Jahanshah Javid

Dont do that Please!

Jahansha, I am a registered member and usually leave comments on different articles. Sometimes I feel more comfortable to sign out of my account and leave my comments anonymously. I know there might be some abuse and hatred among the comments left, but that's not a good reason to call it off. I am traveling to Iran very frequently, obviously my position is against Islamic Republic and I'm afraid of if I would be spotted by Iranian Intelligence for my comments condemning them in different terms. If you close open comments, there would be a mess in your registered members database as well. The comments you are not happy of won't stop at all. Even if you close their account they will open new ones. Don't do that please and remember "nothing is sacred". Thanks

Two more points

Abarmand brought up a great point. I used to email links and articles and I have foud myself not to do that for a while, not because of the articles but because of the embaressing comments . So iranian.com may lose few people who enjoy cursing at others but will gain many more readers just by us promoting it to others.

On another note  , have you noticed that most of the replies to this article are from registered users ? which means they are the ones who care about this site and that by itself is a clear sign to the answer! 

Mr.Jahanshah Javid

This is my humble suggestion.
Personally I don't mind unregistered users leave comments.I've seen registered users who calling others names and unregistered users who disagreed in a civil and respectful way.Everyone has the right to express his opinion.

But The point is:

We need to say our opinions in a language of utmost "kindliness" and "goodwill". We can disagree in a CIVIL and RESPECTFUL way.

Please all users (registered and unregistered) remember this:"The goal is not to agree -- it is about hearing and exploring divergent perspectives." so please reply with reasoning and logical remark, and stay away harmful comments.

We are human, and virtues that befit our dignity are forbearance, mercy, compassion and loving-kindness towards all the peoples and kindreds of the earth. Please let's put our differences away, we are all Iranians, we are all children of our beloved Iran.

wishing you all the best in your endeavors

Respectfully,Mona :)

JJ here's an example

Here's one blog finding a platform to promote hate as a blog NOT a comment. Start with yourself.  Why are you allowing these kind of blogs and articles?

//iranian.com/main/blog/rottengods/set-fire-quran

NOT SORRY ABOUT LADAN K. AT ALL!

I changed my mind and I meant what I said about Ladan K. and I bet everyone else here agrees with me

Why not Nazanin?

Do you see this kind of hate mongering on other websites? and this is an Iranian website mind you.  What can be better than this to those who are stereotyping us that just check out their website, they are cutting each other's throats.  What is "civilized" about it?  Others who have done this longer than us have found discipline.  This sounds like the same arguement that we shouldn't have feminism or women rights movement in Iran because it is "westernized".

Don't even think about

Don't even think about changing a single thing. These people who want to know who is saying what and want email addresses and so on should have joined the police. I for one would NOT want to know I am being policed. I recall someone telling me recently "baba ignoreshun kon"...I'm trying hard to put a name to the voice. ..I just can't remember who told me that...I'm thinking hard and hard...

Registered users only

JJ,

This is what I suggest:-

• Make it registered users only, and have them linked to their email (only visible to you)
• Collapse the comments to small font headings, with expandable section so comments can be expanded and read if required or otherwise be ignored.
• Limit the number of words to say 1000, anything over can go to a separate blog or article which you can classify as related topics, the way you did in the old format.
• Limit registered users to one, or two comments, but still allow editing so that they can update their comments, this way they will not waste their precious words, or use the blasting technique.
• Make the offensive link more effective or take it off, or come up with an Iranian.com netiquette which is still very open but based on the “editing out” of offensive material.

If I have to register each

If I have to register each time I make a comment, and I would only be able to read comments from registered users.....ME OUT.
Tazeh...who's to say that one person wouldn't have more than one id????? This method won't help you to weed out the courageous defenders of justice.

Dombalan recipe - A local Deli with a “home cookin” flare

When it comes to an authentic “Dombalan”, there is nothing like what is being served at JooJa_Balan.com. A long time patron described t as being similar to “self-serve” cooking with no limits on ingredients or number of so called chefs.

Since the customers are the chefs, they keep coming back for more, no matter how bad or good the final “Dombalan” turns out.
At the outset, it would seem the popularity is mostly due to variety in dishes served. It would be wrong, however, to assume this is the only reason for JooJa_Balan.com popularity.

To find out more we went and had a short interview with JooJa founder and the master chef ....

Seriousely, J-Mon have I got a Dombalan recipe for you ...

1- come up with a simple set of guidlines (in less than 10 points)

2- Keep offinsive posts in a "trash bin" as an example of what not to post. (also high lit what rule in 1 applies to everyu case)

All you can hope for is self restrain ...

Finally, If you could applay the same set of rules to yourself, we would have the perfect receipe for authentic fruity “Dombalan” from California.

Keep up the good work.

B.M.

TO JAMSHID

Jamshid,

A couple of weeks ago, some one left a using my REGISTERED name. I tried leaving a comment under "n.zanincanadai" without logging on and it wouldn't let me. I even tried to add spaces and it got trimmed. So, the answer is YES, some smart people out there can and do leave comments with a chicken icon and they do it by using actual registered ids.

JJ start with yourself and things that ARE "sacred".

JJ what is the point in allowing a "registered" user to post a blog or article about burning Quoran or throwing it in toilet?? This has nothing to do with freedom of speech.  It has to do with FINDING a platform to promote hate.  You provide that platform in Iranian.com and then you expect people to control themselves???

You leave the food out and expect the cat to have manners?! I'd first do a better job of actually editing and not allowing hate mongers to use this site as a platform.  Do you want to wait until something like a lawsuit to happen to you (like it did with Hoder and that other guy) and then do something?

Second, I'd limit comments to registered users.  Not that it is going to make too much of a difference but at least you can try.  I wasn't in favor of it but enough time has lapsed that makes me change my mind.

 There are enough registered users who comment that it should keep the discussion alive.  We don't need 200 hate comments left on a blog or article.  We want quality not quantity.

Don't forget it starts with you.  Have some journalistic discipline like all mainstream journalists and media. 

Save each other We have to

Save each other

We have to save each other.  I have found that under the current system, the dirty chickens, not the nice chicken, run away, when there are loads of nice chickens and registered people telling him off.

Rotten registered people 

Mind you, there are loads of rotten registered people around as well, but they tend to not become personal or use foul language that much.  I know this, because I get up most people's noses with my astrology and other wacky ideas.

No fear 

Personally I never really take anyone seriously, unless they have the courage and guts, to put their full name out for all to see.  And no one says as much against the Seyyeds as much as I do, so there is no fear element really.  Use your real name and be taken seriously.

Nothing sacred 

I do not think the Seyyeds are strong, and it is just us real Iranians constant disagreements that keep us from forming a unit.  But that's because we do not hold anything sacred to unify us.

Disgrace vs collaboration 

So ironically as it seems, Iranian.com holds nothing sacred, and none of us then are able to unite along any lines, and so we live in total anarchy.  Disgrace is encouraged.  But we can collaborate and defeat.

Ali Mostofi

//www.alimostofi.com

not too sure about this

make people register, but I for one might not bother. It takes ages for your pages to download already and some of your contributors deserve some abuse. No, I haven't sworn at anyone or anything like that, but some are really either totally stupid and/or maniacs themselves and their contributions are abusive.
As for paying, are you people off your minds? Just as an example, there are people logging in from Iran, the currency costs alone would be too high.

Registering is better

I know that when some of us write our family members are referred to the site to check the article or blog in here and having people curse and use foul language makes it embarrassing. So I would suggest that everyone needs to register if they wish to contribute to the discussion.I believe then we actually might have a discussion rather than shameful responses that doesn’t help any one of us.

Also might be a good idea to allow the writer a put an option of:

1)publish any comments
2)publish comments after it is sent me (review), which allows all comments to be emailed and reviewed before publishing them (By the author).

Iranian.com has a great group of contributors and some childish non members are here to bomb Iranian.com with their useless language and comments.

My 2 Schillings

I think this is what you should do:

1- Make everyone register in order to be able to post comments, even though some will still choose false names and no real pictures.

2- Make every contributor be responsible for moderating the comments for his/her own contribution. If they want to censor it to death, let them. If they want to leave all comments, let them too.

How does that sound?

It is unrealistic.....

to expect JJ or his few volunteers to prescreen all the comments that would be sent. It is not time or cost effective.

Solh va Doosti (paz a vosotros)

Nadia

EVERYTHING is sacred

 As you know, I have been a proponent of registering ever since the new formatting of iranian.com .

I strongly believe in freedom of expression along with accountability for what we say. The two go hand in hand: We have the right to openly express ourselves but we also are responsible for what we say and do which means we should not encroach on the rights of others. One can not ONLY respect open communication but do not provide the atmosphere for such practice or not respect other people's rights.

Imagine a village where few bullies physically attack those that they do not like but meanwhile the mayor does nothing saying "well everyone is free". Eventually few of the responsible citizens leave the village, few people stay home and dont get out, few fight with the bullies and few always get beat up and bloody just for being outside!

Although registering does not fully solve the problem on iranian.com and still monitoring will be required but it will be a step in the right direction and a message to the readers that they must adhere to respect or their right to post will be taken away.

Second step is that IF a registered user abuses his/her freedom, s/he would receive a written warning but if repeated then his/her ID will be deleted and that email/IP will be blocked from opening another account . I understand that the person can use multiple emails but this reduces the abuse.  

Terms of service will be needed to provide guidelines to readers as well as legal protection for Iranian.com. This is a very simple and customary practice on internet.

Premonitoring the comments, creates delay in real time communication and also creates burdensome cost and work for Iranian.com which I do not suggest.

This thinking goes to the heart of the difference a views which is not in line with nothing is sacred but that EVERYTHING IS SACRED .

The nothing is sacred is the cause of our social problems which has resulted in selfish citizens who care about nothing and no one but themselves . Many end up only caring about their own freedom but have no respect for freedom of others or care about their society which is the cause of many other ills of our egotistic and selfish societies. The oversold thinking of Nothing is sacred eventually plays in to the hand of the bullies, dictators , anarchist, extremists and fascist although the intention of many who believe is good.

Everything is sacred and that includes Freedom, respect, rights of others and the atmosphere that allows freedom.

best wishes

Experiment

Take the chance and change the format. If you aren't happy, try something else.  Nothing here is carved in stone.

 BTW...I loved the comment that we should make the math problems harder.  What a hoot!  I give that poster a ten. 

(No subject)

And then we have this problem:

When you have two or more sub headings, like I have done

What do you do?

You lose track.

.. 

Now if there is pest that is running around:

He only creates a subheading.

So if one ignores him, the overall thread will not get destroyed.

He will be bypassed.  Especially if we all respond directly and ignore him.

Simple solution Foaad? 

Ali Mostofi

//www.alimostofi.com

The ultimate question to

The ultimate question to ask is, whether a programmer is a moderator?

This means that contributor should be allowed to freely delete comments.

Afterall he or she is doing it for free and should be allowed to monitor. 

And there is another fix to this problem JJ and Foaad:

1. Make the maths problem really difficult.

2. Give the answers to the registered only.

Ali Mostofi

//www.alimostofi.com

The slippery slope

Censorship is a slippery slope; no matter how honorable the original intention before you know it the censor’s biases kicks in and begins to dictate which the genesis of all dictatorships is. Contrary to the majority of the posted comments I am of the opinion that the more crude a post is the more palatable the opposing view becomes and over time this equation becomes apparent to most who think loutish language is more forceful in defense of their opinion. Anyone who has the bitter experience of seeing his/her journalistic ideals on top of genuine aspiration for a free Iran being sacrificed in defense of a bogus higher goal will not err on the side of censorship. It is an indefinable quality of freedom to allow yellow journalism and alike to run their viral course and be ultimately rejected by the supreme judge of all, the general public.

Some technical issues

On the problem of people impersonating someone else: Anonymous people have no protection of their chosen name, so anyone can use any unregistered name at any time. The registered names themselves are protected. However, some people can make creative use of space or unprintable characters to make an anonymous name look like a registered name. For example "John Doe" is registered but "John Doe" can be used for anonymous comments. The difference is that the second version has two spaces between "John" and "Doe". But this is not consequential because anonymous comments will always have the "(not verified)" string following their chosen name. I can probably stop that space loophole as well, if we end up keeping anonymous comments.

On the revealing of network addresses, like Wikipedia does, I don't think we will ever do this. There is just way too much information that network addresses reveal about a commentator. It's true that not everyone has a static IP, but most broadband providers rarely change the dynamic IP sent to the user's network device, even after restarting the machine or waiting a few days. On top of that, even if/when the addresses change, they don't change that much. They stay within a given range that can be still traced to the same service provider and/or city. Advertising services already use this fact to show internet ads only for certain geographical locations.

At the moment editors do not even have access to any member's email address. Contacting members from their "contact" tab in their account page would send an email to the member. That will reveal the sender's email to the receiver but not vice versa. So putting out the IP information would be quite a bit more intrusive.

On letting authors of articles and blogs control their own comment sections, the version of software we are using right now does not allow this capability. You can either control all comments, or none of them. But this could change with our next upgrade. Besides, this is a magazine, and I'm not sure the author of any piece would be necessarily the best authority to allow or delete comments. On the other hand anyone can write a blog about anything else, so there is ample recourse.

On tracking who (which editor) has erased which comments and display a note of explanation, it's a very interesting idea. It's not natively supported but I think it would be worth writing custom code to do it. I personally prefer a system where no comment is actually erased, but temporarily removed subject to review by chief Editor (JJ) and is able to be reinstated.

On limiting the size of the comment, this is possible and quite easy to do. But won't people simply make two or three comments to cover the same amount as one big comment?

Some of the confusion regarding comments being deleted comes from the fact that some comments are actually "replies" to other comments. When a comment is erased, all the replies to it are also erased. Our current setting does not visually associate "replies" to the original comments. But these are kept track of in the background. If something is a "reply" it is in danger of being deleted if the parent item is deleted.

Other ideas which are possible include comment ratings where registered users can rate a comment positively or negatively and the scores are also displayed.

Hope this helps.

-Foaad

JJ, please leave it free

JJ, please leave it free and open.

But do these things and it will get better.

Filters
Make sure you allow registered people to hide offensive stuff and not show unregistered people. For this you give us, the tool to view the comments differently with custom filters. Give a little power to us. That way we feel that we can control our own pages. And it answers the question, "How do I know that one of your members of staff is not doing any of this?". Have something like Digg has, with thumbs up and down.

Give names
For unregistered comments, get a programmer to put the IP address on the comment automatically and do not allow chickens to have their own name. Also have the programmers check the IP address for spamming, repetition of the same statements, and whether it has been reported.

Proxies
In this scenario, an IR agent finally decides to register, then starts to spew his abuse, and then he will get filtered and banned properly. And then he goes off and uses another proxy and starts again. But he gets the same treatment, and he knows that the leader writers have filtered him anyway.  But it is all a bit annoying and tiresome.

Good vs Bad Chickens
If you do nothing, people will still take care of the chickens. At the end of the day, ignoring the bad chickens is the best policy, and I have always responded to the good chickens.

Ali Mostofi

//www.alimostofi.com

Registered or unregistered

I colaborate with an international site based in Chile. I'm giving this real life example to dissasociate my response from anything to do with Iranies!! Each item I submit to the Chilean site takes lots of effort, minimum 45minutes work. There is another guy that also colaborates and the stuff he sends definitly take a lot of effort. Anyway, the site alows annonymous comments. Recently, a person which we describe as a "tron" would go and post "ungrateful" comments like: "..this is all?" or "...it SHOULD be better" "...why dont you do it the way I want it" .... "oh my god you misspelled one word!!" and all sorts of discouraging comments. Needless to say, as a contributor working for free, the discouraging comments take away your desire of contributing. Why should I feel like working one hour at a time for free to contribute and then read ungrateful responses? The manager of the site, without me requesting it, wrote to me in very appologetic way, saying please don't be disincouraged because for every ungrateful idiot there are 100 people that are truely thankful. The point is that now, it is very obvious that less and less people are contributing. The site used to have lots of cool new articles and now the new contributions come in fewer.

My point is that, if the sites content depends on contributors that contribute their time for free, then the position of the manager of the site should be one in which he protects the contributor.

I don't think it makes any difference if the comments are annonymous or registered. For example, in iranian.com I received a totally out of place - had little to do with the article - attack from a registerd user. I was upset though months later I laughed about it when I realised he was the childish guy that writes articles about how iran is this grandeous world power!!

My suggestions: My guess is that you have turned iranian.com into blog-ish format so that you have to spend less time managing updates and publishing of comments and articles. Therefore, simply let people comment, including annonymous ones. However, when you yourself read the comments, by chance or by choice and find discouraging comments, delete them!!

Gear the concept of comments on this site as a widely available privilage but not an absolute right!

Allow coments that critisize an article, but only those who do it in a constructive way and show that they realize that the contributor has dedicated his time for free to work on it.

//www.irannostalgia.com

irannostalgia.com

JJ, you can prescreen comments before posting

This is the best way to go. If you post a comment that you have prescreened, it means you agree with the poster, or you can always reject it. I do this on my site. Unfortunately your site has become IRI Haven and most of your posters are paid agents of the IRI. One think you can do is ban a person for good for character assassination. They are only allowed to talk about the issue, not the person who wrote the article. You allowed this to go way too long and your are responsible for any false information.

It is impossible to monitor this alone. If you hire someone, please make sure the person is unbiased and respects free speech, yet deletes bad or filthy comments. Name calling should never be allowed.

The site does have.......

a couple of site moderators to watch for very inapropriate comments. However, I doubt there are enough moderators. The moderators have to have a level of objectivity towards all religions and political views.

It is not easy to find an unbiased volunteer moderator on this web-site.

I don't think it is a good idea to show the IP's. What would be the point? Besides every time someone mentions posting people's IP's it scares people from registering. It is counter productive.

I would not have a problem with the $5 fee that some have suggested. My son pays a one time fee to join some video games on-line. JJ could also use some company called Pay Pal, it is how my son signs up.

Solh va Doosti (paz a vosotros)

Nadia

Unidentified Flying Readers

Salam Jahanshah:

Though I have personally received very few hostile comments (unless they were deleted before I saw them!), and very many supportive comments from anonymous users, I have seen some really vicious ones left for other contributors, and I agree that it is a real concern and problem on the site.

Your contributors are all volunteers who give their time and work to the site for the sheer pleasure the cultural work offers them, hardly deserving attacks by unidentified flying readers!

You know that I have believed since the first day that everyone must register, even if they want to use psudonyms instead of their real names. If the point of our collective effort is to have dialogues which are meaningful and helpful to Iranian community in diaspora, then we have to look at the whole writing/commenting business in that light. A contributor posts a piece of writing. When people are enabled to leave anonymous comments on that post, many of them become moving targets with whom one cannot have a decent dialogue, whereas when we see a registered user, even if he/she is using a pseudonym, that identity is helpful in addressing the individual and continuing the dialogue.

I thank you for your continued generosity to the Iranian community through your medium, letting us express ourselves and to read and understand others.  I think we might be ready for the next step in responsible dialogue and discourse.  I support requiring user registration.

Re: JJ

First, it is nice of you to ask our opinion. Here are a few of my comments:

1. I read in this thread that some unregistered person can use a registered user's id. Is this true? If it is, then you must not allow this. That should be a hight priority for your programmer.

2. "Nothing is sacred". Fine, but that should include the "nothing being sacred" phrase, meaning that "nothing is sacred" is not sacred either!

3. Use of IP addresses are ineffective because the vast majority of internet users are using dynamic IP addresses. This means that a different IP address may be assigned to your computer each time your turn it off and on. Very few are using static IP addresses. So that can't help much.

4. Why don't you use moderators? Are you currently using moderators? Ever since several months ago, I noticed a sharp decline in the use of foul language. What did you do to accomplish this? Can't you do more of the same?

5. Test. Sometimes testing a method is the only way to find out.

Bottom line: I think you should define a clear set of rules for what a "deletable" comment is, and then provide an easy way for deleting those comments, by either using moderators, or by the number of times "registered" users have flagged the comment for deletion, or both.

Deleting offensive comments!

I'm a reader of several on-line newspaper of a European country where people can leave comments about the news or articles. We're talking about the official newspapers of a country on the web and I can assure you that mediocre commentators and insulting comments are not unique to Iranian.com site. It will be very difficult to get rid of the low class and insulting comments. Just check the following comment (the last and 7th comment) someone left on one article or story I wrote this weekend titled: The Iraq that amazed me. Please check the comment there (it's bizarre, to say the least)//iranian.com/main/blog/kamangir/iraq-amazed-me

So far I've been accused of being a zionist, monarchist (I actually am) masoud rajavi follower, even a IRI-follower (this last one is just way out of line) 

Even if everyone is asked to register, this won't help much, mainly because a person can have ten different-email addresses and can register under 10 different names...

My only suggestion would be that the editor and staff of this site actually delete 'offensive and insulting' comments. Altough this may be very difficult to do bearing in mind the number of comments made. Deleting desruptive and offensive comments might be the best way to get rid of undesirable commentators.

This site, is helping many Iranians and some non-Iranians to get closer and share thoughts and ideas I am pretty sure many thank Jahanshah Javid for it.  It's been a very good experience so far, but yes, the mediocre comments may damage it in the lon run.

Kamangir