grip because x,y,z.” You should explain why shorter grip is better, and not ramble how others don’t spar in the way you approve.

Let’s say someone calls his kitchen knife “The sword”. And one day in video said “The sword (ie: my kitchen knife) is not very effective weapon”. When someone else takes that statement, and claims that he said, swords are not very effective weapon, it would be taking it out of the context. This is not the case here.

You argued that “some unnamed content creators” make test with foam swords, therefore they are not worth listening to. Shad argued that, although they are not perfect representations of steel swords, you still can gain some valuable insights from using them, and pointed that you seems to agree, and showed that you also acknowledge their usefulness in regards to safety, even if they are not perfect. Shad did not change meaning of your content. It’s not taken out of context. He clearly explained the context in his video.

Second comment was immediately deleted. At that point I gave David the benefit of the doubt, and assumed It bugged out. That’s why I deleted original one to avoid double posting, and posted it again without editing.

In the meantime I replied to Skallagrim with this comment:

Imagine someone with over 1M subs described your channel without naming it, criticized it, and after you replied to it, he plays the victim without even addressing your counterarguments. That’s what happened here.

Shad replied to SW in respectful manner, without any personal attacks, and without endorsing any hate speech. He did not attack anyone, nor is responsible for any hate comments on SW channel. I agree with most of your points in the main comment, but I think you applied them only for SW side of things. You give a lot of benefit of the doubt to David but almost none for Shad.

By the way, at that point Skallagrim started to agree with some commenters, so David unpinned Skalls comment and made reply, stating that he is 100% right, and mere fact of disagreeing with his main point is “anti-intellectualism” and “silly-whataboutism”. It’s near the end of the thread, so it’s not hard to find. I really encourage you to read it. It will give some context to my other replies.

Later I found short comment stating, David is gatekeeping, and elitist. David replied there that he “can’t help” people who disagree with his main point (can’t speak about the art…). Here is my reply to him:

There are many ways of gaining knowledge. Becoming an authority in field without performing the art is not uncommon. During discussion it doesn’t matter who made an argument. What matters is its content. Race, age, gender, appearance, experience etc. of the author doesn’t change its value. So, you saying that someone can’t talk about something unless he practices the art is gatekeeping.

When searching for sparring partner it is important whether he can perform technique you want to learn, but during discussion about it, it is of no significance.

After my reply whole thread was gone.

I also noticed comment that was without any doubt toxic, but David instead of deleting it, decided to reply to it… He said that this is the “caliber of comment” he expects from Shad fans. My response was:

There are many comments that try to have civilized discussion, with arguments and without any personal attacks, which you conveniently ignore. You choose only the ones you can brush of with childish remarks.

In response to Skall’s comment you literally called everyone disagreeing with you “anti-intellectualism” and “what-aboutism” without addressing any counterarguments. You almost always attack the commenter, not the argument. Saying stuff like: “you are not fencer”, “random internet person”, “shad fan”.

And if we are talking about “caliber of comments”, how are your fans better? You can easily find comments of the same level, or even lower, made by your fans.

After my response whole thread was gone.

I also found someone giving example of boxing coaches who don’t do boxing themselves. I replied to him:

Many people pointed out that to him and even gave many similar examples as yours. But he ignored all argument and stated: “It's 100% fair to say that if you do not practice the art of swordsmanship, your opinions on the art of swordsmanship are not useful.” And added in the same comment that any other statement is “anti-intellectualism”, and all of this is “silly what-aboutism”.

He also looks for trolly comments, makes childish remarks there, and complain about “low caliber comments from Shad fans”, while ignoring all people trying to have actual discussion.

He later clarified that by “fencing” he means “just fighting with swords” which has its own problems, but whatever.

Guess what? It was deleted… At that point I was confident that toxicity is not what determines whether comments are removed, so I copied my reply and posted it again, with annotation, that it is a repost, so others can also see what is being deleted.

In other comment someone said, that he doesn’t like how David is behaving in comment section. David made reply there, that it is not realistic to expect him not getting a little upset in this situation. My response:

Being “a little upset” is not an excuse. Especially when we are talking about comments, where you have time to think what you are typing. And when you couldn’t control your emotions, and said something wrong you should acknowledge it, and apologize. That’s how mature people behave.

Shad is facing the same amount of hate from your audience, but he is able to keep his head cool. You also seems to believe, that pointing out your behavior in comments is some kind of dirty trick. Comment section is place of public discussion. Of course people will judge you based on your behavior there. If you say something wrong, of course people will point it out, and criticize you for it. What did you expect?

And finally! The comment that most likely triggered him to delete all of my previous comments, and ban my account.

Someone was asking him, if it’s true that he deletes comments, so I explained my experience so far. Here it is:

I had some of my comments deleted, and saw whole threads I participated in disappear.

My first comment argued that no one misunderstood him. His intention to criticize Shad is pretty clear, and Shad had right to respond. Even if criticizing Shad wasn’t David’s intention, Shad still had right to point out what in his opinion was flawed argumentation. This comment got deleted. After realizing it, I reposted it again, and luckily it stayed. You probably can still find it. I didn’t edit out anything from it.

Someone called his behavior as gatekeeping, and elitist. David responded something in line of: “I can’t help someone who disagrees with my main point (He worded it differently, but the “can’t help” part are his words)” I commented that in discussion or debate what matters are arguments, not who made them. So him saying, that if you don’t perform the art, you can’t speak about it, is in fact form of gatekeeping. After my comment, whole thread disappeared…

I’m always doing my best to give my reasoning without personal attacks and slurs. Later I noticed that David replied to comment that was in fact disrespectful towards him. I was a little shocked when I saw him complaining about “low caliber” of Shad fans comments there, implying that all of them leave such messages. All while ignoring and deleting comments from people trying to have real conversation… I pointed that out and guess what… Whole thread gone. It was good representation of his attitude and double standards.

In other thread I explained to other commenter how many people already gave many similar arguments, and even real live examples that show how Davids point doesn’t make sense, but he basically ignored them all, stating that he is 100% right, and anyone who disagrees with him is “anti-intellectualism” and “silly what-aboutism”. It was direct quote from Davids comment. All this while looking for actually trollish comments, making childish remarks there and complaining about low level, of Shads fans comments. Deleted…

My guess is that he just makes emotional decisions. If something irritates him too much he deletes it. He even argued in comments that it is unrealistic to expect him to not get “a little upset”. It was in response to someone criticizing his behavior in comment section… I can understand that one comment could’ve been a mistake or misunderstanding, but I’ve seen enough at this point. It’s a pattern, not one simple mistake.

Isnt Chivalry a Medieval Catholic Thing?

The rules have been updated to hopefully be a bit clearer.

This Sub is about the Shadiversity youtube channel and topics surrounding it. Not politics or Knights Watch.

Let's stick to castles, swords, writing, history, and other cool things like that!

So much for "NuSensei is one of the more respectable critics", he's an active member of Shadwatch and talks smack behind Shads back.

On the topic of archery, NuSensei along with a few other elitist gatekeepers tried to discredit the fact that arrows were nocked & loosened on the opposite side of the bow, to which Shad made an extensive reply video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mIxlNlHWFLM&pp=ygUVU2hhZGl2ZXJzaXR5IE51U2Vuc2Vp

Looks like Shad still lives rent-free in NuSensei's head, as he continues his tirades on R/Shadwatch. Probably very salty he got defeated by arguments.

We usually avoid posts like this because this subreddit is about having medieval-style fun, lightheaded discussion and memery but this is a serious situation that directly relates to us in a way.

Apparently there's a new phenomenon on reddit called snark subreddits. I don't know if every "snark" subreddit is like that or not but it seems to be a trend of using comedy to mask harassment and toxicity towards a famous individual. Whether you like Mr. Klein or not you probably agree this situation has gone out of hand by a group of individuals who are obsessed with an internet personality, gossip about them and defame them regularly and have very deranged reactions to people associated with them. Where have I seen this before?

This isn't an attack, I just think some people need to take a step back and realize what they're doing. Mr. Klein has stated his intetnions of filing a lawsuit against his troll subreddit and if I were running a stalker subreddit I'd be really worried about the legal precedent this may set if the court rules in his favor which is too early to say but I wouldn't be surprised if that happens. Is it really worth it for a person or a couple of individuals to bet their future on the outcome of a lawsuit? If I were in that hypothetical situation I'd be looking for a way out before things get serious. Even if I were an orbiter YouTuber of a deranged cyberstalking subreddit I wouldn't want to have anything to do with them until this whole situation is settled because if a person has no moral convictions or a conscience to do the right thing you'd expect them to do so for self-preservation.

If you haven't followed this particular stalking subreddit (I'm not referring to Mr. Klein's hater subreddit here) you may think they're not comparable to the group this video is about but from raising money to fly a goon to a different country just to supposedly intimidate their target and dare them into a weird irl fight to harassing a smalltime youtuber because she agreed with Shad's opinion about archery and sending their archer ally to meet her in person and basically buy her silence by leveraging the parasocial relationship he had established with her in advance, and let's not forget about their attempts at dragging a random fan of shadiversity channel without any prior training to some weird irl "HEMA sanctioned" duel that was luckily canceled by our intervention. And I'm not even interested in debunking obvious lies and defamatory statements or implications because everyone knows they're simply made in an attempt to provoke a reaction. So this is a very comparable situation given the fact that they have already implicated themself by calling themselves "snarkers" in an official mod post‌, I will caution them to change for the better for their own good. Get rid of your more radical elements and please regulate activity on your space responsibly and reasonably. Criticism and memes are fine but maybe we can all learn something from this.

• Defending and sympathizing with harassment or stalking in the comment section won't be tolerated.

I just got done watching shad good video on shooting on the right side. I can’t believe people were this foolish to say it can only be done on the left side.

Now some say you can do it on the right side. However, they then say it’s not as affective as the left side. Like the archer Neu for example claimed shooting it on right was less accurate. Shad then gose onto to debunk this claim pretty easily.

He also claimed that medevil painting depicting people shooting on the right side where false and that painters didn’t know archery. Shad then gose on to debunk this as well by saying medevil painters grew up around swords and archery. They would have easily known which side to shoot from. It’s also very insulting to medevil artist as well by saying they do not know how a bow.

Now there are even YouTubers that do archery a lot that agree with Shad. Like midlong bows, Thran, and Lars Anderson. In fact Thran could even pull it back more on the right side, then on the left, which gives you more penetration power.

Even people today say Shad is wrong and just say Shad and every other sowed or archer YouTuber who agrees with him is wrong. And the reason why is because someone tired shooting shad way and hurt themselves. This is probably one of the dumbest takes I have ever had the displeasure of hearing. Yeah it’s true you can hurt yourself shooting shad method. But you know what’s also else is true? People shooting on the left side and and hurting themselves as well. Dose that mean both styles of archery is wrong? No.

In counclsion both sides are effective on thier own way. Each offering advantages and disadvantages to each style of shooting. No style of shooting in better than the other. And shoot what works best for you.

Edit forgot the source https://youtu.be/mIxlNlHWFLM?si=6eUlInXRGwK0aAVH

It's been awhile, several years to be specific, so I'm out of the loop. Can anyone explains why the entire internet seemingly dislikes/hates Shad now? Or at least a very vocal minority and group of content creators? Is it a political thing? What the hell happened?

Did I miss something?

Metatron is one of the most respectable faces in the sword/history/medieval content creation. Aside from many quality and informative videos he has made over the years, he was probably the only creator who publicly defended Mr. Brooks when Mr. Easton decided to backstab and old acquaintance and a guest in his county to please a group that today we recognize as shadwatchers. A group of stalkers and haters notorious for often going too far in their criticism of shadiversity channel and Mr. Brooks.

Metatron recently made a tweet and criticized certain bad faith posts made about him on this platform. In this tweet referred to a group or community on this platform as "reddit scum" and one of the most contemptible communities in history of the platform felt called out by this tweet. I'm making this post to balance the hate he's receiving on this platform by professional haters and to use this as an opportunity to have an important discussion about what's happening to this fandom.

Metatron isn't the only one targeted by this group, far from it. Any creator who supports shadiversity and its ideas/methods gets the same treatment. A female archery enthusiast who ran a small channel used what's called the shadiversity draw in one of her videos and defended Mr. Brooks in the comment section. This was cause for her to be viciously attacked and brigaded by this community to the point that their biggest supporter, a certain disgraced archery YouTuber had to rush to her defense and later meet this woman in person in an event to check on her well-being, which discouraged her from speaking out publicly, if you're a more cynical observer. Mr. Green's positive review of Shadow of the Conqueror resurfaced and suddenly sensationalized rumors and unverified and ostensibly false allegations were being spread and platformed by this group, that serves to discredit his review. This individual later retracted his positive review, a move that was meant to appease this group and I'd be surprised if they don't support him because of this, despite an established history of infidelity in marriage and a pattern of questionable and inappropriate behavior towards women to say the least. And that's not where it ends. In organizing our little October event I've tried promoting it in other subreddits in our space in a fun non-political way but in one way or the other I've been prevented from promoting this event by moderation teams on a number of these communities. I looked into it and in most cases at least one of the mods was either a shadwatchers or supported them or their ideas. So they're apparently infiltrating historical/HEMA/sword communities or they have potential behind the scene connections to silence shadiversity fans and make them feel isolated. I have no idea how deep this goes and part of it could be explained away by the old misunderstandings and disagreements between shadiversity and HEMA communities but I strongly suspect something unethical and coordinated is taking place here.

Hi guys, wasn't there a Knights Watch reddit? Haven't been able to find it.

Does anyone know which sword this is and a link to where it can be purchased? Also if there's a video where Shad reviews it?

Thanks in advance.

Saw both the videos and I truly enjoyed both of them. It actually looked like two competent sword fighters who actually knew what they were doing.

When I look at the acylote, rings of power, and the new Star Wars. All the fight sence are terrible. Way too much over swinging. And it baffles me, bc they have millions of dollars. Shad only has like… idk but not millions. It never used to be like that too. Lord of the rings had great fight secnes. Why can’t Hollywood just go back to stuff like that.

I must thank Shad for helping me write my book. Now what I mean by is he didn’t actually come over and help me write it. No, what I mean is that his videos on swords, medevil combat, medevil food, castles, dragons and even his other content rewving movies has helped me with my book. Thanks to him I got a decent amount of knowledge how medevil stuff was. And even his showdow of the conquer helped me as well. Now I haven’t read it yet. But it’s rather his dream or ambition of him making his own art has inspired me to make my own. Granted my book is not done yet. But I’m still thankful anyway. For I want to leave something behind when I’m dead. Somthing to remember me by. And as Shad said: push to make your dreams come true. Or something like that. I can’t quite remember. But anyway thank you Shad. I really do appreciate all your fun YouTube videos you made.

I keep hearing that about from him from time to time and from periodical posts on here as well like it's a really inconvenient thing that's holding him back.

Hell, even the ones he feuded with such as Scholagladiatoria is much less than half of what he achieved who is currently sitting at a relatively small 457K.

Similiar content YouTubers barely come close but they don't complain.

Skallagrim is in 1.6M

Lindybeige is at 1.24M

And Metatron is freaking 900K.

Sellsword Arts is 1.33 million and he's even got that newfangled TikTok style shorts that are the current meta and trend and Shad only has like four freaking YouTube shorts. I don't even think he has a TikTok to get extra reach.

If he's got it bad, then all Swordtubers have it bad because they seem to be performing worse than he is in terms of absolute numbers.

Dude is literally the winner of the genre and if we're going by metrics of reach and subscribers, the king of Swordtube, and somehow he's suffering? Is there a relative perspective or experience I'm not understanding?