Jahanshah Javid

My suggestion

Since most of the readers are not inside the Iran why don't we cover more numbers of Iranians/people by posting some internationally popular videos, interviews, songs, etc?  I think that's the best way to educate Iranians.  Why shouldn't we learn effective presentation, writing and communications skills?  Can't we promote clarity and brevity in Iranian culture?  I am sure many of those videos are debatable and contraversial as well. 

Smat phone ...

Folks there is a whole industry that writes apps for these things. There are no apps for IC right now. Maybe someone will write one for IC and sell for a reasonable fee.

I know some guy who does apps for iPhones. I'll ask him what it takes.

Thanks Orang jan for explaining. I hope

Newer versions of BlackBerry are not worse regarding this issue. Presently, this is no problem.I think I just "cheshmesh zadam" or someting. Now that I try to post this comment, it does not get posted. This time, I tried preview and now I will try to post it.

I've an issu with Iphone

Anahid jan,

I cannot do it with Iphone. When I navigate, I can fill subject field but not comment field.

Dear Orang :"impossible to leave a comment with smartphones?"

Orang jan, it is not impossible to leave comments using smartphones. I do that many times using my BlackBerry. Maybe you meant comment written in Farsi. I have not figured out a way to write a comment in Farsi on my Balckberry but then I have not tried any great measures to do this either. Would you clarify what you meant?

one thing I forgot : Smartphone

Today you can browse IC  via smartphones but it is impossible to leave a comment with smartphones !

Tomorrow we would need a full feature access from smart phones and if it is not too much requested an application for all brands (Iphone, Windows Phone, Androide)

Thanks in advance

Orang

Pay Option

It would be great to have a 'pay option' for those who prefer to skip the daily dosage of personal and military ads.

Glad to see there will be an option to block blogs from comments. My personal experience has been that sometimes comments (positive or negative - coming from well meaning but ill informed critics) can be distracting and misleading to the writer.

Not sure I care about the 'exclusive' club approach a la FB. Not being a huge FB fan nor one to consider IC a venue to socially network, I think I'll just stay on the sidelines and watch how this thing will progress.

Thumbs up or down is a good idea.

All the best.

Esfand, one can sing as much he wants

one can sing as much as he wants but others are free to think that he might be weird.

Regarding Poems

Maybe we really need different blog types:

• Politics & policy. They follow the current system. No right to remove posts except by Admin. Basically need to accept harsh debates. I hope we retain this or else we lose the whole discussion aspect of Iranian.com.
• Poetry and Art. Not sure what the policy should be but it is definitely different than politics.
• Personal. This is more like FB. Mostly for people and their circle of friends. It makes sens to have full FB style control over who even sees the page much less posts on it. We could expect much more privacy in these "clubs".

Aghaye JJ khan

One click is great if you can type - or there's a spell checker option. For those poor souls like me who can't type, Preview is a blessing!

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IRAN FIRST

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What to do when someone has something but don't know it!

Again, ALL those users who are against comment control in users own blogs CAN decide not to delete any comment.  It also doesn't mean we'll have mass deletions!  Or writers will only save the praises.  These SAME arguments were said when we were discussing moving to an all-registered forum.

Freedom of speech is about saying whatever your heart desires.  IF (a big IF) you can't post something against me in my own blog, you can write a new blog of your own and sing like a free canary!

There is no amount of argument that can be said to someone who has something but doesn't see it.

I remember Howard Stern few months ago talking about his neighbor back when he started radio.  Back then he was challenging freedom of speech by saying controversial stuff, as some of you might know.

He was saying this red neck neighbor kept putting various posters on Stern's front door and turn the volume to his stereo all the way up and when Stern would ask him WTF are you doing, he'd respond its my freedom of speech!  Stern said he now had to argue freedom of speech with this jerk! Stern said he tried explaning freedom of speech means putting your sign in your own property NOT mine but the neighbor wouldn't listen!  So eventually Stern called the cops and they made him listen!

Everything is sacred

Quicker comments

By the way, you can now leave comments with one click. No need to preview first.

Thanks Foaaaaad! :)

About comments on poems, stories, etc.

I can see that on artistic blogs, a writer might request that they are not interested to read comments. Many other magazines and web sites also post poem, story, etc. without comments. The reason I say this is because unfortunately, some people on this site use their personal preferences in judging others' works. Like if I write a poem, some who like me will write what a great poem. I am not saying all, I am just using myself as example. Then those who don't like me or that week somehow got pissed off, will write what a horrible poem.

The language used by some commentators on few of my poems and also sudden change of judgement of my poems has led me to believe that they have used their personal bias in judging my work and this is not fair to a writer. Since you post my poem and readers will see my poem but they are also seeing comments by people who have had a personal agenda against me and I know that but the average reader might not know this. Again, even if this is the case, I might personally select to read comments because I see value in positive and negative feedback but I can see arguments for not having comments on stories, poems.

There is yet

another option.

We can have two kinds of blogs. 

• Serious political and policy discussion. The blogger does not get to remove posts. The bar for removing a post is very high. Only the admin gets to remove anything. This is for people who welcome discussion with the other side and other points of view. For people who want to have a serious discussion. This will keep the part of IC that I like and at least allow us to have free discussions. No one is required to participate so if you don't like it then do not participate.
• Personal blogs. This is more of a social network thing. For when people want to micro manage the blog. They get to pick who posts and who does not. Personally I would never bother reading any of them. But that would appeal the thin skinned who prefer only praises. In fact they can write whole blogs in praise of themselves and use multiple IDs to fawn over how great they are. . yuch. You could even remove the need for registering so the blog writer could easily use pseudo names to shower themselves with even more praises.

Polls + Like button

JJ Jaan

Multiple choice polls (which are included in the default Drupal install) are totally needed, I for one love to know which is more popular, gheymeh or ghormeh sabzi... 

Also a "like" or +/- vote button for articles and comments, much like Balatarin so you can quickly get a sense for what's good and what's not, and maybe hide comments with too many negative votes like youtube or balatarin... 

Lastly please get rid of the mandatory "preview" of article/comments, it's such a drag to go through two pages before posting a lil' comment...

Fadaat

..........

I agree with Souri, VPK, and Divaneh! I like IC way more than FB.

Generally speaking, IC is more educational, sophisticated, and intellectual.....I learned a lot here.

If you write a post on FB, they don't even show the whole post, only a couple of lines......it is kind of cheap and annoying! Here it is easy to read the posts and blogs!

FB has a lot of trivial chit-chats.........but here, we have more serious topics, discussions, and laughs! I love it!

The bottomline

For IC partners here is the bottom line that they most likely are looking at and should ask themselves:

As a business entity are we going to have a stream of revenue, are we going to have positive cash flow and are we going to have a steady growth in advertisement sales and finally did we earn anything at the end of each month, quarter and the year?

If the answer is negatory, then the concept is not functional and it will either fold or must be revised. Management must look at this globally and not just from the Iranian point of view.

One of the issues that IC management must look at is participation by other ethnicities. We have seen in the past how some non-Iranians get treated here. If they say one word wrong, they will be attacked and otherwise, loads of compliments if they sing an Iranian song right! It will be great if we get some reasonable multi-cultural participation here without puting them through Spanish Inquisition. 

Quality of facebook is what you make of it

I was not going to comment but I started getting really tired of reading comments about how fb is not a model since people do not want to hear if someone is bored or is drinking coffee. Facebook can be used almost as a personal website. I have been posting my poems in the notes section. Lines of poems can be written as someone's status, both poems that one wrote or the ones that they just read and liked. Your friends on Facebook can be entities like Students inSharif University. So quality of one's facebook is dependent on how they manage it. Just because some people use facebook to play Farmvelle or send cholokabab on it; whatever that meant, it does not mean that we have to do same activities. Few of us on Iranian.com, also have facebook accounts and use it in a quality way. So if Iranian .com incorporates some features like facebook, that does not have to mean low quality.

I join VPK and Divaneh

I don't agree with the self moderation of the comments by the author of a blog. I find it completely non-sense. Here Divaneh is right:

That will open the way for more of the praise loving writers who do not wish to be challenged. Granting that power to posters because of a few naughty users and a few contributors who have repeatedly asked for it, is similar to the erosion of the civil liberties in reaction to a few terrorist acts.

All things that Divaneh said about fb, are also true for me. Facebook is much more for the teens who don't have the Patience for serious political or social debates.....but only clips and news.

JJ, some food for thought!? Is there anyway for folks to buy

a permanent/yearly membership to the IC with the following privileges:

1. No deletion of posts and comments,
2. No blocking of the user ID,
3. Limited and/or unlimited usage of fohsh khahar & modar in Persian and English.

You could always establish a competitive pricing structure where you would charge ($'s) per usage per comment and intensity of the fohsh/language or for an unlimited manner sort of like when you rent a car, limited millage vs unlimited millage!?

One of the two things would happen:

1. Iranians on IC would become civilized after all they would have to pay a lot of $$$'s everytime they attacked/used fohesh on others, or
2. You and IC would make a lot of $$$$$$'s.

Think about it! :-)

Divaneh is right

That will open the way for more of the praise loving writers who do not wish to be challenged. Granting that power to posters because of a few naughty users and a few contributors who have repeatedly asked for it, is similar to the erosion of the civil liberties in reaction to a few terrorist acts.

This is precisely what is the problem. Some people just want praises. From Shah to Khamenei it has been our national problem. Many of us do not like opposition. We think disagreement is attack. People mistake opposing views with threats. 

The result is people surround themselves with admirers. No opposing views are heard. No progress is made and nothing accomplished. We already went through this. There was a vote and most people voted against blogger based censorship. So if majority do not want it then why have it? Just because a few vocal minorities keep demanding it! IC is a microcosm of our society. If we cannot even have open dialogue here then shame on us. Maybe Fesenjoon was right. Maybe we are as bad as he said.

Regarding FB:  The IC is a forum where we discuss politics and policy is discussed. Not whether I had coffee today. We are not here for small talk or picking up dubious sex partners. The FB model is absolutely the wrong one. Both from mission and from business views. Divaneh is right; FB has that market already. I don't want to know if you are bored or not today. I could care less. I also will not waste your time by telling you if I had a cheeseburger or fried chicken today. I hope we do not go there.

Who is the audience?

IC has a very different audience to FB. In my opinion, adding the facility to post comments like "I am bored today" will not attract the audience that you wish to attract. That market is already captured and it is free to all. I opened my FB account only to find old friends. Whilst that has been a success story, I hardly read or watch any of the posts. I just need something more challenging.

I appreciate this desire to expand the IC readership to those in their 20s and 30s, but I think copying FB or twitter will not do it. May be more of the content has to be in line with what they wish to see in a website. Perhaps some interactive games, targeted videos, competitions or whatever else is of interest to the target age group. Let’s not forget that IC's name will almost determine a large share of its readers.

Still, I think you are more in touch with visitors and look forward to these changes with exception of the self-moderation. That will open the way for more of the praise loving writers who do not wish to be challenged. Granting that power to posters because of a few naughty users and a few contributors who have repeatedly asked for it, is similar to the erosion of the civil liberties in reaction to a few terrorist acts. The best challenge to an opposing comment is an articulate reply that addresses the point. Some of us should avoid turning everything into a personal agenda. On the other hand malicious comments may be replied to with two fingers.

I agree with VPK

Good suggestion about the membership fees. It's a very good mean to prevent the most "bikar" from posting the most jafangiat here. It's long over due

Responses

Anonymous8 

i made online donation during last time he ask. did U??? dont be hypocrit!

Yes I made an online donation. So I am not a hypocrite. 

As for your family; I had some visitors from Iran. They were *hoping* USA would bomb the IRR out of power. So not everyone has the same point of view. I am personally not for military action. However I see nothing wrong with whatever ads JJ wants to take.

Anyway, how does military ads on IC harm Iran?

ImtheKing

No thanks; you pay for your own account. I pay for mine only.

hey Veiled,

there is EVERTHNG wrong with miltary advertisers. it could be bombing my family and my contry soon. anothr thing wrong about it is jahanshah has made a promiss befor. thats why i stay on site: //iranian.com/main/blog/jahanshah-javid/apolo...

i made online donation during last time he ask. did U??? dont be hypocrit!

Prophet,

And how about some users paying the account fees of the others? For example, you pay for me, as it should be?

Paid subscription

Here is another idea. How about people pay to get accounts? If you don't pay you get say 2 posts per day. If you pay you get unlimited posts. At least it will bring in some money. It will also make people appreciate the blog they get now .

There is

nothing wrong with JJ putting military ads in my point of view. Why not? Are you folks willing to pay for IC? If not then he has to pay for it somehow. He is putting on ads. I rather have a free site and fund it with ads. 

I bet if you all forked out 1000 $ a piece the need for Ads would be reduced big. Then it would be a "public" funded thing. I challenge all of you to put up 1000 $ each then ask to have a say in the ads. Otherwise just be glad you get to post for free.

How about it?

VPK

agree, i do not trust the changes, only 2 BAD changes made so fa

mr. jahanshah, why R the military advertisig back so much of it on the site again after U say it was a mistake. that's change! 2nd change is the new admins blocking everyon's account who is defending iran against zionists. do not trust new admin.

Jeesh Daram

I agree with all your post. If IC wants to become FB it will fail. Why should I use IC if I want FB? I already have my FB account; it has apps for iPhone; I have lots of friends; etc. That market is saturated.

So far IC has provided something totally different. A place to have our say and not be afraid. Now for some reason IC wants to be FB. Well I already have a clique of people who agree with me. The good part of IC is to debate with those who disagree. Now with the idea of handing censorship to blog owners it will turn into another FB. I get to hang out with my friends and kick out anyone I don't like. The others do the same. We fragment and break up. Wonderful: no more debates; no more disagreements. 

All this because some people falsely claim to be "victims". Their tender feelings are hurt when we point out they support a murderous regime. They are upset if we point out their beloved revolution was a big farce. Fine! No more freedom. I will stick around until these "changes" go into effect. Then I will move off to greener pastures. That would make some people specially the IR supporters very happy. They get to rant about the "Big Satan" without any rebuttal. Now I am gonna collect my check from AIPAC.