حرف حساب جواب نداره

مهرداد

How much I wish we had the old IC back, but with additional features like comment control and rating which bloggers wanted.    :-(

All of the points you mention make it confusing, and I spend less time here because of this. Not because I do not want to be here.

Thanks dear Bavafa.

Too bad that an usurper has stolen you nickname identity!

Dear Shepesh,

Clearly both the Iranian and this Iroon site have been suffering from the discouragement of contributors like you. Both their ratings and their viewership is much less than the Old Iranian.Com (the new IC 33% of last year, and this Iroon around 15%).

The total of new IC and this Iroon combined have less than half the regular visitors of the Old Iranian.Com.

References:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/iranian.com#

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/iroon.com#

Agreed. I raised the same argument in the Iranian.com a few times and eventually gave up. I noticed your last blog was qucikly off the first page due to the 5 blogs limit. Good exposure is essential for the creation of original material which are more time consuming to produce. The other site seems to have grasped this fact at last, as evidenced by the new look that resembles the old IC. Let's hope JJ listens to you.

Divaneh jan,

You are right. After taking 10 giant steps away from the Old Iranian.Com, the not so wise new owner (SA) has taken 1 small step back towards it.

This entire saga of old IC, new IDC, and Iroon, does not reflect well on the way JJ has managed his site and Dokoon, or how SA has taken over IC and almost wrecked it.

These guys (JJ et al) had the best Iranian website, which could have gone on even more successfully, with simple improvements, which they have done now for both of these new sites (i.e. comment control and like/dislike).

Thanks for the statistics, quite an eye opener. Do you have the same stats for the Iranian.com? As of this week they have made lost of restrictions there as well along with some visual changes. Do you personally know any other website that you can suggest to publish articles? I looked at Shahrefarang.com and Radio Zamaneh, but I want to find a website that is established and popular to perhaps move there. My fingers are tired of navigating these two websites in order to find nothing but IRI-related B.S. I have my respect for their founders and mangers, but not the content they offer and the way things are organzied. 

It might be a great time for a third person to step in and create a simple website with some interesting content other than constant IRI bashing, Islam bashing and Swedish Meatball bashing. It gets old and the atmosphere in both places are anticlimatic and depressing.

Dear Shazde,

I completely agree with you!   I can't understand why the old format was changed, when it had worked so well and for such a long time!   I know that there were/are certain individuals who were taking advantage of the openness of the site and treating it as it was their personal web page or private web site!   But that could have been remedied quite easily without the draconian change.   I believe Said Amin is taking some small steps in the right direction to bring IC the needed discipline and sanity, but like you I missed the old format and strongly believe that it was more conducive to intelligent information and debate.

Unfortunately I don’t see that on Iroon.com…there is something essentially wrong with this site that I can’t figure out, and can’t understand why JJ with all his journalistic experience can’t.  This site is not inviting and it does not drag people in as IC does. 

Like you I believe that it would be a dark day if Iranian community were to lose either one!   Let’s hope that they are more open to constructive criticism!      

Dear P_J,

Thanks for you continued support.

The only major problem with the Old IC was the "comment control", which was solely in the hands of the Admin (mostly JJ). That meant that the bloggers, who were actually the copyright owners of their posts, had no control over the comments. JJ couldn't be on-line all the time; and most of the times, nasty fights would break up and upset both the viewers and the bloggers.

Therefore, shared "comment control" was needed, as is the norm in all the other weblogs, but JJ wouldn't listen ... until it was too late!

Dear Persa,

You can find the stats for any other sites, by going to www.alexa.com

Thanks for you kind support.

Today in front of iroon.com you have Facebook ! It would be impossible to compete directly with FB, JJ should invest on improving the integration with FB. 

I publish same materials in both FB and iroon. for 100 hit in FB , you have 20 in Iroon. If integration were better (as Youtube does) , you can publish in Iroon and notify to a larger public thru FB.

Shepesh, hold on a minute!  You were against comment control in the old websoite and now you are for it?!  Another you were against it before you were for it kind of argument!  That's ok, I only mentioned it because your comments jumped at me about being for it when at the time you weren't, below link is when the issue was hot and your comments there, you can go back and forth and see your comments.  Maybe if you and others weren't so against the comment control it'd have been implemented by the time the place was sold.

http://iranian.com/main/blog/anonymouse/do-you-want-ability-control-comments-your-blogspage3.html

Shazde you are seeing this all wrong.  The old IC would have been better with comment control but at the time of the sale the website was tanking.  Pretty much like how it is here.  I don't like this garbage any more than you do but nothing stays the same and sometimes you just can't go back because you don't have the resources.

When "New Coke" came out it sucked so much that Pepsi was re-born!  Now Coca Cola had the resources to dump the new coke and go back to the old but JJ and SA don't have the resources of the Coke.

The Farsi side of this place is pretty good and gets enough attention, it's pretty good.  I'm too lazy to write too much in Persian but it may also be that we're all too tired of writing comments back and forth.

The survey and the links, while sucky and not needing time to write, is kind of good to be "current" and easier than reading a thesis or run of the mill politics of Iran.

Anyway, let it go or adjust to it as necessary.  Think of it this way, even if JJ changes as you suggest and rearranges the living room furniture the new English side will still suck like before!  There will be no more readers.  There is no hair in the hand!

Esfand, I was against comment control BY BLOGGER, because I thought people may raise a subject and prevent opposing views to take part. I'm not against comment control by Admin where they review flagged comments or remove profanities, etc. I'm against what current IC does, to hold before being published (which on one occasion took ONE HOUR for one comment of mine). 

I thought the request for people to control "own blog comments" were from long standing bloggers who wanted the site to be more like Facebook. In the end I respect what the majority want .

Dear ShazdehAsdolahMirza,

You said: Too bad that an usurper has stolen you nickname identity!

babam jan, ta ghabr, aa, aa, aa, aa. Also, as Mr. Ghatebeh used to say "shekar mikhori, ghand mishekani?"

First, for your beloved information, there was Iranian life on the Internet before IC (it was 1995). I was known as bavafa as of 1991.

Every one of my friends call me bavafa. So this is as authentic as it gets!

usurper masoorper ham khodeti. steal mesteel kardan ham kar khodeteh. See you in San Francisco. :-)

P.S. That :-) was for the humor-impraied.

You want to read good content, why don't you post or encourage your esteemed contributors to post good content -- English or Farsi?

You see on the site cop (1), aka noise, because the copers (2) regularly post one cop a day, but we don't see as many good content posts. Don't number, number. Alexa means less  when comparing apple to orange. Point is IC has had over 17 years of presence in the dokoon of Alexa. Iroon.com is only 7 months old. You want to do numbers? This is how you do it:

6 months  = half a year

IC has 36 half years of traction at Alexa khanoom. Iroon.com has 1 half year. The ration is 1 to 36. What this means is that iroon.com has to go another 35 half years, while IC is also going to add another 35 half years.

Why IC is down is another story. Could it be because folks are hanging around here more?

Anyway, instead of posting comment after comment, post content that _you_ believe to be worthy. By the way, The Farsi site is more active. I don't know why.

As for Facebookistan, nobody in the world can match FB. Comparing iroon.com to FB is unhelpful. One person suggested to use iroon.com as your publishing destination, then share on FB, which, by the way, you can do this now.

It seems to be everyone on this site has his own web site. Here is mine:

http://www.iroon.com/irtn/user/bavafa/

Registered users should use it as your personal web site. The iroon.com gives you so much to self publish salmost anythiong you want. That's your personal site. Even your Comments are there to see.

I wonder why some folks are hung up with the Homepage? For oldtimers (they are IC migrants), you ought to start building your followings. Just follow them and their content. Why? Because (OK, I am guessing here) you know them; you trust them; and hopefully you appreciate and read their contributions. Why are you stuck on the Homepage?

The not-so-missing link: Facebook does not even show their Homepage. It would be useless. iroon.com has a Homepage and with only 1700 users, and probably 100 regular posters, it is already shown the content is not high caliber. Imagine if Facebook revealed their homepage.

As for 5 posts per section, there is pagination at the bottom of each section. I am surprised it works so quick. One click and you see 5 more posts. It is easier to the eyes than scrolling. The difference in the user experience goes as follows:

- Scroll. your hand is constantly on the mouse and scrolling. Your eyeballs must adjust to the titlles as the screen scrolls.

- Pagination. You click once and your eyeball won't keep rolling. You ALWAYS look at the same coordinates on the screen.

My Suggestion

I share it here and hope to see it happening some day. I ask for Personal Customization (PC). PC could potentiall remedy the frustration some folks feel visiting the Homepage regulary. PC sould enable users:

- To decide which sections to display on the Homepage, and how many posts per pagination. For example, I am only interested in Blog posts. If I had the choice, I would set it to show Blogs only and show me 10-15 per pagination.

- To allow me to vaporize/hide/pretend they don't exist users who keep posting cop. cop means different content to different people. For example, I would have loved not to see Fred's posts. I am tired of he reminding me how "nekbat" this IRI is. Now, I am beginning to think his reporting "nekbat" is "nekbat" too.

- To allow me to tell the system, look, only show me posts from my followers. I know the volum of posts on the screen will go down by some folds, but I trust my followings' posts.

Oh, well. iroon dotcomistan is only 7 months old. Give it time. Meanwhile put your efforts together and post useful content and encourage your colleagues to post useful content. The space is yours. If you don't use it, copers will, as they are doing it now! They firgured this out. Have you?

(1) cop = cher-o-per

(2) coper = One who posts cop material

I like your consistency

Dear sepesh, I welcome the 10-minute edit on comments is because folks like myself make tons of grammar and spelling errors. I get annoyed I mistype and I really value the fact this feature is there. On long comments, I even run out of 10-minute window.

By the way, what is not clear on Latest Comments section? Could you elaborate?

bavafa jan I think I got it. I was expecting to see every comment posted in the Last Comment section, but I think it shows the latest comment on that blog. I may still be wrong though, computers are not my forte.

Dear Shepesh,

The old Iranian.Com, the revised Iranian.Com, the now re-revised Iranian.Com ... is not a nice story and may not have a happy ending.

However, what I can tell from personnal experience is that:

1. Said Amin did not know how to run IC properly, but has been listening to many voices, and is trying to fix a number of mistakes he has made during the take-over period. However, his pendulum of Control has swung all the way from no-control (Dec to April) to full-control now.

2. Jahanshah Javid should have become an expert in Ironi website management, through 18 years of experience, but has been losing his touch, due to his arrogance fueled by paying too much attention to the cuddling and praise provided by his close circle (Iranian Bacheh Khoshkel Syndrome).

3. The big difference between SA and JJ is that the first one didn't know but is trying to learn, whereas the 2nd guy should have known but is losing it through carelessness.

Shazde I would say it slightly differently: the former didn't know but wants to leave his own mark on the site at the cost of alienating many of the regular customers whereas the latter knew what he was doing and is going forth to leave his mark on yet another iconic site.

Dear M Javid,

Thanks for your kind comment.

You probably know JJ better than I do, but his personality sometimes comes across as aloof and detached, with a hint of (excuse my French) Be Tokhmam.

Anyhow, whether he likes it or not, he is a business owner in a compatitive world. It behooves him to listen to his content suppliers and interact with them, regarding their concerns and issues.