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About District 4's Web Site


 
Prior to 1998 the Internet had shown itself to be a valuable communication tool, and members within our District had discussed the idea of having a web site. These discussions, as well as those that followed, identified a number of potential uses to support this notion. With these potential uses in mind our District's PI Committee was approached in February 1998 about sponsoring a web site. After some discussion the go-ahead was given and a draft of the web site created.

It was clear before making the proposal to the PI Committee the web site scope had to be limited, there simply were not enough volunteers to address all the goals listed above. As such, most of the initial effort focused on providing meeting information organized by meeting time and meeting location, including the creation of maps and directions to each one. In addition to meeting information and an introductory home page, which also provided answering service contact information, the draft web site contained:

While creating this draft there was a conscious effort to follow AA Traditions at all times, which eventually resulted in developing some guidelines for web site content. Further, an on-line version of the draft web site was reviewed by others in our District and Area to in part help ensure compliance with the Traditions. Toward the end of this review a story board of the draft web site was presented at our monthly District meeting. This presentation was well received and a decision made to make the web site available to our fellowship and the public.

As such, District 4's web site was brought on-line in March '98 to provide a service to our fellowship and to help the still suffering alcoholic find a meeting in our community, as well as providing assistance to those wanting to help someone with their drinking problem. Some of our experience with the web site is given in the

  1. Web Site Utility, and
  2. Guidelines for Web Site Content
sections that follow. Conclusions based on this experience are summarized at the end of this article.
 

Web Site Utility

A combination of methods is being used to assess the usefulness of the District 4 web site, including:

Feedback from our fellowship has come from a number of sources, most of it has been very supportive. Typically there will be a guest book entry, an E-Mail or a comment on the general impression of their visit. However sometimes the feedback identifies a specific service that has been provided:
"Glad to find your site! We have a treatment center here for juveniles from across the state and I met one going home to Richland that needed a schedule of meetings quickly - not enough time to get through snail mail. So I found your website and got him what he needed to continue in early recovery - THANKS! I'm grateful sobriety is accessible on the Internet as well - helps us help others, everywhere!"

"Each year I like to attend the Inland Empire Roundup. I knew that District 4 has their events listed on their web site, so I popped on and printed out the registration form. I also submitted flyers for several District 7 events which have been posted (on the District 4 web site)."

Since our web site went on-line we have been keeping track of how many times web pages are visited, there are currently more than 75 pages in the District 4 web site. These periodic measurements, while not as beneficial as feedback from our fellowship, indicates how the web site is being used and what information may be of interest.

District 4 Web Site History
[District 4 Web Site History <http://www.district4area92aa.org/>]
Note: As of January 2001 the web site had been visited more than 22,000 times.(Not Plotted)

It became clear early-on that meeting information and the links (to Some On-Line AA Resources) were of most interest to the web site visitors. As time passed the Calendar of Events also proved to be an asset, where flyers and registration forms to activities sponsored by AA service entities were especially helpful.

Based on these metrics and feed back from our fellowship, after our web site had been on-line for around 6 months, it was decided to expand the content of the web site by including:

It's easy to see that the Area motions was a very popular addition, and it continues to be one of the more active portions of our web site.
 

Guidelines for Web Site Content

Since it's inception in March 98 there has been one over-riding policy to guide the contents of the District 4 web site, and that is making sure that the web site follows and does not conflict with AA's 12 Traditions. But what precisely does this mean when it comes to identifying allowable content for our web site?

The thoughtful, objective discussions that took place when creating our web site resulted in some specific guidelines to supplement AA's 12 Traditions. Furthermore, these discussions continue to take place, which sometimes modifies the presentation or information on our web site. As such, the below guidelines will continue to evolve in response to our fellowships understanding of the 12 Traditions and how they may be applied to our use of the World Wide Web as a communication tool.

  1. Anonymity will be protected by not using last names, and contact information shall not used unless prior approval is obtained.[Traditions 11 & 12]

  2. District 4 trusted servants responsible for the web site maintenance will periodically review links to other web sites to ensure their content does not conflict with our understanding of AA's 12 Traditions or policies established by our District.[Traditions 1, 2, 6, 9 & 10]

  3. Links to web sites describing AA services that are not maintained by the AA entity providing the service will not be used on the District 4 web site without prior permission.[Traditions 1 & 4]

  4. Links to web sites containing AA-related information that are not maintained by a bona fide AA service entity: a) will be identified as such, and a no endorsement and no afflation disclaimer associated with that particular link, and b) will not be referenced if the subject web site does not state it is not endorsed or affiliated with AA.[Traditions 6 & 10]

In addition to these constraints on web site content, common courtesy and respecting copyright protections are observed at all times. This is especially true when using AA literature, where brief excerpts are permitted if proper credit is given.(See "Area Newsletters or Bulletins": AA Service Manual, 1999-2000 Edition, p S37.) However quoting longer passages of text, such as bulletins or guidelines in their entirety, requires advance permission from the General Service Office.
 

Conclusions

Our experience over the past couple years supports the notion that the Internet can be a useful tool for AA. It can not only provide a valuable service to the public and professional communities, but to our fellowship as well ... with an overall effect of helping to reduce misunderstandings and enhancing unity. The extent to which these benefits are realized ultimately depend on the content of the information presented in the web site. Other lessons learned from our experience include:

- District 4 Webteam,
December 31, 2000 

This page was last updated on Sat, 10-Jul-2004 at 10:00 PM PDT.