ATP: A new look, a new domain, the same old stuff!

ATP Team

Welcome to Pakistaniat.com. The new home of All Things Pakistan (ATP).

We moved all the posts and comments from the old ATP address here late this evening; because it had to be a real time move, we are now in the process of ironing out some small kinks, which we hope to remove soon. So, please bear with us; and if you have any suggestions do let us know since we will finalize this over the next couple of days.

It has been a whirlwind of a ride for us here at ATP. The blog is just two and a half months old. Adil Najam started the blog as ’something to do over the summer’ and the first post had gone up on June 11, 2006. By July 16, we were up to 100 posts and had developed a small but faithful readership. One August 18, ATP formally became a team blog with Bilal and Owais joining Adil. Today, on September 1, we have moved to our own domain-name (Pakistaniat.Com) in this redesigned format.

We hope you will like the new look and the many additional features, most of which have been added in direct response to reader’s suggestions. I must confess that I kind of liked the simplicity of our old page, but as the number of readers and comments have grown, particularly in recent days, new needs have emerged. Here are some things that are new or changed:

• The comments section uses a larger and easier to use font size.
• The box for writing comments is now bigger and uses a bigger font size.
• You will have up to 3 minutes to review and re-edit your comments after posting them (in case you make a mistake).
• We are trying to bring in essential editing features to the comments section; working on it.
• The link to comments is now placed at the top of each post on the front page.
• Easy to access information about current discussions and recent comments will be on the front page at the top of the middle column.
• The ‘ATP Discussions’ section will list the posts with the most recent comments, and include names of recent commenters on that post.
• The ‘ATP Comments’ section will now include a longer list of recent comments.
• The front page will (soon) allow you to search both within the site and on Google.
• The ‘EMail this post’ feature allows you to send any post you like directly to your friends.
• The Archives page currently has a slight glitch on search by date (working on it) but the search by category works fine and allows easier and at a glance access to past posts.
• The search feature will now lead to an easier to read and summarized results.

These are a few of the feature we have already added. There are more that we will add over the next many days and weeks.

Bear with us as we fix any problems but do explore the site; please change you bookmarks; and keep coming back often. Most importantly, we hope you will bring the same spirit of healthy discussion to Pakistaniat.com that you had invested at the old ATP. It is the discussion that really makes this blog. Many have commented that the quality of the comments — in terms of substance as well as tone — is different from other places that can sometimes turn into shouting matches. We hope to keep it that was, one our part we will keep weeding out inappropriate behavior; on your part, please keep the thinking juices flowing!

Finally, let us just repeat - yet again - the ideas and thoughts we had offered in the very first ATP post through this quick journey of verse and image, based on Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s ‘Hum daikhain gay’, produced by Adil Najam, which serves as a statement of hope that, we hope, exemplifies the spirit of this blog: