It is anticipated that the nature and content of the UA websites will evolve with the needs of the fellowship and with the development of new technology. However, they should broadly adhere to these principles and goals:
Recovery Websites
- A primary website should be provided whose purpose is to facilitate access to recovery for newcomers and members, through meeting information, literature, recordings and other media, fellowship news and events, and other recovery-related items.
- It should be easy for anyone to learn about underearning and how we can recover from it.
- It should be clear how to obtain information about the program, how to find various kinds of meetings, and how to get started with UA.
- It should be easy for newcomers and members to find out news about the program, including special events; it should be possible for interested parties to receive this news by alternative means such as email.
- To help foster a feeling of stability and dependability, the format and content of the site should remain as stable as possible; things that change frequently, such as news and information about events, should be limited to one or two areas of the site specially dedicated to that purpose.
- The “front page” should be simple and uncluttered, devoted to welcoming newcomers, providing guidance on what the site is for, and offering suggestions on how it may be used.
- The website should preserve the anonymity of members of the program, consistent with the “First Name, Last Initial” approach.
- The Web Manager, a duly appointed officer of the GSB, will have ultimate administrative control of the site, and be responsible for making sure the site conforms to the 12 Traditions of UA, and the principles contained here.
- It should be easy for the Web Manager to delegate the work of updating the site to others in an accountable way.
- Any forums provided for members or others should be moderated by authorized officers, so that nothing is posted publicly without prior review to make sure it conforms to these guidelines.
- There should be clear guidelines and points of contact for people wishing to post new information to the site, update existing information, or raise issues and concerns about the site and its usage.
- Secondary sites may be set up to serve the needs of specific regions or areas of interest, provided they also conform to these principles, carry a clear description of their intended purpose, and include links to the primary website.
Service Websites
- A website is needed to organize communication and cooperation around the service side of UA.
- If should be easy for UA members to find out about this website, but it should not be the same website as the primary recovery website, to avoid cluttering that site and confusing newcomers.
- The website should preserve the anonymity of members of the program, consistent with the “First Name, Last Initial” approach.
- It should be easy for any UA member to grasp the issues currently facing UA at the service level, and the initiatives taking place around those issues; it should be easy to identify who is responsible for any given initiative and how to contact them.
- It should be easy for any UA member to see who is responsible for a given committee and how to contact them, what initiatives the committee is currently working on, and what it has achieved to date.
- It should be easy for new GSR/ISRs to understand what their responsibilities are, what volunteer opportunities exist across the service organizations, what meetings they can or should be attending, when meetings are scheduled and what they will be about.
- It should be easy for someone on a service board or committee to find out how to contact other committee members, and to find previous meeting minutes relating to the topic at hand, as well as any other documents that are relevant.
- It should be easy for service board or committee members working on specific projects to store and retrieve their working documents; it should be possible to make some working documents available only to logged-in GSRs or only to members of a specific committee, to avoid confusion.
- The site should support the service structure of UA as currently defined; at the time of writing, this is seen as the World Services Conference, the GSB, the various WSC & GSB committees, and the various Intergroups.
- It should be easy for members to raise issues and concerns, either privately or publicly, and to see the issues and concerns that others have made public, and the responses to them. (In the interests of anonymity, and the concept of principles over personalities, where specific individuals are mentioned, their names and identifying features should be removed from any text posted publicly.)
- Once again, secondary sites may be set up to serve the needs of specific regions or areas of interest, provided they also conform to these principles, carry a clear description of their intended purpose, and include links to the primary websites.