Farhang va Zarobomasal

Dear Mr. Javid,

Thank you so much for maintaining such a wonderful site. I do have to say that I am puzzled by one thing. In looking at your new events section I noticed that you have two categories, Events Nearby and Events Around the World. Most of the events nearby are in New York. I do not understand this because I live in Zanzibar and Zanzibar is not near New York.

The Persian Zanzabarian community is small but robust. As you may know, it was the birthplace of Freddy Mercury. In honor of his memory, could you please include a separate category called "Events Nearby in Africa"?

Looking forward to your blog on Khodkoshi.

Warmest regards,
Marilyn

PS More re layout, sorry but..

that new ad on the handbags just proves my old point that a THIN orange line around the large ads will balance out the graphics on the entire page (home or other) and PREVENT THE SITE FROM LOOKING LIKE ITS PRIMARY PURPOSE IS COMMERCIAL.  And from looking TACKY. That lavendar makes that cheesey ad dominate the whole page and makes the whole thing look like Best Buy. The ugly tan tee-shirt ad that dwarfed the home page a few months ago was the worst, but there have been other close seconds..

A simple thin orange line permanently in that box...

Other than that it be collectively and democratically run as much as possible, MY MAIN WISH IS FOR THE SITE TO LOOK AS GOOD AS IT IS TO ATTRACT PEOPLE AND ADVERTISERS HERE AND KEEP THEM.

I don't think the Events section stands out enough and

there are other problems w/layout of homepage, I mentioned a couple below. It is essential for the homepage to look as perfect as possible and be as organized as possible.

I think the Events should be in its own section in the white space. It is different from all the other categories in the tabs on top because it is actually a place where people can find out how to meet each other in flesh rather than pixel form. Events is not related to the other submisssions, news and opinion, etc. It's fundamentally different. The green doesn't look all that great, it doesn't balance the color scheme of the page, and it doesn't stand out all that much.

More about the home page. I have several times suggested somewhere putting "The Largest Iranian On-Line Community in the World" somewhere on the top to attract readers, ESPECIALLY non-Iranians who come here through the very high Google ratings, to stay and come back, and ADVERTISERS. I know the space is tight but it is doable and I cannot stress its importance enough. Cannot stress the importance of stressing the site's importance.

JJ if you don't fix that tab next to the new red thing that says home it will all look very messy.

Yesterday I saw some categories under the tabs like history which I have long felt were sorely lacking. Not having these categories discourages people from writing about it and Kurush is right, it narrows the focus, thus the perspectives. Today I don't see those categories. I think there should be a tab for History with the other tabs to show that"intellectual" perspectives other than the merely political ones are welcome.  Otherwise it looks like a combination of politics and pop, politics and pop, especially with all these new ads.

The other categories I saw yesterday with history should go back. I guess jj and foaad are rebuilding the top of the homepage. Good, it needed it. Those are my observations.

These things aren't finicky. They're very important.

BUT FOR THIS PARTICULAR COMMUNITY CHAT ROOM IS THE BEST IDEA SO FAR.

Chat room is BS. Who chats

Chat room is BS. Who chats anymore?! It is better to focus your thoughts and write it instead of just blabbering over and over again until you get bored of it. Chat rooms are so 90s.

Yeah that sounds good, notification of blog responses should

be voluntary...also what was it you said you agree with below?

To rosie is roxy is roshan

Yes I am both.

Let say I'm a kind of Dr Jakyl and Mr Hyde. I never use annonymous to write and I don't delete my posts but sometimes I mixed my IDs by mistake, it is how you discoverd it ;-)

because you can edit a post and not delete it

RE : Notification of responses to blogs...

It should be an option which you could be activate or not.

 Personaly I'm not a polemical guy, so I'll have some mails but others who post articles to have many comments could disable it.

Troneg is Orang? and

agreeyouand????

ALL

The reason I EXPLAINED the tracking is because a lot of people don't know about it, a lot of people don't know things that would surprise you. I didn't even know until a few days ago that there's a user agreemetn. And that's why I think a How the Site Works section is so important...for example people argue and aruge what are the ""rules" for moderation yet the GUIDELINES (which are far better than hard and fast rules..) are CRYSTAL CLEAR there...

and that's another thing on my wish list: new users have to verify they read the Users Agreement before they're allowed access.

Oh and CHAT ROOM is a GREAT idea...probably should be Number One along with moderation issues being given priority in blogs Ii.e featured, unless the blog's ridiculous or just repeats something that was just said...) 

I agree

I agree too

Notification of responses to blogs...

so say yuhave a most-discussed blog, and say you have an articleup too. Do you want 100 e-mails over two days?

Yuo have a blogup,or an article.You know it's up. You check from time to time while you're on your e-mai. You stay logged in and you go to your account upper left haft hand corner and click on tracking and it tells you not only how many new posts tere are on any submissions of yours, but anywhere you have posted, and in chronological order last first, so that even if you wrote a blog last year and someone posted today, it will come at the top of your trackiing. Then you just click on that entry in your tracking and there you are, you don't even have to look for your bloo

and so on...

I agree too...

Plus the chatroom which he has agreed to start one soon.

Sepaas

Ebi aka Haaji

Wish #4 a thin orange line around the box in upper right hand

corner of site so that when the ads are unattractive, cheesey, etc. don't throw off balanceof graphics onhomepage/and or make it look too commerical.

I agree!

I agree with all your points! But I would like to have a chat room too!

Actually, I used to be able to see the number of hits on the articles, but i lost this option a while ago...So i think this option is already implemented, but it cannot be used by every user.

Also, I like a lot Nazy's suggestion about a rating system, in addition to the existing ones.

Thanks for the post! Azarin

Nazy, Wish LIst

Nazy, most discussed articles are usually about really hot political situations or moderation issues. They usually exceed seventy and sometimes into the hundreds. Even if someone fakes twenty posts on it, it's still a heavily discussed issye  No, it doesn't mean the subissions are BETTER but it DOES mean the topics are hot.

Yes, most vieweds are almost always images, photo essays and videos. The most popular ones are very often travelogues and j's photo essays and anything sexy. And then the rest.Sometimes the figures are deceptive because it may LOOK interesting but not be, so people click and then barely glance at it...

But the most viewed is FUN...it's fun, it's FUNNY to know that everyone clicks on the big boobs on the quiz..

AND it's also serious. Thesse boxes show that the site is ORGANZIED, systematized, that it's a site that respects itself (even if lots of people like to look at boobs :oP  )

Nazy I think a rating system would cause FAR more competitiveness and disappointment and ill will than these two nice discssed boxes, or than something like what j. brought up in that blog a few weeks ago about people posting on their own bogs..which you also said you thought brought ill will. Who wants to be number 999?  ...........

...............................

I have a wish list too:

crucial issues o fmoderatin such as potential bias be given at least equal visibility as this type of blog

the creation of a section called how this site runs including the mechanics of the moderation system, navegation, etc., i saidd I'd be willing to help write it, I already have a blog called Benefits of Registration that is perfectly usable.

and somewhere on top of the homepage clearly visible "the largest online Iranian community in the wrold" instead of alternting in that orange box..to attract more site traffic especially among non-Iranians,  and advertisers.

There was a spellcheck for a couple weeks in June, a very cute one, but it didn't work so it was removed.

down with cosmetics, up with inclusion!

To customize the site as requested is a bit selfish. One should not care how many may be reading one's blog, so long as one is expressing one's deepest held views irregardless of the reaction of others. Anonimity allows spontaneity and freedom lacking in corporate scripted Western media and the disinformation paraphernalia of the Western civilizations. What is needed for the site is to expand its current narrow purview to include the connection between the Arts and Politics. For here is the true liberating force to free us from the platitudes of segregated and class-conscious world in which we live. How many of us have felt the stigma that race, brown vs. white, and class, rich vs. poor, impose? As Flaubert would have said we need to challenge the received ideas, to do so, next time you read a novel, say Flaubert's, tell us how that reading might reflect, as far as you are concerned, upon the pathetic world in which we live. The same aplies to film, music, dance, poetry, painting. Iranian.com can come out of its infancy if it chooses by such inclusion.

Good Post!

And good ideas, Troneg!

I would like to add my wish list, too.

For a long time I have thought that the two measures of "applauding" site content are both inadequate and inaccurate. The "Most Discussed" list perpetuates the erroneous notion among many site users that a feature which receives a high number of comments is "good." In fact we know that a lot of good things are featured on this site which get very few comments. Number of comments is no indication of the conent at all. It also encourages people to cheat with the commenting business, which is just unfair and silly for grown men and women.

The other indicator of "goodness" on the site seems to be the "Most Viewed" box. This box is really hard to use, too, because "Most Viewed" includes all the video clips and photo essays, too, and because visual features tend to get a lot more attention on the site, written features never make it to the top five or ten on the list to be featured in "Most Viewed."

I would like to ask for a rating system which enables users to rate an article or a blog they read. I think user rating should replace other computer-generated "goodness" criteria on the site content.

I would also like to ask for a spell-checker feature to help with compositions of comments, blogs, and articles.

Thank you for this post!

I agree...

Sometimes,  simple is best. 

Websites that overload with options create chaos for the average user. I like Yahoo.  I do not like MSN.  Why?  Because Yahoo allows one ID for everything. MSN....(Microsoft) has various available id's. That in itself is not a problem, but trying to remember who is on what is.  

Web design can be a drunken adventure.  The creation you make one day can be the regret you have the next.  But once the users latch on, how do you say no?  A major redesign would be difficult, this I know.  

My advice to any designer........KISS it.

Keep it simple, stupid!

Jim