qatari's blog

Qatar is being lit up with celeberation this week. December 18 was Qatar National Day. The week was filled with activities and celebrations across Doha.

Photo by Ammar Mohammed.

At Qatar Living we've also had a lot to celebrate recently. Apart from our third anniversary, we're also celebrating three other important milestones. We've always believed that the growth of Qatar Living was tracking the growth and development of Qatar. Both in terms of new people moving to Qatar and in terms of people going online. Reflecting this, we now have over 70,000 registered users on Qatar Living. We've also posted over 300,000 pages to the site and have made over 700,000 comments.

So congratulations to everyone in Qatar on National Day, and to everyone on Qatar Living for being a part of this fantastic community!

There has been a lot of chatter surrounding the statement that the newly established Doha Centre for Media Freedom put out on the 11 November 2008.

Here is the actual statement that is up on their website:

The Doha Centre for Media Freedom calls on Qatar’s government to amend the country’s press law. “The National Human Rights Day (November 11) should be the occasion to make a few suggestions as to how the country’s much-lauded press freedom might be expanded,” it said.

Days that commemorate are useful if they are not filled with big speeches far removed from reality but instead lead to change, through as detailed and honest a picture of the situation as possible. Qatar’s National Human Rights Day on November 11 can be of use to everyone if we take the opportunity to state the facts. Among the rights the Day celebrates is freedom of expression, which is the key to other human rights.

Qatar has nothing to be ashamed of in this respect. It sponsored the Arab world’s first satellite TV network which gave a voice not just to those in power but to those who disagreed with them, as reflected by the station’s famous slogan of "The Opinion and the Other Opinion." This is a revolution in the region.

The presence in Qatar for the past few months of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom is another first. Until now, all international human rights organisations (and the Doha Centre is one) have been based in Western countries.

Qatar’s top leaders have also made many pledges to support freedom of expression. They took a principled stand when nearly all Arab League information ministers wanted to adopt a charter curbing the freedom of satellite TV stations to broadcast.

Qatar has many virtues in a region where countless regimes abuse press freedom and attack journalists. This does not mean, of course, that it has no press freedom problems. Nearly all journalists in Qatar would agree there is self-censorship and that cultural tradition favours consensus over inconvenient truths. So National Human Rights Day should be the occasion to make a few suggestions as to how the country’s much-lauded press freedom might be expanded. We will make just two.

The Peninsula started a great new feature this week - the "Internet Charts" which track the most popular websites in Qatar. Qatar Living comes in just behind Qatar University and the Ministry of the Interior as the third most popular local site.

We're stoked at the recognition - QL has broken 8m pageviews last month and now has over 60,000 registered users. In fact, nearly 300,000 people visit Qatar Living every month.

This week has also seen another list of chart toppers from the folks over at the Visitor blog - more subjective but confirming something that QLers have known all along - that Qatar Living is the best website in Qatar!

Of course, the best recognition isn't that written up in charts or lists - it's the satisfaction that we have as a community knowing that we have helped so many people over the last three years have a better and more enjoyable life in Qatar.

So give yourselves a round of applause - QL is the great place that it is because of all your fantastic contributions!

P.S. And if you haven't joined us yet, please sign up here - it's free!

Last week we ran a poll asking folks in Qatar who they would choose to be the next US President if they could vote.

The results have been overwhelmingly in favour of Barak Obama - 60% of those polled said that they would prefer an Obama/Biden ticket. McCain/Palin only mustered a measly 10% of the vote, while 121 people (30%) voiced the fact that they "didn't care". I guess the US Election process is a tiring affair...

I decided it would be interesting to see if the mood had changed since we last did a poll for Super Tuesday in February. Here are the results:

It seems the elections are the Democrats to lose (if the folks of Qatar Living have anything to say about it!

I've just spent some time looking through the classified adverts on Qatar Living. Wow! I've got to say, it is amazing. Browsing through the adverts you'll be able to find all sorts of gems like:

• furniture and baby goods

• a yard sale in Doha
• special number plates for your car (if you're into that sort of thing)
• model helicopters
• iphones
• a new place to stay in Doha
• a nice shiny BMW

So if you haven't went bargain hunting yet, visit the classifieds page.

Some of you may have noticed the quiet re-launched of long loved feature of Qatar Living - Upcoming Events in Qatar.

Even though there are all kinds of great things going on in Qatar, finding out about them can be a challenge. If you're involved in organising or publicising events for your company, school, community group or sports club and would like to get your event listed in Qatar, please send me a private message so I can give you access to this.

At the same time, if you have a write up of an event that has already occured or news story that you would like share, please send me a message too.

Qatar Living, the most fun and addictive social network in Qatar has just turned two (2) years old! I can't believe it has been only two years that we have been online together!

I just wanted to say thank you all for making this such a great, fun and informative place. Qatar is definitely a richer place because of it.

Let's make next year ever better!

I'm out on holiday for a bit so if you don't get a response from me try sending a note using the contact form and someone will get back to you...

I had fallen a bit behind with handling the requests to add blogs to the Qatar Blogs Project. This morning I woke up (okay, my kids woke me up) bright and early and I decided to get up-to-date.

If you had previously sent a message over the last week or two to get added to the Qatar Blogs Project blogroll which lists bloggers from Qatar, you should be on it now. If you visit the page and scroll down you'll find a snippet of code you can add to your blog or website to show the list of bloggers. This is a great way of promoting blogging in Qatar and getting more visitors.

You can always check out all the blogs on Qatar Living.

If you don't find your blog list, want to add your blog to the list or want a blog on Qatar Living, please send me a PM or message via the contact form.

via Gulf News by Barbara Bibbo

Qatar's First Lady Shaikha Mouza Bint Nasser Al Misnad yesterday announced the creation of an Arab Foundation for Democracy, an international organisation tasked with supporting democratic reforms across the Arab world.

The Foundation in Doha will be headed by Shaikha Mouza and will finance non-governmental organisations which focus on the promotion of democracy and institutional reforms, civil society's building and human rights.

Wow! Is this place changing. Read all about it at Qatar Living.

We've been testing the Qatar Living Groups for the last few weeks and we've had a fantastic response.

I first announced Groups here and had promised a prize to the person who had the largest active group. Non of the groups actually won (since no one met all the conditions) but today I'm happy to announce the following Group awards:

• The most members: Filipino expatriates in Qatar managed by azilana7037
• The most activity: Technology and Gadget Zone managed by e46m3
• The most buzz: Qatar Living Social Group managed by Xena
• The best karma: Qatar Living Volunteers managed by Aisha.
• The best karma [runner-up]: Pets and Animals in Qatar managed by Moonbeam.

The managers of the winning groups will each receive a QR100 gift voucher (and our runner-up with half that).

Thanks to all of the managers and members who keep on making this place better and better!

And if you haven't joined a group yet, what are you waiting for?

We have just registered our ten thousandth member on Qatar Living!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for being such an awesome community!

To thank everyone we've got some suprise giveaways for our top 10 most active members. It's just a small way of saying thanks to everyone.

(see, I told you the userpoints were for something!)

This last week has been a weird content week. First we had an influx of people uploading random powerpoint presentations (you know, the type that bored office workers used to e-mail around until they found the Cult of QL). Then, we had a rash of cut and paste articles on Islam. Now, in response we have some cut and paste Christianity. I suspect that by tomorrow someone is going to get annoyed by this and start posting articles on how-to be Wiccan. At this point, these posts are feel like SPAM.

So, just so we don't drown out Qatar related topics I'm proposing a couple of solutions to this:

1. This site is not a religious site. If you are intent on evangilising your religion, you are welcome to go and use them.

2. Do not cut and paste articles from other sites
3. This site is about Qatar and life about anywhere does involve religion. Reasonable discussion on religion (which leads to understanding) is fine. I suspect this involves questions like "Where can I find a church in Doha?", "What does the call for prayer mean and why do I hear it all the time?", "Why is the weekend on Friday here?", "How do I behave so that I don't offend local religious values?", etc.
4. We do discuss all sorts of things here and discussing some religion sometimes is fine and as long as you are not trying to offend, insult or directly evengelise.
5. If you still really really really only want to post about religion please ask for a blog on the site so you don't clog up the forums. Send me a priavate message if you would like a blog.
6. If it feels like SPAM, it's gone.

Please let the insanity stop. I'm going to leave all the current articles that exist but will probably unpublish anything breaking these rules going forward (depending on how you all feel - please leave a comment!)

P.S. Just so I don't get the private messages from some Muslims members saying "Are you anti-Muslim" let me say this : I am a Muslim. I would love for everyone to be Muslims. Cutting and pasting diatribes is probably not going to help in convincing people of your message (heck, I don't even read it). The best way (at least on this site but probably in life) to show off your religion and values is to live them.