Suggestions for a better Iranian.com

choghok
by choghok
28-Jan-2009
 

I think it is time to make a better Iranian.com, the one that we have today although is very fine indeed and has served us well in the pas but is also full of shortcomings. The following is what I think should be fixed or added to make this site even better.

Please come with comments and add your own suggestions

1. Differ between the adult and non-adult contents: I am for freedom of speech and urge everyone to express themselves as they would like to, I also think that Iranian.com has a lot to offer to people from all ages and beliefs. That is why I think it is not good to mix the adult with non-adult contents. This problem could be fixed easily by showing adult content just by pushing a button like in youtube or by logging in.

2. Poll tool: It should be possible for the admin to run polls, this gives both the admin and Iranian.com users an understanding of the Iranian.com users.

3. Rating articles and comments: helps the users see how many people agree or disagrees with an article or a comment.

4. Easier login: It must be possible to login without going to your account page. If I want to comment an article and I click the link on top of the page I am sent to My Account and that is not so user friendly.

5. Ajax: I do not want to get too geeky and this suggestion is a bit of luxury and could be done if JJ is really bored and has nothing to do. AJAX allows the site to behave slicker and faster, instead of loading the whole page when pushing a button or a link the desired area of the page updates itself. This takes some load of the JJs server as well since it does not need to send as much data to its clients.

Please comment and come with your own improvements.

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more from choghok
 
Mehdi Mazloom

rosie, thanks for the input

by Mehdi Mazloom on

Thanks for the input. You are right. In the past I was not fully aware of it. Now I know and use.

appreciate the suggestion.

 


rosie is roxy is roshan

No, MM, it is EASY to go back to the thread. If you have

by rosie is roxy is roshan on

posted on the thread you just go back to the tracking under your account and if anyone has added to it that submission will go to the top of the tracking and let you know when and how many new posts. Then you just click.

If you have not posted on it all you have to do is remember the writer and go down under contributors at bottom of home page and click on them, then click on the submission. You don't have to go digging for anything.

I am not sure if you are aware of this.

Which if you're not supports my theory that I keep saying that the site should have a section on the homepage called HOW THIS SITE WORKS or something like that, easily visible, like a most viewed box.


Mehdi Mazloom

breakdown to subjects

by Mehdi Mazloom on

the way this forum is constructed, it is very difficult to follow on particular thread to which one may have interest. The way its now, with the "sinking" posts, it is very hard to go back and revisit a particular threat.

Why not follow the same format as many other blogers use, where the forum is posted per subjects. and subcategories. For instance.

- Iran

- Middle East

- US

- The Economy

- Religion

on and on.

This way it is much easier for posters to follow up and participate.

Also, I have noticed that many unregistered posters have been complaining that their s/w have been hijacked by others to discredit the original poster. Steps should be taken to prevent duplicate s/n's.

Lastly. One picture worth a 1000 words. Allow posters to post more then one photo at a time.


choghok

more suggestion

by choghok on

1. The time stamp uses a for me unknown time zone PST. I would think
that it is a Pacific Standard Time? For a person in Europe or in Iran
it does not say much. I think the time stamp should be dependant on the
time zone of the viewer and not universal. If universal time is used
then it should use (GMT) at least.

2. Comment field should be before the first comment so one do not need to go down all the way down the page to write a comment.

/Bidar bash ke ma bekhabim


default

Majid jaan

by Anonymous better iranian.com (not verified) on

are ya really sure you want to volunteer for such a job. :-0
but if you get it and want to pay moderators, call me!


rosie is roxy is roshan

green / kaveh

by rosie is roxy is roshan on

green, all I'm saying is that a filtering system for parents would be a BETTER time investment than a ratings system, not saying it's a high priority. But yES there have been MANY MANY complaints...

Chat room, spell check, getting rid of the unfeature feature for featured, those are my priorities. I also find the unnecessary double procedure for registering (go to a/c first) very annoying. After that, polls fine...as for ratings well...already said..

Re poll: no we should have a poll-vaulting contest instead. Or go on an expedition to the North Poll.


anonymous fish

regarding poll

by anonymous fish on

i think it could interesting.  i'm totally against the rating stuff.  there's enough opportunity to make your voice heard.  rating it would be redundant, useless, and a waste of time in my opinion.  but something like this?  run a pole to see who thinks risque material should be filtered. i still don't see the problem with that... heck, i'm still waiting for the husband to read the "wet" blog for me. 

maybe tomorrow night with a bottle of champagne...:-)

oh, did i already say it's slow as molasses?


Kaveh Nouraee

Poll Question

by Kaveh Nouraee on

Should Iranian.com have a poll?


anonymous fish

yes, i wouldn't argue about a filter of some kind

by anonymous fish on

but i'm just saying that i don't remember but one or two comments.  one was when someone posted the art regarding the womens movement.  i don't remember nadia posting something but then again, i don't read every single blog.  if there are a considerable amount of people concerned, then it might should be addressed. but if JJ doesn't address other, more important concerns, i can't imagine him getting his panties twisted about this either. 

this is a perfect time for a poll!!!!!


rosie is roxy is roshan

Oh for god's sakes there have been so many parents /filter

by rosie is roxy is roshan on

complaining about the erotic material since forever...however progressively less over the year plus as the more conservative people seem to be leaving  (a parallel phenomenon to what Sam was talking about, being about 2% now..)..so many complaints...author of this blog, Natalia this past summer, I have even satirized these complaints twice...but I do think the site is richer if the conservative people remained...

of COURSE the KIDG aren't going to complain...I dunno why you didn't see it....and what harm there could there be in offering a filter..if it's so easy to fix the log-in system, make a poll, ratings, etc., how hard can a filter be? Just a button that appears next to the erotica with filter yes/no and a password.. I believe in placating people, you know how I am...first antagonize, then placate...


anonymous fish

how do you know?

by anonymous fish on

how many kids come online?  i've never heard one time of a case where a parent complained.  i've heard USERS complain but i don't remember in a year and a half of a child actually getting on IC and viewing something inappropriate. 

what ages where the kids?  were the parents visitors of IC?  i'd need to hear something a little more concrete than LOTS of kids view  and LOTS AND LOTS of parents have complained.

has jj responded to any of these kinds of complaints from parents?  i just don't remember seeing anything!!


rosie is roxy is roshan

LOTS of kids view this site, LOTS, & lots of parents get

by rosie is roxy is roshan on

concerned. It should be possible to install a simple optional filtering system wherre next to the erotic submissions parents who choose it could enter a code to block the article (or am I dreaming? Doesn't sound any more complicated than other suggestions) This would be a very nice gesture to all those parents, once the captive is released by the captors, if he would like to show good will and diplomacy to s persecuted minority-the parents-after the ordeal.

Greenfish A LOT OF THE PARENTS GET UPSET, A LOT!.


choghok

Browse faster with Firefox

by choghok on

OK. I think it is tough to cover everything on Firefox here but I suggest you download Firefox from firefox.com and give it a try.

A good thing with firefox is that it does include a spellchecking as default.So when you start typing in a text area it will spell check for you.

It has also add-on functionality.

What you do is after installing firefox you go to tools->add-ons

In the windows that pop up choose the Get Add-ons tab and then search for some add-on that you would like to have on your browser. A cool Add-on is Cooliris for example. Then you can install the add-on.

There are tons of features that Firefox has and that you could use to enhance your browsing. Just google for firefox and tuning and add-on and you will find a lot. And once you get used to all its functionality it is hard to go back to IE.

/Bidar bash ke ma bekhabim


anonymous fish

i agree with rosie

by anonymous fish on

i can't see any benefit whatsoever to a ratings feature.  good grief.  the rating feature is a built-in via the coments themselves! Now you want rate numbers to see what's good and what's bad.  who care about this enough to change formats?  and why?

i do like the polling idea.  users could suggest current issues and events.  excellent idea.

i understand the concern about adult features but it's just as simple as avoiding a blog you aren't interested in.  just don't go there!!!  i'd be curious to know how many parents have children who are the least bit interested in iranian.com (besides Robert of course..:-)  i know our kids don't come here but once in a blue moon.

spell check is an absolute must...lol.

Choghok... tell me more about firefox.  i have it at work but not at home.  we either go from AOL which is what we use for email so we're already there... or IE is AOL is too slow.

it might be cooincidence but the last few days have been HORRIBLE.  as i told foaad, i have to refresh virtually every page.  i've cleaned and deleted and scanned and it doesn't do diddly.

HELP!


rosie is roxy is roshan

HI, okay so maybe I misunderstood due to previous

by rosie is roxy is roshan on

discussions. A "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" rating about a political OPINION is..well...okay..but ANY OTHER RATINGS are...terrible...for EITHER quality of writing or specific numerical ratings or ANYTHING to do with artwork or personal material. So I'm glad I said it anyway, just in came those ideas come up again, And btw I wasn't angry, just...excited. :oP

The hodgepodge of material is what makes the site! Hard-core politics, soft-core porn, photos of people's dogs, all in one big eggroll of a website!  buuuuuuuuut...I said it once in a satire but it COULD be possible to provide article-specific filters for concerned parents.

I think the comments have to stay in the order they're in. Once the threads get long there's just no other way to follow them, the early ones are too old. And if they're short it doesn't really matter

Speed ranges from so-so to frankly horrendous.

POLLS are a great idea. ALMOST as good as a chaaaaaaaaaaat room.. I know it's for like high school kids from the nineties but...hey, that's us!  Juvenile and dated.

and my next two personal favorites:

auto-unfeature feature for featureds: DIE! You can't even correct a comma.

spell check: LIVE! Publisher should know how important this is. He can't spell his way out of a brown paper bag...

Cheers,
Rosie

ps thx for the tips about speed, it seems i have double whammy...


choghok

To whom suffers from speed issues!

by choghok on

I use Firefox with no adblock and do not suffer from speed problems!

I do advise not to use AOL or IE. They are bloated and do not follow standards. Use FireFox 3.1 beta or Googles Chrome as you see in the banners on Iranian.com. On Mac Safari is a good choice too.

The undisputed fastest of all is Firefox 3.1, it is in beta stage yet, so if you are not nerdy enough wait for the final release.

/Bidar bash ke ma bekhabim


choghok

Further Input from the author

by choghok on

Thanks for the replies and other improvements:

1. I know this is an adult site but that does not mean that all adults want to read through adult material, it also gives the site a very strange character, I mean reading serious discussion about war and next to it you see a story about wet dreams is just not right. It would be like BBC covering a news about suicide attacks killing 100 people and just after that they start talking about wet t-shirt contest in Qom and then showing some talabeh in wet t-shirts. But maybe that is just me, nobody else seems to care.

2. I have not seen any polls run here. If you have run polls I think you should run it more often. Then you could use the ip-verification tools that exist freely online (what I have heared) to analyze the answers depending on countries the users answer from. This could show for example how Iranians in Iran feel about something compare to Iranians in Europe compare to Iranians in NA.

3. I do not understand the anger towards rating system, it does not mean that an article or comment is good or bad, it shows if people agree or disagree with it. I think you can hook this up also to the country the user has answered from, just like I mentioned in 2.

I think the suggestions about the reply to a comment coming just after the comment is good. I think It really should look something like thins

------------------

Your article sucked 1.0

bla bla bla

Ahmad

------------

The article sucked 1.1

No you Suck

Gholi
------------

The article was great 1.0

It was just fabolous

The writer
-----------

About the speed. I must say the loading speed from europe is acceptable, but when signing in it takes a little too long time. Even from Iran the loading time is ok.

Hey you could put the loading time acceptance in a poll :-)

/Bidar bash ke ma bekhabim


rosie is roxy is roshan

Poster and Publisher: a rating system is a terrible idea.

by rosie is roxy is roshan on

Why on earth do you want to implement a rating system when there are so many other things that could be done? I already addressed this to Nazy when she brought it up recently on Troneg's wish list blog. Rating brings competition, ill will, suspicion, despair (these are Iranians, you KNOW how they get...). Anyway HOW can you have a legitimate rating system when some people have ten reg ID's AND post under their own threads. I know why you have that, it's FINE (for now) but IT RENDERS A LEGITIMATE RATING SYSTEM AN IMPOSSIBILITY.

Please please please do not do this!

These threads are open. JJ, you've bent over backwards to keep them open to such extent that you endure headache upon headache about fish and mult regs every single time there is a moderation blog. Anyone in the world who wants to say two words about any thread can do it right there in the blink of an eye.  So why should people who don't want to bother with that be allowed to rate? And conversely what purpose does it serve the ones who do bother by reiterating their verbal opinions numerically?

And what does it MEAN? If I rate your political article negatively because I disagree with you it could still be the most brilliant article on earth....and as for the arts...I'm sorry to say that a lot of people here are not qualified to rate art and low ratings would drive away the truly great poets and writers who are...guess what...few and far between BECAUSE PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND THEM. Okay so I finally said it. Kouroush Sassanian is a GREAT POET. Donde esta?

Thumbs up, thumbs down? So so what? It's so...immature...yes, we ARE immature, so give us things to exercise our immaturity productively, like more games like the iq test, or the chat room, but not a rating system. And if it's MORE than thumbs up, down, it'se even worse...What could generate more GLOATING on one hand and more RESENTMENT on the other than a rating system? Sound familiar? Same ol' same ol'...I am so against this for once in my life I'M NOT EVEN GONNA SAY WHAT I'M FOR and as everyone knows, khamooshing is NOT an easy thing for me to do.

Khaamoosh

PS spell check. Khaamoosh again.

 


Majid

How about this?

by Majid on

JJ :

 

A) In the past few weeks some of us showed that "WE" are the masters of hijacking and derailing any blog/article from it's original path or intentions !

Any chance of giving the author the ability to delete/ban/flag (with immediate action from moderators) any irrelevant comment in order to maintain a healthy and constructive discussion?

B) When I push the "reply" botton to reply to a comment, could my "reply" be posted right after the comment that I replied to?

C) Most of the times "attack" is deleted while "counterattack" remains ! and vice versa! can you leave'em both or delete'em both?

D) The problem with getting "logged of" when I click on diff. parts of IC. still is there !

E) Can you make it possible to click a "search" botton that searches thru iranian.com "only" without being forwarded to internet?

D) Spell check .........for "bi savaats" like me?

And....

D)  For a much much better iranian.com , can you make me the CEO, CFO, CTO, with a ...oh, what the heck....$12000.00/mo paycheck plus year end bonus?  

 


anonymous fish

great suggestions choghok

by anonymous fish on

and yeah, speed is the common denominator here.  i actually wrote foaad yesterday about it.  i'm switching back and forth from AOL to IE.  pages take forever to load.  screen freezes and i have to refresh literally every single time i click on something.  for some reason it ran faster when i was NOT logged in!  but then i have to log in and remember where i was if i want to leave a registered comment.  real pain in the butt.

agree with JJ in that this is an adult site.  if there is informative stuff that you want your kids to read, cut and copy.  i think there should be a little more discretion but that's purely personal.  nothing has offended me per se.

hope this helps and that we see an improvement!


Kaveh Nouraee

I Feel The Need

by Kaveh Nouraee on

the need, for speed!

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if it were easily fixable. These seemingly big problems seem to turn out that way. 

 


Jahanshah Javid

Reply

by Jahanshah Javid on

Thanks choghok!

1. This is a site for adults. Meaning there will be material written by adults for adults about all subjects, including sex. Some may consider it porn, some may think it's inappropriate and shameful. That's fine. They don't have to read it.

2. We will have polls from time to time.

3. We hope to have a rating system in the near future. Something like a thumbs up or down.

4. Easier login? Sure, it's something we can work on.

5. Ajax? Maybe our tech chief Foaad can look into it.

And yes more speed! It's a constant battle but we're constantly looking to improve accessibility.


IRANdokht

Constructive and positive

by IRANdokht on

Thank you Choghok. I especially agree with the rating system. It could be a time saver for some who want to take advantage of the limited time on the site, and also be a feedback for the originator of the material.

I seem to have a technical problem with the ad juggler that runs when the pages load. At home I can't even open iranian.com without getting an ie error and having it close on me about 80-90% of the time...  It might be the anti-ad/spy software that I have. Do we have real interactive and aggressive ads on the site? They also seem to be affecting the speed.

Thanks!

IRANdokht


I Have a Crush on Alex Trebek

How about just good old fashioned SPEED?

by I Have a Crush on Alex Trebek on

This site is so slow. I mean, sometimes I try to get on it and I remember the days of dial-up internet. I think before any new fancy additions are considered, the tortoise style loading should be dealt with.