If you were the owner of GS, what would you do ...

Hangout GupShup Cafe
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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

A forum for discussion is what GS is. Discussion can be on any civil topic and time and again we have all proved it and enjoyed it.

Perhaps when it was created , it was done for the purpose of providing a platform to non resident Pakistanis to mingle. But over time that concept needs to be let go. GS should no longer just be seen as a specific country based forum. Reason being, alot of members are from such varied background, a country isnt the common factor anymore. So many other things are.

This change will truly turn GS into a discussion forum, where people from all backgrounds, various countries, will feel encouraged to discuss issues and matters relevant to their lives. For example, I have a Gori British friend married to a Pakistani, I tried to get her on GS and she lost interest too quickly coz she thought its very culture driven and she found it hard to talk about anything coz she felt she feared coming across as a non Pakistani !

Other then that, the ganging up culture is something that I have always stood against. No matter how different a person’s opinion is, ganging up with personal attacks is just not a healthy environment, we cannot dare to do the same in real life. When we dont like someone’s opinion we just ignore them or say it once and move on , but on GS we stick on with vindictive behavior.

I also feel that moderation needs to be much relaxed. Big brother environment does not get appreciated anywhere. There will be all sort of users here , some calm and calculated, some harsh, some nasty .. unless someone continuously crosses the limits , moderation should be kept to a basic minimum. Despite the mods doing so much work to keep this place active and nice , so many users still feel that mods arent good enough. Its happening coz they see too much moderating on the forum , in my opinion. For once , we need to trust the users here.

Rest, GS is an awesome place , an excellent learning tool , I know, that I learn so much from members here on a day to day basis and its helping me put so many things in perspective and it feels great to be able to help others in a good way as well . The best bit being, once you are a GSer , you know deep down in your heart , you always have friends here who will share your happiness, guide you in troubles , tell you good stuff when you are down and help you keep going when the going gets tough :hug:

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

If I were the owner I’d fix this

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

Especially agree with the part about banning prominent posters and allowing the exchange of ideas. I often think people have idiotic opinions but I don’t go around reporting them. I can think of several topics that would be considered offensive to people, but if you approach it from an academic point of view, with focus on the issue and not on personal attacks, then it should be considered fair game. Mods should be aware of that.

This includes religion (obviously) but a host of other topics as well. For example, I’ve seen several instances where someone made a comment mildly offensive to the myth of Pakistan as the bastion of Muslims in Southeast Asia, and the comment was removed.

So yes, we need moderation, but as it has been stressed by other posters, while most mods are great, others can be too heavy handed in doling out punishment. Furthermore, and this probably won’t happen, but I would like to see discussion of “offensive” topics, - political, religious, or otherwise - being allowed as long as it is not getting personal.

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Ajaz ali, I will pm you the link if I can find that thread :smiley:

One thing I like to make clear that mods do not have banning rights, as they dont have access to admin control panel. Mods, even if they want to, can’t ban people, so no one is getting banned just because someone is pissing off someone. Only people mods can ban are spammers, by issuing them 50 points which instantly bans the person, I think for one month. For any other ban, one needs to go to admin control panel that only admins can go.

I like to have a mod, especially an ex mod correct me here if I am wrong.

A ban of a regular member is discussed thoroughly before taking any action. Recent bans took place two days after the main chaos, only because team was trying to decide upon the right action to take.

Prominent membership does not buy someone an automatic amnesty. If someone is wrong, then he or she is wrong, regardless of seniority or fame.

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Your wish is our command sir. In the month of February, instead of us deciding what discussion should not be allowed, you are telling us that. Feb is going to be a mod free month (experimental with the possibility of going permanent). Mods action will be taken only if a member reports and it’s a violation of existing policies (it has to be yes for both the conditions). If members are ready to tolerate a topic or a thread, it’s fine with GS.

I will post more details in GS news section soon, but for the month to be a successful mod free month, we all (admins, mods and members) have to increase our tolerance level multi-folds on GS. More later.

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

All fair play :k:

Ideal opportunity for the GS junta to lead the way to a new , more public driven GS , bring it on guys and gals :e6:

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

Agreed.

Now can we also bring back ButtSb and CoughCough ?

You have a secret crush on sachaydino, phoenixdesi, and khoji ? :sheyn1:

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

I have seen mention of PCG, ButtSb and CC.
Are there others also, that you are alluding to ?

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

Yes you are.

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

:blush:

You’re not so bad yourself, Monk.

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

i have gone through tough times here… Sb par ban.. Lagataa

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

I would open a relaxing thread in cafe. Have a coffee.
Wont allow any one to post in the thread.:chai:

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

No Post thread in Cafe?! That is the worst pain ever.

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

You are lucky I am not a mod, otherwise I would’ve given you straight 50 points for saying this. :hypo::smiley:

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

open a section for those interested in actually making movies rather than read about the gossip related to showbiz.

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

I’m a new member (joined in October) and there is one thing that is a bit of a pet peeve of mine (although I’m not quite certain what could actually be done of about this). It concerns the subject of religion and people’s opinion on certain things.

I’ve noticed that in the life section people will sometimes ask about Islam’s view on certain subject and ask for others’ opinions on the matter and the thread turns quite nasty rather quickly. What galls me about this is that often posters give their view on something and share what they know of a subject in a respectful and friendly manner and others respond with blatant hostility and angrily shout them down with “How are dare you?! You’re not a religious scholar!" or “Who do you think you are?! Do you have the reference for that?” I find this irritating and illogical as most posters never claim to be religious scholars or authorities on a matter but are simply sharing their opinion. In fact, the posters themselves usually begin with statements such as “I’m not certain about this but…” or “From what I know…,” making it rather obvious that they are not claiming to be an authority on religion. It should also stand to reason that they are not religious scholars as most people are not, making the need to point this out and the ensuing hostilities rather unnecessary.

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

no pretty much the names that you mentioned

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We all need to work on our level of tolerance as I said earlier. And I am not just talking about GS, I am talking about as a society.

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

Thanks for the comments guys.

I have raised the following points up in the VIP part of the forum, and have always sent these suggestions to the higher ups:

-Gupshup needs to become a real entity in the real Pakistani world. There should be banners up and tabling at APPNA events, ISNA events, and real life meetups. Should delve into a offline-real-life-networking company as well. People who are online personalities don’t HAVE TO attend, but it will attract a different crowd to post here, and create more networking and information exchange.

-Gupshup needs to keep in loop with events in the community and be a sounding board for those events. Is there a concert in your town? I’d love to know that Jal is coming to perform in Houston in the next two weeks, rather than finding out 5 weeks after the concert happened. Or that they’re screening Waar in Atlanta. Would I fly to Atlanta to see Waar? Yes. Would I like to know that some networking group in Chicago is doing a young desi professionals event? Yes. It’s so hard to find out about different desi events in different cities, there should be an events area where you can post this stuff. Cool fashion show going on at the Expo center in Karachi in July? Post an ad letting people know about it. Asim Jofa just released a new shawl collection? Post it. That’s something that you could make as a separate forum and people can just post there when they see ads in their local environment for new happenings, and even at some point if it catches on, I’m sure event coordinators will start posting here as a central international sounding board for Pakistani events. Since we all like a good party.

-There are some creative folks here. Wouldn’t it be nice if some of the girls in the cooking section or in the bazaar section were designed their own web pages? Fauzia’s kitchen? Say what? No, go to Gupshup.org and visit Niksik’s Kitchen and get some real recipes. Maybe some even real time videos!

-Gupshup needs to start marketing to more college kids and men. The forums are being increasingly taken over by young moms with 2-3 kids and the heavily dominated parts of the forum are religion, cooking, and talking about relationships. Before when I first joined, this place was heavy on college students. I even remember people getting into brawls in the digichat over their MCAT scores. Those were the days.

-Figure a way to use the chat system more. I managed to jump start it a bit some months ago, but it fell apart again. This is the only Pakistani website, where you can enter a chat for free and meet desis from around the world!

-Matrimonial website. That would bring some serious traffic. Servers might crash. I’ve told Azkar, I think he’s waiting to do it after I get married so I don’t abuse it. :frowning: . It is our civic duty and historical tradition to help kids have more kids. :k:

-Get rid of the VIP section, it discourages younger people. You think it’s too clique-ish.

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Re: If you were the owner of GS, what would you do …

This is huge. A lot of people are accessing the internet through their smart phones. So if there is no reliable app, a site like this now won’t be frequented as much. People are seldom seen sitting with huge computer laptops except to study at Starbucks or so now, around here.

I do 90% of my online work now or activity of any kind through my phone, that includes stuff like looking up a recipe or a designer’s dress design to show to the darzi. Would be nice if you could use the phone to pull up info like that on GS.

A lot of people land here, because they were googling recipe’s, or wanting to look at clothes and this website is a big one that pops up when you google in key words. That’s how I found this place, I was looking for a forum that discussed Pakistani music, and I found this place.