Most Interesting questions: Editoria pick

Call it whatever you want. Hot, bizare, interesting, educational ,shoking! Here are our pick on some of the Interesting question we find on NB:lounge.

We encourage questions like these as they are a reflection of our Singapore Muslim society. where it be Malay, Chinese or Indians....it doens't matter which race you are or where you come from. Muslims living in or abroad Singapore. These is what our people is all about. :D

Should a Muslim parent disown their son and daughter if they were to marry
a none- Muslim? ..... more
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I'll like to know what do people think of raising their kids in the west as comparared to their home country. I'm Singaporean but my husband isn't. we're plan ...... more
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The concept of 'Mahr':
Although I'm keen on listening from females on this topic, but all are welcome to contribute.. What are your thoughts on 'Mahr' (the money that's given to ..... more
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How to write guitar tabs? and how do tell the rhythm of a song?......... more
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Where can i find a good, decent eligible bachelors and bachelorettes in Singapore?..... more
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What are your opinion on homosexuality ?...... more
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What are your opinions on dating? Do you think it's a neccessary procedure in today's times? Lol.. that sounded like preparing for an operation or som ....... more
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Why Muslim can't eat pork? Why halal? I was wonder why Muslim so afraid .... more __________________________________________________

Whats cricket like in Singapore? Is it competitive? I know the cricket stadium there has been used for international games. what the local and ....... more
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What do they use the internet for? do singapore people like to discuss about what is happening around the world? or are they more of a consumer society?? ....... more

Show your support Against Violence Towards Women & Children

NB:lounge support Violent againts Woman (and men) & children!!.....Show your support too Against Violence Towards Women & Children...

Please go to this forum page: http://www.adventurerali.com/forum/view-148.html

As a support againt Violence Towards Women & Children, "adventurerali" have set up a Forum page in his website www.adventurerali.com

Go & visit his webbie & Sign off your name to express your support for the Campaign against the Violence. Every signature counts. By signing off, I hereby pledge Never to commit, condone nor remain Silent about Violence against women & Children. Life is Beautiful...Take care & GOD Bless Btw, if you support his campaign against violence towards women & children, please spread the news & sign off.

New Questions..

Great success!!

We have made "New Question" available on the home page of NB"lounge.
You guys can now browse through all the recently asked question.

Just click on the button call "New Question"

The team was discussing if users would like an RSS feed for 'new question"
well..you guys should let us know.

Other updates:

We are seeing our first top scorer hitting above 1000 points. :)

The tab above on the home page which use to be call " New to NB:lounge"
is now call "How it works"

We discovered that people are not reading how the site actually work and not reading the rules of the site carefully. Please go to FAQs to read up on the rules. very important.

Users are also not accepting their Reply once they have receive a good answer to what they are looking for. We want people to take some initiative to accept an answer and not wait for our moderators to send them messages once they have received a considerable amount of replies and yet not accepting an answer. If they are not happy with the replies..it probably means that they would need to re-direct their question towards the direction they are looking for.

Although we now have New question on the home page, we are working on making that button available on each page and possibly having a sneak peak on each page you are in.

If any one of you are interested in helping us out, may it be moderating, design, programming, or promoting our website to your friends and family members.....please contact us. :D

Latest developments

There are a few changes that we have made to our site and some upcoming ones which we were discussing while looking at the unfolding progress.

We have changed the signing up process to strengthen the security in the site.

From now on..all new sign ups will receive an
activation email.

Their first post/question will go through as per normal but if they want to continue posting on the site, users will have to activate their account from their email.

Things that we are working on:

• Displaying new questions
  
• Improving the graphics in the email when members invite new friends.
  
• Email to users who replied to questions (when any new replies are posted)
  
• Allowing members to put up a short profile page and be able to contact one another.
  
• We are also looking out for a enthusiastic member who would like to volunteer their time in moderating some sections of the site. Please contact us if you are interested.
  

Take a Chill Pill.

I've never been involve in a website anything like this one before. I think many people forget that there are human beings involve in the creation of a website, the time, planning and effort being put into produce it. It's disappointing when we see abuse on the website. It can gets quite stressful at times.....although this shouldn't be so. The web is really fascinating, especially form this project. It's evident that how the people use it that will shape the productivity and the 'feel' of a website. For those abusers out there...just take a chill pill mate! :D

For those who are planning to run a website of your own. It's really hard work. The right team player is important. (i'm talking about those interactive website) Here's a sneak peek in the life of a moderator.

A typical moderator's day:

moderator: Let's check today 's activity on the website
website: ( new sign up and replies)
moderator: OMG!! What kinda reply is this!!
website: (more abusive replies)
moderator: It is everywhere on the site!! sigh..deleting , deleting.
website: (another reply)
moderator: hrmm....is this reply against the rule of the site?? oh yes it is, use of swearing words
website: (reply edited & new question received)
moderator: Look! this question is interesting. wonder what the reply might be?...hrmmm let me search it myself. :)

This is just an enactment in a hard days work of a moderator

Documentary about a female Muslim undertaker in Singapore

A documentary about a female Muslim undertaker in Singapore. Winner of the Bronze prize at the Crowbar Awards '03'

Watch it here

What's the point with points??

So much for those heavy highly opinionated stuff about Singapore and Muslim. Back onto the website...the concept of the points.

What is the deal with our point system? When the team though of building this site, we looked through forum sites and other similar stuff there are out there who are doing this Question and Answer thingi.

There are heaps of muslim forms but we never liked the 'hostility' and confronting nature of these forum. It's almost like these places are the place you would argue about people idea on wht they think islam is, instead of simple exchanging different concept and exploring its truth.

They are mostly religiously incline, i.e..the black an white of the laws in Islam. If hardly ever tough on the reality of what Muslim people in Singapore especially are going through. For me, i hate going to forums. They are so messy and you don't get the answer you are looking for. Its not like a resource base where you can use to understand what the Muslim people are going through.

There a serious debate/discussion going on about "We Practice A Very Mild Version Of Islam In Singapore " on www.islamonline.net, and Nb:lounge was mention in one of the post. heh.

Ok back to the points. How it works is simple, when you sign up (its free and takes only 2 mins) you are given points. The points are like currency and acts as an incentive when you do give a good answer. The asker of the question will select just one reply amongst the many replies that users are providing.


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"The whole purpose is to encourage people to really think of the reply they are thinking, and not to put some random stuff like you find in forums. And every good effort deserve a good reward."
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Well, its nothing monetary no doubt, but we're here not to encourage materiality reward. but who knows..somewhere down the line we might get sponsorships and give out gifts for people who have been loyal,dedicated and giving really good and resourceful replies.

It's all up to the users to shape this website.

Question and Answer ?

One of the concern that i have while talking to different people from different country/culture background is how society shapes our way of thinking. All right.... don't need a genius to figure that one out, but surprisingly although if someone says that 'their mind have not been brainwashed into having a specific set of thinking/rules/guidelines', the very fact that they are believing that shows that their minds have been influence by what they have lived, grew up, absorbed around them. Environment , the country the social system in which humans are living, the things that you read, what you watch, what you eat....they do groom how we perceive. It's false to think that we are not 'being brainwash' this very moment into thinking any specific manner. Weather it may be in politics, social gatherings, people, society or religion.

Now having said that, I notice that Singaporeans are kinda living in an enclose shell. Their environment is sheltered, spoiled, and information projected to them are greatly censored, mainstream media, imported goods, money & status drives the country and the youth is all about partying hard. Singaporean need to liberate their way of thinking and start thinking for themselves. It amazes me how little the non-Muslims know about Muslims there, I mean are we living in a multicultural society where Islam was the main religion of the land?? I'm just shock and sad. I know westerners in other country who would know a lot more about Islam than people do in Singapore!! :)

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"We all need to Ask ourself what are you doing right now? why are you doing it? What's the meaning behind it? Is what you are reading true? is what you are watching true?
Is any answer or opinion from anyone the absolute truth? what makes us follow a rule? what makes us believe (or not) in a religion? How can we find real information?"
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It may seem some rambling thoughts, ridicules or even taboo to many to be questioning our surrounding environment, society and religion but our objective is to revive the mind of humans and make them questions what they are doing. Through questioning is the only way that people may appreciate and understand.

Is it Islamic in nature?

What I find interesting is when people say 'Muslim' on the website, it seems that people have the misconception that almost everything has to be religious in nature.

Well? No... not on this website.

Muslims are the people that embrace the teaching of the prophet Muhammed. Muslims are the people who follow Islam. (to what extent they follow it is a different thing)

But its important to distinguish that Muslims are the people.. not the religion :D

That's why in this website, we have a variety of other categories which aren't classified under religion.

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'Now here comes the confusing part although we do say its a Muslim website, we do encourage other people to come and reply to some questions. Honestly most of our daily life isn't as different to the human race who aren't Muslims and they too can contribute their opinion on many issues.'
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Important note for Muslims: This isn't a fatwa bank. If you are looking for a Muslim scholar to answer your questions.. this isn't the place for you. In here are just ordinary people... not imams or any Islamic scholars. If you are fatwa shopping...then there are other websites for that :)

Where are the people?

While the team was discussing the production of the site I was wondering why in Singapore, our Muslim community is referred to as "Malay Muslims". Yes I know that the majority of Muslims in Singapore are Malays, but what about the other races, like Chinese, Indian, Caucasian and some others?? I find it quite racist to classify Muslims as Malay Muslims. Where do the rest of the Muslims go?? That would be a nice question to put on the site. Why couldn't they refer to Muslims as just 'Muslims' instead of adding 'Malay'??

The majority of Muslim study circle are conducted in Malay.. and again.. we have a problem here.. where do the rest who doesn't speak Malay turn to?? I do understand there are some places which conduct their classes in English and there are more advance courses these days that are conducted in English.. which is a good sign. But generally speaking Muslims in Singapore are a society driven by Malay culture. Reverts for example may find it difficult to adjust their new life in such an environment.

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'With this in mind.. one of our aim is to attract the many multi cultured people who are in Singapore to participate in this community portal. Especially in this era where Singapore is filled with expats working and living their life. I think we sometimes forget that expats are just not the caucasians.. they are your Malaysian, Thai, Chinese, Indian, & Bangladeshi workers and they have their place in shaping our society. Many of them are Muslims as well.'
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Introduction

Welcome To NasiBriyani: lounge

Introducing me as NB; your host and the catalyst in this idea of creating a Question and Answer website for people living or have lived in Singapore.

Now I know many of you who might think .. geezz not another forum again... but this isn't a forum to start with. I'm hoping through this blog, to get NasiBriyani Lounge out there and help users to understand the intention behind this site, post updates and site comments, and to have a more personalised interaction with users.

People in Singapore are quite familiar with and crazy about blogging. Perhaps this would be a good medium to use in communicating with all of my fellow men and women :)

It has been a month since we launch this site in Feb 2007. I'm hoping for the developer of this site to also use this blog to post announcements on what the NB: lounge team have in store and plan to improve on. Yea.. we are just your ordinary joe (or your 'mat' and 'meenas') you met on the street. And we people normally gather around and decide to work on something that might revolutionize (hehe..) the society.