Jama’a, Sallama
I decided to come in to help poor embattled Salisu who seems to be facing fire from all fronts!
It is interesting that we are debating the future of KanoOnline, especially as when we started it in 2001 we did not anticipate the kind of future it had. KanoOnline was basically a combination of desire to “fight back” at the bad Internet press Kano was getting in 2001, and especially during the Shari’a implementation process; and provision of more structured, if somewhat less academic depository on Kano for researchers outside Kano. We did not anticipate a “chat forum” and initially focused attention on paper, presentations and information about books on Kano. Indeed we had such a grand plan that we even took our proposal for full-pledged site to the Government of Kano in about 2002. We were promised assistance and all sorts of assurances, but none was forthcoming. Kano Forum (Inuwar Jama’ar Kano) did provide financial assistance which was to go towards part upkeep of the site, as well as pay for a series of academic papers to be written about Kano. We commissioned academic experts, but for over five years, we could not get enough of the papers. Further, the main co-ordinator of the program, Mal. Ibrahim Ado Kurawa got involved in politics and became extremely difficult to contact, at least on matters concerning KanoOnline. Happily, though, we are hopeful that a book will be published early this year inspired by KanoOnline initiative of about six years ago.
Our main focus remained providing academic information about Kano (where we encourage academic faculty in all Tertiary institutions in Kano to provide us with their papers). Pressures and requests made us add the “General Board” . And so the chats began. Over the last few years the Board has grown into an organic whole and created a massive closely-knit online community that makes us feel very proud. We have made it possible to gather many people from different parts of the world together into one community. We even managed to link someone with his family in Kano!
While the Board remained easily the most popular borough of the site, it is inevitable that it often becomes heated with debates that attract opposing views. We (the administrators of the site) do not generally wish to engage in political or religious debates. That does not mean we don’t have political or religious views – we do. However, issues of politics and religion are rarely a matter of right and wrong; they are perspectives and beliefs, and it is quite pointless to try to defend one view over the other. In Islam, for instance, you either believe, or you don’t. It would appear that many of the topics with Islamic slant were deliberately introduced to provoke Muslims and we studiously avoided either directly participating, or when it gets heated, we simply delete the post and if insults were hurled one way or the other, we ban the poster. People from Kano, who in their natural habitats, rarely come across your average non-Muslim, and therefore are not used to interfaith debates; they have enough between Tijjaniyya, Qadiriyya, Izala, Sunni, Salafis and Shia to occupy them. And whether the Qur’an is the answer or not (@Dave) is not the issue. The fact is people have religious faith and they believe. A person has every right not to believe, as much as another person has every right to believe. Standing on the high moral ground by both those who believe and those who don’t believe is what we wanted to avoid in the forum by discouraging religious discourse in the open forum – thus a forum for it; which I suspect many of the posters with “heavy attitudes” don’t probably frequent, making it necessary or the agent provocateurs to come to the general board.
Again I emphasize that our initial idea was to make KanoOnline an information depository about Kano – nothing more, nothing less. I in fact opposed the idea of the General Board and the chats totally (I am the shy silent type!). But we forged ahead and here we are now – discontented. There are three factors that lead to this “comatose” state of the site.
First, and most important, the increasing availability of alternative social networking sites (Facebook, Hi5, Badoo and a zillion others which I detest as I don’t belong to any, and I hate being invited to join any). These have succeeded in drawing away a lot of people (and I would venture to say, the younger elements, as the ones who remain are the old codgers!) This effect is across the Internet. I administer about five Yahoo! Groups communities and we noticed the same effect from three years back. These alternative social networks provide more bang for the buck, with lots of fizz; at least people tend to meet those closer to their ages and tastes (Beyonce and Snoop Dogg anyone?). I even know of a couple who almost got married simply from having met at Hi5. Mercifully the marriage did not take place – they have never actually seen other, and each has an ulterior motive for the union!
Second, the strict monitoring of this site to avoid “contentious” topics – such as the mainly inflammatory religious posts usually from non-Muslims who are bent on provoking Muslims. This has a tendency to put people off – either way; and consequently reduce patronage. Further, latter entrants to the Board, raised on the solid fare of Facebook mentality find the regulation difficult to deal with – so they either leave, or gripe.
Third, restricting membership (@gogannaka). As Salisu explained, we are too prone to attacks by hackers and spammers advertising all sorts of junk. Why would we be hacked? It Is not that we share some secret documents or recipes! Perhaps our high ranking in Google means we are victims of random attack of the first on the list? In any event, we simply can’t afford to allow these retards to spoil what has been a clean site. Those with more honorable intentions are of course welcome to apply and get admitted – a practice that is common on millions of boards across the Internet. But as Salisu said, if there is any volunteer out there ready to spend 24/7 on Internet monitoring traffic to the site, we would appreciate it.
I have heard so much “northern-bashing” (@Muhsin). We have been called all sorts of names – lazy, ignorant, dirty, illiterate, no-focus, etc. And by fellow northerners. Been there, done that. I have been hearing this for the last 40 years. I am not bothered anymore. The “Naija” sites may be administered and visited by super-intelligent beings who hold the keys to happiness and prosperity, and issue free One Terrabtye iPhones to every one millionth post; as far as I am concerned, they can all shove it. I have been to the sites. Shallow, inward looking, guttersnipe, trailer-trash kind of mentality. Thanks, but no thanks. They are good if you want to improve on your pidgin English, reduce your IQ and acquire more “northern-bashing” cudgels. More talk about corruption, Niger Delta, “northern fanatics and fundamentalists”, etc etc. Talking loud and saying nothing, really. But then that’s the beauty of diversity and choice. As Salisu said, people are free to pick and mix (Woolworth’s anyone?) their choices. Some sites have it all, others have none. The choice is yours. Incidentally, there are other Arewa-theme sites (e.g. ArewaOnline); so it is not as if KanoOnline is the only one.
Probably part of the “death knell” of the site is the issue of the Get Together. This has evoked so much debate this time – and less than the usual animated responses, such that it makes quite a few people sad (annoyed?). The lack of response, in my view, was not because of lack of interest, but simply pre-occupation. Dan Borno, a prime mover, was away on the Hajj. Salisu and I can’t do much because we are simple spectators, rather than prime movers.
However, based on my experience with Yahoo! Groups, the very act of an online community getting together is itself an anomaly. Online communities work precisely because they are invisible. That is in fact why many onliners refuse to identify their real names, or post their actual pictures – giving themselves readily available handles and avatars. The spatial nature of the locations of various members makes it difficult to decide on a central location for meetings. In the Yahoo! Groups we came up with the idea of “local chapters”, especially when members from Katsina insisted that one of the Sallah meetings should be held in Katsina. We thought that was good – but who’d take care of the logistics both in Katsina and from where people are coming from. The online communities are not prescription-based communities, so there are no “annual dues” or membership fees; thus no petty cash to do these kinds of things. So a local chapter is the best way for people within the same locality to get together, identify each other and form sharing networks at the local level. The Gizago Club of Aminiya newspaper (Kano, Nigeria) is an excellent example of this. The club started as a satire in the center pages of the newspaper – and within two years had developed a vast network of state-based clusters that meet every now and then and discuss issues of common interest. So it can be done, and has indeed been done; but at a different strategy level.
Thus meetings at level being suggested require an enormous amount of time (and resources) and I applaud those who take it upon themselves to organize such.
KanoOnline is a home to many people. Many others also benefit from its existence. We will therefore keep it going for as long as it is possible. To be frank, we discussed recently the possibility of closing the Board down and going back to the original website as a depository with PDF links to various (possibly boring) papers on Kano and cultural ethnography. This is not because of what people say, but because of the daily grind involved in maintaining the site, as well as trying to keep the body and soul together. After many hours of discussion, we decided to continue as we are. We hope that people understand and appreciate that we cannot force them to be “lively” if they have other places to be more lively. We are not competing with those places – the Naija sites, Facebook sites, etc – for each of us has something to offer, and the combination of variety makes your life easier. We don’t want to project an image of dour sourpusses; but at the same time we welcome suggestions on how to improve things – remembering that this is YOUR forum, not ours.
If you have skimmed the posting to read this last bit, apologies for the long post – but please go back to the beginning and read it, as it explains so much!
Thank you for your understanding.
Abdalla
