Wanted: A culture of linking to others.
Question: Have you tried using Google to search for the game everyone in Lebanon is talking about? The game where you can storm the Seraille and kill Seniora? Odds are you tried, Odds are you didn’t find it.
My statistics told me that many who searched “Game Kill March 14″ landed instead on one of my previous posts on Hezbollah’s Game. You probably were frustrated that you didn’t find the game you were looking for.
The game which March 14‘s media purports to be “easily accessible on the internet” has generated a lot of online activity from people who just want to fulfill their curiosity. But still, they didn’t find it, I didn’t find it, and I don’t know of any other blogger who did. (Update: Eliedh found it and explained how)
My stats showed me something else: People were searching for “Boutros Harb President” and the first thing they saw was an old post of mine where I supported Boutros Harb for the presidency. The presidential candidate whose face was on most Lebanese newspapers this morning, it turned out, doesn’t even have an official website.
Speaking of Newspapers: Not a single newspaper in Lebanon uses links in their web pages. If a story is about a company, the story doesn’t link to its website for us to get the official point of view. Albalad doesn’t have permalinks and The Daily Star‘s old articles will cost you money to see.
Even websites like naharnet.com , tayyar.org and March14.org which only have a web presence don’t do links. Entire articles on that “easily accessible game” don’t have one paltry link for us to judge for ourselves.
Perhaps the lack of linking is an indication of a larger problem in the Lebanese society: A deep rooted fear of transparency, lack of trust in others and obsolete media control-freakishness.
Linking is not only convenient, it’s an opportunity for a huge paradigm shift.
When links get introduced to the mainstream media (MSM), the country’s entire web landscape will change: Companies will update their websites frequently, presidential candidates will have websites, maybe even blogs, websites will shape up to be more competitive, journalists and students will use the web as an effective local research tool, consumer groups will emerge, jobs will be generated and new jobs will be created.
More accountability and More jobs for the cheap price of introducing the measly link. Who doesn’t want that? People who claim to support transparency should lead the way.
Hello, my name is Mustapha and I have been blogging about Lebanese society and politics since February 2005. You can also find me on 
Here is a link to the site everyone is searching for
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:DdGiBhwZVI4J:14march.blogspot.com/2006/12/battle-of-sarai-final-battle-is-free-pc.html+http://14march.blogspot.com/&hl=en
Probably the whole thing started when assafir news paper did the report about it on Wednesday. You can find some snap shots of the game here:
http://www.assafir.com/WeeklyArticle.aspx?WeeklyArticleId=26527&ChannelId=3557
They claim to have interviewed the guy who made the game, and gave the link to the blog spot of that guy. I went to that blog and couldn’t find anything. Maybe some one else can find more.
Ali
Your link does not work (previous one too).
Elideth found it. Check update in the post.
But the game is just part of this post. I’d like to know what you think on the general point. Could the lebanese online presence use more extensive linking?
If the google cache link didnt work for you, you can visit http://archive.org and enter http://14march.blogspot.com/2006/12/battle-of-sarai-final-battle-is-free-pc.html
in the Wayback machine. It will take you to an archived version of the page
http://web.archive.org/web/20070510030904/http://14march.blogspot.com/2006/12/battle-of-sarai-final-battle-is-free-pc.html
or search google for
“cache:http://14march.blogspot.com/2006/12/battle-of-sarai-final-battle-is-free-pc.html”
without the “”
Sorry about that guys, Everytime I am trying to send the link as it is to some one they can’t open it. But if you really want to read the As-Safir’s report about it, go to http://www.assafir.com you can find a tab in the top that says “Haza Il isbou3″ (this weak), which will drag down a subject for everyday. There is a Shabab part for Wednesday, and over there you will find the report on the game.
Beirutspring I understand your point, I think linking will increase soon since more people in Lebanon will start using the internet, now that adsl is introduced, and hopefully the subscription prices would decrease by time (which I think is unlikly).
First of all thanks for linking to my blog.
About the subject, You are right, Lebanese political websites never link, they steal more than half the news they are showing and sometimes provide a link to the website (rarely to the article). Lebanese news website also never link for some weird reason.
About Daily Star and the archive, many newspapers do that so I don’t think it’s a problem.
Companies are doing a better job in updating the websites, I recently sent 2 mails to 2 companies and got the replies at midnight on the same day and one of them was from the company’s director!
Some politicians do have websites, Gebran Tueni (RIP) had a site with many info about him, Emile² Lahoud has a website with some swimming trophies (like father like son!) but you are right most of them don’t, I think having a website documenting every move they do will make it harder for them to change opinions every two day!
Ok the page where it all started was removed by the owner but you can still find it by looking at the google cached pages
The battle of the Sarai – The final battle
Of course there was in history a battle with that name, it was in india.
But this game is just an open source game engine with mapes and skins changed to fit more the Grand Serail in DT.
This is the text form the page removed on the blog of http://14march.blogspot.com/
>
Dont bother looking at the link of the screenshots, everything was removed.
I think the blog owner got scared and deleted everything.
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