qatari's blog

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.

My dad has fallen ill and will be going for an emergency operation tomorrow morning. I'll be flying home to be with him and my famly so won't be online much until after he recovers.

Since you guys are like family, I just thought I'd let you know before I disappeared. Please remember my family in your prayers.

Qatarite will be renaming himself to something less intimidating and will be taking care of any administrative stuff while I am away.

While I'm away please play nice and help the newbies!

As out community has seen a lot of growth and with it all the teething problems associated with growth.

Trolling has become an increasing issue - many people believe that because something is on the internet that means that they are free to say or do anything that they please. This isn't the case. Qatar Living is not your personal site - it is a site made up of our whole community which consists of people from many different nationalities, religions and ideologies. If you require a personal site where you are free to write whatever you like and where you can rant, swear and abuse people to your hearts content, please feel free to register with http://www.blogger.com

Qatar Living is a public forum where all users should give and get respect. Over the year we have built up a healthy decorum without the need for any moderation or rules.

While I am loath to introduce rules, due to the number of requests coming from the community I believe we need to think of new ways to ensure that our community prospers in a healthy and meaningful way.

Many of you have already sent through some fantastic ideas for guidelines and ways to deal with users who are abusive. Thank you so much - your concern and care for this community is what makes this site fabulous.

I think it is time that we introduced some "Guidelines" for use of the site. Nothing crazy - just some simple rules to get new members up to speed on how our community operates.

Please feel free to send me your suggestions and ideas.

In the meantime, to help us understand what has happened, here is a bit about "Internet Trolls" from Wikipedia :

In Internet terminology, a troll is a person who enters an established community such as an online discussion forum and intentionally tries to cause disruption, often in the form of posting messages that are inflammatory, insulting, incorrect, inaccurate, absurd, or off-topic, with the intent of provoking a reaction from others.

The best way to deal with these people is NOT to take the bait and respond to them. Don't comment and send me a note with the URL of the inappropriate post. People like this thrive on attention - deny it to them and they should go away.

Michael over at "A Man in the Desert" has paid Qatar Living the ultimate geeky compliment - a comparison to our favourite site /. (that's SlashDot.org for those who aren't 'l33t). After we linked to a picture he posted of AJE, he blogged :

im impressed i appear to have slash dotted with a front page photo on www.qatarliving.com

Thanks Michael! Now let's hope he adds the Qatar Blogs Project blogroll to his site :)

I'm sure you've all heard - Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death.

Here is a piece of trivia : one of Saddam's lead lawyers is from Qatar!

Baghdad. The main defender of the ex Iraqi President Saddam Hussein – Nadjib Naimi expressed his disagreement with the death sentence that his client got today by the Supreme Iraqi Tribunal, Al Jazeera reports. The Qatar lawyer expressed his doubts in the legality of the Tribunal and announced that the proofs of the defense hadn’t been taken into consideration.

What do you guys think about the whole thing...?