Content is the King - Just an Idea, let's discuss...

[chodhry]

@Amal

I have no idea who posted it and where. It has happened a few times when I saw my work being circulated through Yahoo Groups and posted on different forums. Some times people give credit and some times they make it their own In any situation, it’s a compliment for me and my work that people think of it worthy enough to post on forums or to claim that it is theirs

Today Amal’s post in the thread “Amal of GS” proved to be a catalyst for my idea implementation process.

What’s the problem with you man?

Well I have got a brain. And it’s first responsibility is to make sure that I am thinking. Yep, Continuous Thinking. (and I get sick of it some times) anyways I have been thinking/finding about a local site where I can submit my poems without the fear that they will get dumped. Yeah, it’s no surprise that our poetry gets dumped in archives over here at GupShup as well. We get appreciation for a few days and then what happen? Our piece of art gets replaced with new pieces and it pushed down to the second page and then third and so on and then gets vanished. New comers never know what a piece of poetry they have missed and most of us would not tend to spend their time searching the archives.

What we lose in it?

Not a single prospective reader but a chain of loyal fans and most importantly we fail to ease one’s pain. We fail to be there (in writing) when one needs us badly. We fail to celebrate one’s joy. We fail to put a smile on one’s face. We fail to make one’s day. (ok, enuf ranting)

What is the solution?

The biggest problem with GS is that it’s built in a fashion of “One Night Stands” well I mean temporary discussions on a topic. While I want to have something more like a “married life” a permanent one.

Can you please cut the commercials?
What?

Come to the point or I am leaving.
Oh, ok!

Let me cut it short for you guys.
Why not start a desi site dedicated to poetry?

Ok ok please don’t slap me now. I am a hardcore fan of GS. (Not Golden Scorpion, I am no Pathan yet :p)

Well, it’s going to be a different site. More like **a site where people come, read and share, what they like, with their loved ones and a site where every thing is copyrighted by it’s owner ** and kept in an organized theme directory, like Love, Sad, Miss you, Breakup, Any Time, New Year, Eid, Ramazan, Nature, etc… Most popular by “rating” and by “shared” poems will be at the top always. Poets can submit their poetry in the most suitable directory(ies). It will stay there always and if users like it, they will have an easy way to share it.

It sounds a lot of work?
Not really!

What? Are you NUTS?
Well’ listen. All we need is one thing

Co-operation, let me repeat Co-Operation. Well it wont hurt if I say it an other time. this time all in bold and cap. CO-OPERATION. Now say with me CO-OPERATION., CO-OPERATION., CO-OPERATION…

It’s going to be teamwork. I need you, You and YOU!

Let’s think about implementing it, if you like it.

GS, I need a favor, please do not move it to somewhere else and it would be so nice of you to make it little sticky. Am I asking a lot?

Run Chodhry Run…

Thanks for reading it anyways!
Touseef

[Ivegotmyeyesonu]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let’s discuss…

itz a nice idea n good luck :k:

[DADDU]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let's discuss...

Idea is not bad Chodhry
but where do you think they should put this Poetry section it will become just like this one writers like me write poetry everday sometime 3 a day so that would put me the top everyday and poeple normally read the first and move on to another thread. yes there is a way that if each poets is assigned a thread on his name and post only his poetry on it so everyone would know that there is only one poet for this thread they will then look into other name like this one is everybody writes everthing in one thread it is difficult to the reader to read all in one thread different name thread would make a big different. and about your CO-OPERATION statement if it wasn't for a team work we would not have been writing here we all appreciate each others work of art. new commers get used to the idea of once they like first they can always go serach for the earlier poetry. it all depends on how intrested they are in the poets poetry they will search themselves as it is easy to do here.

I really don't care who steals my poetry or read or don't read, because I don't make living with this it is to share with everyone. there are other sites that I go and post my poetry and get the same response. that is all I care people get befifit out of my art it doesn't matter how, as long as the person knows that it was mine.

[chodhry]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let’s discuss…

Thanks! You have got your eyes on me

@DADDU

I really don’t care who steals my poetry or read or don’t read, because I don’t make living with this it is to share with everyone. there are other sites that I go and post my poetry and get the same response. that is all I care people get befifit out of my art it doesn’t matter how, as long as the person knows that it was mine.

DADDU, I am not talking about the forum. Why would people steal your poetry? Because it gets dumped after a while in forums and they think no body gona find out the source. And why do you see your stuff being circulated in emails? because users need to share it without so many replies by others. they need a little privacy. I have been speeking to GS admin from quite long but they dont seem to realize my point.

I am asking to make another site dedicated to poetry. Where poetry will be categorized under themes and you will post under a theme. If you post 3 poems a day . No problem. They all will go to different categories, I guess. Or even if they go into one category it doesn’t matter because we can have a section of new poems for each category and top poems for each category. Obviously top poem will be selected on two factors.

• rating
• number of views to the ratio of number of sent

Sorry, if it’s too complicated but I am sure there will be a free software available for this purpose. I can find one. You can find another and we can decide which one to use.

Regarding the website: where we gonna install that software. We can ask GS admin to sponsor us a domain and webspace. After all we are loyal fans of GS. Or if you dont agree to involve the admin in the whole process and getting slowed down we can have our own domain name (it’s so cheap these days any ways) and I can host it on my server and bear the cost. Well I am already bearing it so doesnt matter for me any way. (hey but there’s a limit to everything)

What I meant with the co-operation is that few of us should sit together (virtually, may be on msn) and decide about the domain name, software, categories and then all of us select our best poems, upload them and start sharing.

Now, we all know that our stuff is being appreciated here and on other forums so it’s going to be appreciated on that site as well Thats the beauty of the original content. Thats why I said content is the KING. (Who’s the queen?)
Every user will have the ability to read more stuff in any category and send it or come back after some time and still be able to find the old poem and send it to some one again. On forums users wont feel comfortable sharing it with others as there are so many replies with the actual poem. Think of a poem as an ecard. You send it to your friends with a personalized message which only he can view. Privacy, do you even consider it?

We will also have individual pages of Artists with all of their submitted stuff.

Well, it does not conflict with the GS but it supliments it. Poets wont be able to get public comments there. they will still have to come on GS to get comments. But they will have the satisfaction that there stuff is being published on web in a more systematic and lasting way.

yaaar kitna aur boluN?

[system]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let’s discuss…

Phew… kahani achi thi.. Okay to be serious.. It’s a nice idea, this way the poems would be more appreciated… Hope everything will work out Good Luck! :k:

Oh and by the way… Queen is me :queen:

[chodhry]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let’s discuss…

@KhamoshNigahein

It’s a nice idea, this way the poems would be more appreciated… Hope everything will work out Good Luck! :k:

Co-Operate and it will work out Insha Allah

@KhamoshNigahein

Phew… kahani achi thi..
Oh and by the way… Queen is me :queen:

Wont that make you a little older than you really are?

[system]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let’s discuss…

@chodhry

Co-Operate and it will work out Insha Allah

You need my co-operation? I doubt I can do anything But yeah.. if I could do something… just let me know :halo:

Wont that make you a little older than you really are?

How do you know how old I am? Kya pata main aapki bhi khala jaan lagti hon

[Amal]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let's discuss...

I had felt it a long time ago and discussed it with NikamiJano. We even tried a free forum hosting service to test the idea. But I am against indexing each and every post in different categories because it will require a lot of clickings. Even people will some time won't know where to put their work. I don't think that a visitor will visit all of your 10 categories everytime he comes to your site.

The idea that I had discussed with NikmaiJi was to allot every poet an exclusive place on a board. It will work like a personal diary on the web. Suppose you get a forum and only you will be able to post threads in that forum and others will only be able to respond to your work. So your forum will have only your threads and thus all of your work will be in your very own forum. So it's like having your own home in a town where you live peacfully without getting into the fear of becoming part of the crowd.

To be more clear, you can go into my profile here on GS and click the link saying "Find all threads started by..." and you will have all of my threads in front of you.

This is a raw idea and has its problems and needs to be finetuned. I am not sure whether it will suit you or not.

[Golden_Scorpion_1]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let’s discuss…

Choudhry… First of all… NO.. U r not asking for much… Its STUCK coz I always want Discussions

Secondly… I reserve my coments on Idea you have … BUT… Whenever you think of something out of GS (Offcourse not me ) as you said…
We can have another Domain etc etc atleast I will consider it against the GS RULES, Matlab.. saaf hay na… I am not saying that you are going to lauch another Site and Brainstorming the GS Guppies to Help you out there… BUT.. if U look at wat you said from another angle… you will see the reflection of wat I said…
I dont know If I said what I wanted to

Your Ideas are always welcome… Not only yours but all of the Poets and Poetry Fans who comes here and share their Poems or Views are assets of GS (Atleast I think like this), so if You THINK THINK & THINK again and.. Mould your Idea to our Existing Setup then I Hope it can be implemented… here on Poetry Forums, we can Discuss it and We can implement it without even asking for ADMIN’s time. Kia Khayal hay … am I moving fine…?

Inshort… Qaumi Zubaan maiN Arz kia hay…

YahaaN Idea do tou aisa do jo hum YahaaN implement ka sakaiN… If You wana Change the Setup or Increasing Forum or some Structure changes tou … FEEDBACK is there…

[chodhry]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let’s discuss…

KN, You can at least add some of your poetry to the site.

Amal, your idea sounds really good to me :k: We are almost on similar lines. I do want to have a seperate space with all of my stuff. But what I want is the catagories in addition to that private space. One problem with the forums search option for a user is that it also bring all the non-related searches out. I mean the posts without the poem/ghazal or merely replies. And It is very hard to find something or go through from like 4000 posts or so. And even if I find something which I like, I wont feel comfortable sending it to some one the way it is presented in the forum. I mean with so many replies. I would prefer copying and pasting it in my email. I dont know what others would prefer though.

Second problem is that most of the time we read poetry under a certain feeling. right? If I pick a book of Amjad Islam Amjad what I will choose to read will bebased on my mood. I dont think people read poetry like a text book. So if I am feeling sad I would like to read sad poetry or may be the uplifting poetry. I wont be looking for an individual poet. And thats the whole point. Presenting the information in a way which provides instant relief. If I am provided with a choice of going in to the section of “uplifting poetry” I would love to go there and find my fav post there. that could be Amal, that could be Chodhry, Dilsay, that could be GS, Daddu, Hiccup, etc. or I can view few of them and feel ‘satisfied’ instead of going another round of pain while finding the real thing and also it gives exposure to more poets. Even new poets can get a loyal fan who can then click on the poet’s name to read all of his poetry if he feel likes it. and obviously with out going through a few thousand non related posts. That’s the kind of thing I want to establish.

Hey GS, I got what you mean. Yes, my idea does overlap with the policies of GS . But sincerely as I said earlier I am a loyal fan of GS. It provided my the only on-line exposure I have. Guppies here have given me a great deal of encouragement and they have some of the credit of what ever the beauty I have got in my words. I would like it being implemented here on GS but if it is not possible then? But in any case I would like to see it being materialized and I would hope that you will help us out. would you?

OK, now I have a better picture. If the only reason GS admin refuses this idea is the amount of extra work on their end we can give propose them a complete system where all they need is to give us the hosting space and add another feature in the GS like journals.

Here is a break down.

We need three type of people.

1- Content Providers (I can provide about 30 poems in different catagories) And it would be so nice if you could tell that how many of you have written so far which you are willing to add to that system.

2- System Developers (May be some poets here or a loyal fans who could give some of their time in developing the system or installing the free system on their machine or server as a beta test)

3- Site Admin (Although the type of site I have in my mind is an automated one but there will be the need of a regular webmaster which can be shared. Although the nature of this job is quite different with the moderation of a forum but it’s not a rocket scince either so I am sure our GS bhai can do that.

We will develop the system, stuff it with our content and ask GS to add to test and add to their system. It can also be done in a way that while posting we will have to tell the genere of the poem and a new poem/gazal is automatically added to the respective catagory as well as a thread will be open about it to get comments and improve it. But in that section only the first post (with the poetry) will be added with a beaytiful button just below it with a caption “Share it with your loved one”.

I strongly beleive it will also increase the activity of poetry forum and will bring in lots of new visitors.

“Maathey sey pasina poochnney wala icon”

so what ya people think? Are you with me?
Ta-Ta

[Amal]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let's discuss...

Chodhry sahab if you are serious about your idea, first of all, empty your mind of any hope that GS Admin will develop a system, give you space or assign you a domain. Anything that you think, you will have to make it happen by your very own.

I had obtained a free forum software and made several changes so the final product which shaped up, had options like
Members Ratings
Threads Ratings
Top 10 Members by Ratings
Top 10 Members by Postings
Top 10 Threads by Ratings
10 Most-New Threads
10 Most-Viewed Threads
10-Most-Replied-To Threads

and all other options like PM system, send to friend, print and save to My Favrouite List. It also stores all of your Threads (not posts, i.e, replies) in your profile. It, however, did not include category system because I am still not convinced that it works. I think if I open Amjad Islam Amjad's book, I will read anything that will appear simply because whatever he writes, he does it beautifully. Tehnicalities aside, you will have to have lots of time if you are going to implement this idea.

[system]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let's discuss...

Me, personally I think it's a wonderful idea... And you can count me in as well. But I don't think GS Admins would be so helpful to realize this idea. If they would be so kind, then we would be very thankful.. But I have doubts about that... and as as Amal already said, you will have to do everything on your very own and you need a lot of free time to keep it updated.

[Golden_Scorpion_1]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let’s discuss…

Hi Again…

Choudhry Dear… Why am I here… ? Short answer is to Fascilitate the guppies.. So… Zahir hay ke… I am with all of you for all of your good and implementable ideas… Coz.. in Long run its the Benefit to our Forum all the good things will increse the valuable traffic to our forum, so count me in for every sort of assistance.

Again… I will reserver my coments on your idea… As I am Reading DADDU, KN & AMAL’s Discussions and Its positive discussion.
BUT… On Part of the ADMINS, ITs not that Admins wont support out good ideas, Lekin as maiN ne pehlay bhi kaha ke… If we can take a start with Some sort of Ideas in out Existing System it will be great and later we can improve it more. To Start or Develop another Forum as you proposed is not gona work from start as mentioned my KN & AMAL its very time consuming and GS ADMINS are currently busy with the Fine Tuning of the New GS Systems.
Issiliye maiN baar baar Arz karnay ki Koshish kar raha hooN ke… Give some Ideas that can be implemented on our Existing system…

[Faisal]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let’s discuss…

Idea is pretty interesting actually. I am sorry I am coming in late into this discussion, but thats primarily because my shairi ki hiss is almost at the bottom of the scale, so it feels like a misfit amongst all you laiq faiq log..

Anyway, if I understand this correctly, you want a database of poetry. Instead of a thread-based discussions, it should be categorized and indexed with the name of the poet and the topic (presumably). People can still leave their comments on poetry, but the primary focus will be to make sure poetry is organized. Plus, you want bells-and-whistles, like top-10’s of different kinds.

I suppose you have a critical mass to provide content.

A few questions, though.

1. Do you guys plan on using nastaleeq for urdu poetry, or is Roman Urdu what you are looking for? We can have GIF/JPG’s uploads available for urdu, but they are not searchable, ofcourse.

2. Will it be moderated in the back-end (everything will be posted initially and editors review it later), or will it be moderated in the front-end (submissions will be que’d and published once the editor approves it)? I suppose the primary moderation will be to filter out plagiarized material, and so it can be back-end just like GS.

3. Who is going to lead this effort? Do remember, it will take some time commitment on your part.

Let me know and I am pretty sure I can provide a solution fairly quickly.

[chodhry]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let's discuss...

AOA Faisal bhai,

How are you?

Yes You got it right. Just want to make clear that it wont be the topic which will organize the content but it is going to be searchable by two ways.

1 - By theme. (If some one wants to read uplifting poetry he should be able to go directly to that catagory. ) Still it will have the poets name some where on the page.

2 - Then comes the Poet's area with all of his stuff in the catagories he has submitted it.

(And if we use a third part software for this we can make it more appealing visually by having bg's i mean background images according to each catagory. If it's a sad poem then may be leaves of different color. These type of things are available as royaltee free images or we can ask users for help and add this thing gradually. )

At the bottom it will have a beutiful image link which will be read some thing like this "Click here and share the love" or "click here to make some one's day", or it can be left with the artist's imagination. There should not be any comment from the users on that page as some times these coments make a stunning peice of art virtually useless to share with some one you care. I mean you dont want them to get into the replies and lose the concentration of your message. little physco case (may be only with me)

anyways, I know this increases a lot of work on your end. So I have though about it and came to a solution. That is. If you could some how make this "send this page link" part of the first post as I described and also make a foot note that replies on this page will not be delivered.

You can add the category option in the system may be when some one is starting a thread check if it's in poetry forum and if it's yes then add the catagory field to submit form. provide that values to a seperate database may be. khair i have a picture of it but need to think on it and discuss it with core programmers.

Thought I beleive the best solution will be to have a third part software designed for this thing and merge with the forum. You only need to fetch some values from forum submission. like if forum is poetry, then show the catagories. have the thread running as it is in the forum but also feed those values to that software admin. So whenever someone adds a poem to get comments a visually appealing copy is also added automatically in the other section. Few days back I had a little email corrospondance with Azkar bhai he was interested to buy ecardmax though I have also suggested some other software khair that's not bad either and it can do the trick. BTW I already have promised him to take some time out for GS ecards project after valentine day. So if you buy it we can easily make it work the way I described. And it already have all those features. (rating, sent, etc)

now coming to your questions.

Vcardlite which I am using on two of my sites supports Arabic language so may be we could use that. Just recently urdu point also has installed it on their servers. But I think ruman urdu is not a bad idea to start with. We can also get some urdu images done by guppies here.

I think que'd idea is better. you may filter out some of the obscene words and stuff but you can not filter out a pirated poem. site admin will have to check it before publishing according to the policy. Now days intelectual property rights can get you in serious trouble easily. If I start a site today and leave it with poor moderation leting users upload other's stuff people may not bother to pursue leagal action but at your scale everyone will be interested to get a chunk. So the admin will check if it is suitable and only then will publish it on the site. We can get more protection by our Terms and Conditions to provide the content.

Faisal bhai, I started this discussion because I want to do it. It is going to be a team effort but I am willing to make commitment for it.

Just updating on idea: We can also add song lyrics. A great way to get more traffic. You dont get lyrics of Pakistani songs on net. do you?

[Faisal]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let's discuss...

Hmmm.. ok, let me think about it. I am not inclined to make it a part of Gupshup. Yes, we can link it from GS as well, but essentially its a stand-alone site and linked from a portal website.

In rough numbers, how many themes do you think you will need?

Secondly, will it be useful/viable to create a user-maintained database of searchable recognized poetry by famous poets? Like if I want to read poetry by Faiz or Ghalib.. where do I go for them?

[chodhry]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let's discuss...

I think around 15. will check few sites and come up with these catagories and then we can discuss on them to select.

I guess we may be able to do it over here. We will have to check if celeberties stuff comes under public domain or not. Or we can get the permission from the company having publishing rights of Faiz Ahmad Faiz and other poets. As long as we keep it a free site and not pursue any finantial benefits I dont think they gonna have any problem. We can also give the credit by linking the poets kallam to respective publishing company website. But it is a great idea. We can also add few lines in TOS and protect ourselves for possible law suite but thats an extreme case. Usually they give a notice before going to that level and only if you dont put their stuff down. so it can be a go go with a line in TOS.

"All the stuff provided on this site is provided by users and beleived to be part of public domain. If you think some one has used your cotnet with out your permission. please tell us we will investigate and give the credit to rightfull owner or will put that content down. "

Just have it wet through a leagl advisor with more technical termanologies and there wont eb any problem. Insha Allah

[Faisal]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let's discuss...

Yes. Thanks. Let me think about it and what will be a good solution here. It won't be instantanous. Once our current project is done and out of the way, I will get to this one and will contact you.

In the meantime, if others have any additional suggestions, feel free to post here.

[Golden_Scorpion_1]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let's discuss...

Choudhry Dear... Now You arein Good Hands :D

As I already Said.... ADMINS will always support your Good and Constructive ideas... :)

[chodhry]

Re: Content is the King - Just an Idea, let’s discuss…

OK, Sure Faisal bhai, Let’see if you do not take so much time in getting back to us.

Yeh intizaar kahien shab-e-hijar ki terhah taweel sey taweel ter hi na ho jaye kioN key koun jeeta hey teri zulf key ser honey tak. what I am saying khair…

GS bhaya, ok, I am in safe hands, now I do hope they handle mw with care.