Though it could be a conflict of interest (to praise the owner of the site I use so much !), I could not help laude San’s relentless experiment with creative ideas to expand Sajha.
I think Sajha with a creative owner like San has a limitless potential. The only limiting factor, in my view (based on my observation of Sajha over past seven years), is [yet to be discovered] unoffensive and uncostly way to keep the abusive posters from degrading the forum and abusing the fellow posters. The abusive atmosphere created by just a handful of abusive posters (for a given time) of Sajha has cost or kept too many great posters away from Sajha.
In the earlier years of Sajha, there was an unspoken understanding of self-policing in Sajha and the atmosphere was so friendly I have often referred to those time as a golden era of Sajha. It could be a matter of dominance of higher age-group posters at that time, as San was once analyzing privately. But it could also be some luck of having no abusive posters around.
Anyway, despite the atmosphere, San has developed the site into one that now caters to diverse groups of people. And I think this is something that gives Sajha a competitive advantage over other similar forums. In that sense, the golden era of Sajha is probably not to be obsessed too much with.
However, I think the new idea of SajhaSansar that San has brought might not only help Sajha grow but also help remedy, at least partially, whatever abusive atmosphere is still around here (I think the “edit†option in the forum has done wonderful job of discouraging and reducing abusive postings).
With the basic idea of streamlining the catering to diverse interest groups, it’s growth is a forgone conclusion. At the same time, the idea of “moderator†is going to rectify otherwise the free-for-abusers atmosphere in Kurakani forums.
Future is open. But I can already smell a renaissance and the return of the glorious abuse-free days of Sajha that I am still obsessed with.
Nepe
