Hello admins,

Sajha is a WONDERFUL place to meet all sorts of Nepali people, its got a great vibe, the experience of interacting with so many interesting people is "outta this world".

 

However, I am not particularly pleased with some of the visual elements. I acknowledge it isnt easy to plan out and make a website and have absolutely no right to criticize your hard work(s).

 

Ok I'll stop beating around the bush. I HATE THE ADVERTISEMENTS!! :) As soon as i type sajha.com I am suddenly visually assaulted by a barrage of flashy text thingies telling me to 'Fly to Nepal','call using [insert company here]'s phone cards','send money',study in UK??????' and offcourse the ever present staunch 'stana card'. It is my personal opinion that these flashies degrade the userfriendliness of sajha (however some silly piece of green floating text is not going to stop me from using it :D:).

 

ADs, and then LINKS! The home page could well be a chain plated armor because of so many links on it. While of the opinion; more is better, our case here seems a little too extreme :D

 

/end_rant

 

Those are the problems I have presented you with. Here are some possible suggestions (please add to this list: that was the whole point of my rant).

 

1. The revenue generated using advertisements must offcourse be of a substantial amount, especially considering it on a website as popular as sajha, but maybe we could reduce the number of visible ads from 13, to say 5, or some other solid number? And keep the ads on a rotating basis so everytime a user clicks a link, theres a different ad there. Companies are happy ure advertising them, users are happy because less eyesore is always a good thing.

 

2. The forum links could be formatted and organized (maybe using DHTML menus? (or something interactive/in the background like AJAX technology?) . If it was upto me Id get rid of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th columns entirely. I NEVER use anything in these columns (except when sajha chat was a link in the 2nd column). The 3rd column (forum) is what I'm interested in when I type www.sajha.com and thats the column I goto 98% of the time.

 

But again, these are just suggestions, at your disposal. I'm not blaming you guys for anything, if infact, i might say you have done an absolutely brilliant job of keeping the site running. I know there must be millions of background processes that keep this site together and its hard alone to make this work let alone shape how it looks, but maybe thats something you guys could keep on your To-Do list? I would be much obliged to help where I could. And offcourse everyone feel free to add your constructive criticism here.

PS. I'm using Google Chrome, so the text box that I have access to when typing a new thread (it said "if you can't see text box, click here') apparently doesnt parse any formatting elements. I would love to see this corrected since I'm a huge Chrome fan, and would prefer not to download firefox just to view one website. IE sucks straight outta the box (too slow). Thanks!

Edit: I HAD to format this using IE :(

so typical of me to rant about the visual elements while slapping you with a wall of text :( I'm sorry its not me, its my browser (chrome).

/bump

Dekchidriver,

I appreciate your comments and suggestions in order to make sajha a better place.

Along with many of you, I would like to make the sajha experience better as much as possible. I have heard many many complaints regarding banner ads in sajha so I took some time to check other popular nepali websites such as cybersansar, nepalnews, kantipuronline, newofnepal etc and found that the number of banners in these comparable sites are approximately same if not more than in sajha!

As you know, sajha was not created with the purpose of generating revenue. That was not even in my mind when sajha was started. It was supposed to be a fun site where we all shared information. It was fun for me and fun for everyone - I hope it still is. As sajha grew more popular, businesses expressed thier interest in advertising in sajha and it would have been foolish to turn them down since it sort of validates my time and energy as well as the entertainment and information provided to many through sajha. In order to lessen the number of ads, I have set a competitive barrier to entry in advertising in sajha.

As you have mentioned, interesting kurakani is the main reason we hang out in sajha and Kurakani is given the main real estate in sajha homepage - and that will never be compromised.

I think of sajha as a sort of "Thamel" where you walk by all sorts of interesting stores and restaurants and bars, but when you walk by you can see all sorts of banners and posters on the side of the road to all over the houses on the side. But the thing is you know where you want to go and you will have fun with the whole experience. The banners don't have to bother you, but serve to expose services which you may need at some point. The banners ads/banners are not necessarily evil! I, myself, go to many different websites but banners ads never bother me as long as they are not forced onto me such as pop up ads and interstellar ads which take over the page, or which require me to click something to get to the main content.

So far, I have been meticulous to not use forceful ads in order to make sure your sajha experience is not hampered in any way besides the regular ads in regular places which you can choose to ignore if you are not interested!

As far as design of the site goes, I don't consider myself a top notch designer or developer and obviously that shows in the poor design elements as it has been pointed out numerous times.I do want to make it better time permitting. I also want to point out that sajha does not pride itself in being the best website as far as design goes, but it sure does pride itself in the audience it has. The best thing about sajha is not the design but the visitors like yourself who consider it a part of their cyber home and take few moments to share your opinions. It's not perfect like everything else in life. Perhaps thats what's keeps it real

Thats why i pointed out as a Hajam ko Pasal. Even though i love this site. And San Bro thanks for making everyone in the sajha, Person of the year.

San: Thanks for the prompt reply. You have me sold on the Sajha::Thamel analogy. :)

I was just curious as to why Sajha was the way it is and your reasoning quenched my thirst.

Mamfuli: Hazam ko pasal :) For me its Chiya Pasal, I come here indulge in chit chat, then get back to work.