Due to increasing number of politics related postings, we have created a new section called Nepali Politics Forum.

Currently only few of the recent politics related threads have been moved to the Politics Forum, but moving forward, please select the correct catagory of 'Nepali Politics Forum' when posting politics related posting.

This new section has been created to cater to the needs of politically inclined visitors while keeping the general sajha kurakani open for more general discussion and sharing helpful information to the general Nepali public living abroad or in Nepal.

Comments suggestions always welcome. Happy Friday!

Best wishes,
San

shiv,
Don?t be so lazy buddy. Let your right hand to do some work out as your left gets always;).

I see the main sajha page (homepage) more as a landing ground or the Lobby. Previously the postings shown in the homepage were more diverse and represented various interests. Recently, it seems like nearly half of the postings are politics related.

In most discussion sites, the homepage is generally a list of topics for discussion. Unless the site itself is a special interest site, you will have to click on a link to go view or post in the topic of your choice.

When a new visitor visits sajha, the homepage gives the first impression. Having half the posting being politics related, I don't want the visitor to have the opinion that sajha is mostly a political site. I want to keep the first impression of sajha as a sajha site for all, and not a sajha politics site. This way, the first outlook becomes more sajha - yet, more serious political discussions are merely a click away.

As the admin, I have to try to understand that a lot of current new visitors are mostly college going students hence late teen to twenties. Visitor retention is important because a site is as valuable as the visitors to the site. Hence, I do not want to deter away new visitors to the site, simply because the homepage paints sajha as more of a political site. I would like to see the homepage to be more sajha and not constantly monopolized by one area of interest.

These are my opinions; but as always i'm open to ideas and suggestions. Do cast your vote since they wil make a difference in what is decided.

I agree with fellow posters: the bothersome thing is not the attempt to clean-up and organize sajha postings, but the discrimination of one particular genre of posts.

There are some online fora/'forums" that work very well when they are organized. Here are some examples from very different areas:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=374
http://www.nikonians.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi

I recall a few years ago, trying to work out a way to get kurakani more organized. Over time though I have come to see that there are also strengths in having a lot of topics mixed together, creating exchange of thoughts and ideas among people of vastly varying interests.

If kurakani is to be reorganized into several groupings, then I think at minimum,

(a) They all should have the last few threads shown on the home page.
(b) There should be a few broad categories, rather than lots of little ones.
for example:
Nepal's government, politics and future
Life abroad
Seeking and giving advice
Entertainment

(c) The actual subdividing/grouping should be done after extensive discussion... since the way topics are grouped does affect how they attract attention and posters.

I think a decent side of the argument tries to come up with as less name calling as possible.And how would you differentiate between an absolute political thread and some what political thread.Even when you are discussing about the social plagues like dowry system,blind dogmas that we can sacrifice a weaker boka and worship cow as a mother,and that our king is some sort of a divine figure etc etc are one way or other related to politics.Would you want to filter that as well?And marginalize them.
You can urge folks to come up with some good arguments and discourage name-call.Name calling undermine the debator when you are having a debate about social ills and its remedy.But not SIDELINE them.
That shows that we are still a coward and we have not yet build up our mind to logically defend our side.You are discouraging free minds.It will turn out dangerous.

One has to filter threads for good contents whether it is political or not. There are good/bad threads in every category. Since sajha is designed as an open forum, quality can not be controlled. So, let users select what they want to read or post. Creating a separate link is inconvenient from the navigation point of view. A good site doesn't allow more than 3-clicks to get anywhere. And politics, whether one likes it or not, is the main agenda in our country's current affair.

What on earth is wrong with these peole ?
I agree with San. Political discussions are always one sided.
If you please the Royaliss the rest are frowning
If you pease the republic supporters, again the rest are frowning
Or if you Support the Commies, the rest are Frowning again.

so regardless of what you do Some mofoo is always going to be UNHAPPY.
And it is also not realistic to please everyone.
Let him test out this plan, there is harm in trying.
If it works great...if not you can always go back.
In the process of developement you have to try new things otherwise you will be stuck in the same spot for the rest of your life. AND WE DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT.

Sanji, although I have tried to involve myself in almost every kind of topics in sajha, it will feel quite strange and uncomfortable if I don't find politics in the main page. As politics is the hot topic in the country and everywhere, sajha Kurakani, I doubt, will loose its charm if politics is sidelined in a different page. 'Man is by nature a political animal'. We can't separate politics from rest of the things. And sajha has a different identity amongst so many forums and it thrives on this identity much more than by making some unusual changes. Just my thoughts.

Great job admin....... it would be great if you can do the same with sports related thread :) I don't mind one extra click ;)

all these folks didn't have anything to say when the admin did the same thing with immigration related threads......

San,
I understand your effort to make Sajha better and I hope my views will also help you as my views will be from the market segment away from the ones you are trying to retain
:-(.

I also understand that you are trying to attract new comers mostly college going students. I am sorry, I do not fall in that category.

As far as I am concerned, I am an occasional/sometimes frequent visitor in Sajha and there are times I find solitude here. Sajha attracts me more when there are intellectual discussions, political, social and others that affect our lives in Nepal and aboard.

I guess I could give more work-out to my hands and fingers to go to the politics section. That is something for me to work on.

I have been to many Nepali gatherings, and met people with different backgrounds, most of the discussions are about politics aside from personal. The current political situation in Nepal affects us all regardless of our interest in politics or lack thereof. I think it is only fair to say that current sajha home page reflects the sentiments of Nepali diaspora more than other sites as it reflects the true feeling of the community at large. I still vote for having Sajha the way it was.

I fully say yes with the changes made on the political thread here in sajha. Recent political instability has stirred so many political threads that it had reached the point where lots of visitor like myself would not open it for several days. "Tehi usual political discussion baahek kyehi hudaina, disregard it" was what on my mind. I am student and have been in this country for 6 years now, and so many people I know had to say same thing about recent sajha threads, so it was keeping out some visitors like us.

How can it be not fair to certain brand of sajha members? Its just a click away. The front page should be of general discussion of all sort and if some explicit topics started growing so much that it sidetrack some other kind of visitors, then that particular topic should be kept to the side forum separately in future and go so on. After all it is >>Sajha<<, at least front page should be miscellaneous meant for general mass having varieties in taste than only for certain groups of specific taste.
--------
GJ San

San ji,
Today, before reading this thread and without knowing there is a separate section for politics, I skimmed through the threads in kurakani section and felt that it was something bland like curry without salt. I only realized that a separate section has been dedicated to politics after reading this thread. I understand that this is just your experiment. But I think you have to abandon your experiment soon because this has ended up making kurakani section forty percent tasteless if not fifty percent.

I have not written actively on any political threads, which may potray me as a politics hater, but I like reading those threads. In other news sites, we can just read the news, but in kurakani, people dissect and trisect the news, giving much more information. So, I like to see kurakani threads rather than the plain news. Regarding your willingness to give more chances to other general topics than politics, I would like to say that politics is the most general topic one can ever think of which encompasses micro level local events to macro level international incidents. So, no one is completely separate from politics. If someone wants to stay away, there is always a freedom to not click on that topic. But instead of using that freedom, why are you taking a risk to make kurakani saltless for atleast forty percent of sajha visitors?

San well your intentions are not bad but you are taking away the taste of Sajha. I have always liked Sajha for his unique and simple style and i guess many users who also visit other boards feel the same way. And who says only political discussion takes place in front page? I mostly see mixed ones and besides if only nonsense topics start to pop out on the front page it wont look any better than other Nepali forums we have on net. And also dont forget most people visit here to see the political discussion and not the rest. I still remember the way you have described Sajha which was so touchy and unique so once again think about it. And I think the main people who make this place for what it is, arent for it.

If you really want to improve something then add an edit option for a limited time.

hmm and now after reading my post, really makes me feel, we do need an edit option. :)

-------

Hi matrixrose ji,
On a different note, is your sajha-registered email not working? I sent you an email but it bounced back. Was trying to send you my astrology details. How can I send you those? Alternatively, can you email me first so that I can retrace it to send the info?

I am not sure who gave this idea to San about creating separate forum for "Politics". Hope it's not Ashu.

If you are thinking of "Divide and Rule".... then it's unfortunate.

Then why don't you start creating forums for SEX, MUSIC, WATER COLOR PAINTING, OIL PAINTING, POETRY, PROSE, IT, MARKET ECONOMY (Ashu will be King of that and wil not have chance to appear in other forum, ha ha ha), TOURISM, EDUCATION, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, ........ and so on and so on...

Why only "POLITICS" forum??????? Why the hell people don't consider "POLITICS" as a genral topic. If POLITICS is not a general topic, then what it is?

Think about this!!!!!!! Something is wrong in your thinking!!!!!!!

Keeping all sorts of postings/threads in one place has merits. If you ask me what's the merit... then I tell you, we are supposed to have braod vision that can relate to many facets of life in order to have holistic approach in life. If a painter only starts reading/writing in WATER COLOR PAINTING forum... he will never get a chance to realize what's it about the other areas of life. Keeping all sorts of postings/threads in one place give such stereotype people a great chance to peek into other topics..... accidentally.. who knows those people then can contribute immensly in other areas than WATER COLOR painting.

Think about it.... It's OK, San, you do the experiemnts.. but think carefully who are those guys giving you this wild idea of creating funny funny forums...

IN fact, there si another forum... Sajha Writer's Guild... I do not agree with that too.

leave it the way it was before. It is good to have so many topic at the same place.

In my opinion, the site is fine without different political forum. How can you define and categorize politics? Is it a separate issue? it is a very separate general issue. Everything starts from politics and ends in politics. I think very few people will go to that forum, they will get scared. And we will not see many great postings.

And by the way, I was looking that at postings shifted to that forum (I don't have intention to look again in future), I found that even the joke about Paras was there. So this is politics or joke? Where should this be shifted to? To the HUMOR forum or POLTICS forum? I posted HAIKU about kg's street walking, will this also go to POLITICS? Or do I have to post this kind of HAIKU in POLITICS forum in future?

Sorry, in the second line of my above posting I wanted to write "It is a very general issue." not " It is very separate general isuue".

San,

Every decision on Sajha has to be filtered by asking these two basic questions:

1) Will doing this make the users' life EASIER when they visit Sajha?

OR

2) Will this make users' life a little more difficult when they visit Sajha?

If -- as per the majority of postings above -- the answer is "yes" to 2), then,
it's probably not a good idea to do it.

oohi
ashu