Brother Seyyed,

Ahlah va shalan to iroon.com.  If I recall correctly brother, there was a psychologist with a featured piece on the new and NIAC-approved and NIAC-friendly Iranian.com.  Perhaps she can offer her opinion on the issue.

On a more serious note, I checked to see who had "Toop'ed" the anti Dai front page piece on IC. Said Amin was one of them.  What does that say about his neutrality (or lack thereof) toward his site's users, especially Hassan dai?  

Great observation AO.  Said will have his way but at the end the NIACophiles will have no one to argue with but themselves....IC is a very slow and lonely place these days when it comes to the disemination of ideas and arguments. Its vitrually a dead place over nightwhildSaid gets his beauty sleep as there is no moderator....I think IC's days are numbered and Said will have no one to blame but himself and his anti freedom of speech freinds from NIAC. 

Dear Brother Javad,

When I saw nurse Mildred Ratched was coming after me, I had to escape the One Flew over the Coocoo's Nest!

NIAC's website, at best gets a few hundred hits a day, mainly from its paid contributors and members, the same will be true for the good ol' Iranian.com.

All good things must come to an end, and I truly enjoyed my time over there.

AI - I believe that what Said Amin has done is a re-allignment of the site's users / conntributors more than anything else.  The site had plenty of users, contributors and viewers before his changes.  The numbers were there.  Just look at the number of hits and comments on the submissions before the changes, and compare them to what the site is getting now--which is much lower.  He has caved in to pressure from a small but vocal crowd of self appointed "pundits" and pseudo-intellectuals who must have been telling him that they will not post unless their posts can have a prominnent place on the site--something that they will otherwise not get because, let's face it, what they post is really not that interesting.  Simply put, no one was "Toop'ing" their posts.  And just wait--the next Trita Parsi piece will be right on the front page.  Of course, no one had stopped Parsi or the rest of them from posting.  But that's not enough for those guys.  They want preferential treatment--and free advertising, whether they are psychologists or an oil company funded lobbying group.  

So, the end result is that the new IC now is a poorly put together hodge podge of amateurish, boring psuedo-scholarly pieces and one sided political opinions. A few days ago, I actually counted the number of comments in a 24 hour period.  I think they added up to 23.  :-) If the trend continues,  I foresee IC being abosrbed into Amin's matchmaking business at the end.        

Faramarz--Good to see you here my friend.

I left IC many months ago, precisely for the kind of divisive atmosphere that was created by some of the members.  These type of writings, IMHO, only serves to sooth our emotions but divide us in many other ways.  I hope Iroon.com won’t be turned to what IC has turned to be.

Mehrdad

Totally Agree AO!

Mehrdad, you can block users here and there is no need to interact with them if you find their ideas unacceptable to yours. That is the freedom given by this site whereas the other decides agendas .

Shepesh,

I have limited my interaction both when I was at old IC and to some extend on this site without blocking them.  I also did not mean to set any limits for any one only to provide my view point as how I see these type of writing.  Also keep in mind that the effect of it is undeniable as we can see what has been happening to the members at IC, one by one are leaving not so much because of the site owner, but the content and contribution into the site.

Mehrdad

Shepesh aziz,

I appreciate clarifying your point and I do agree that nothing good can come out of censorship.  And I hope I was able to convey my point in such way that it is not taken as an advocating for censorship.

Mehrdad

If I can find a way not to see a user's daily chert-o-pert, it is not censorship. It is blocking. In case of censorship, the user's post is removed/hidden. In case of blocking, the user can still post his material. This iroon dotcomistan even gives every user their own web site.

At the present, this site provides post creators a useful functionality to block users from posting comments in their posts. I would also like to see one more functionality, that is, to mark users I don't like to see their posts.

brothers observer, intelligence, Faramarz, shapesh and bavafa.

Thank you for commenting. But I take it that non of you are Doctors. But as brother Observer sharply noticed, brother Amin has already assigned a doctor specialising in mental health issues to his site. He obviously knows much better about the crowd who have taken over his site, and all their inferiority complexes and issues. I actually think his intentions are good. He wants to gather all the parasitic, crazy, sad, lonely, rejected , failures, angry, frustrated people under one roof, then hand them over to the authorities for their own and societies  good, and in the mean time make some noney. As a fellow businessman I fully understand that. 

Brother Bavafa. In my book, a tiny cult taking over an entire site and forcing anyone else who disagree with their cult leader ourt of the site, using profanity, blocking , censorship and bullying is a deliberate attempt at dividing iranians along the lines of minor political differences.

Brother Seyed, Great observations!!!

AO How did you see other bloggers' or blogs' TOOP list?