Indymedia York

I want to talk about my new website and have had a lot of difficulty getting people to listen to what i have to say. i am based in York and my friend is based in Bradford. between us we have created a community website for the whole country called www.whosyourneighbour.co.uk. we are just 2 thirty year olds who wondered why we didn't know our neighbours better. the idea has developed and in January of this year we went live. the response has been very under whelming and it seems people are not interested in communicating with those they live around. it may also be that they do not like the web site. what ever it is we are still trying to get the message of the web site out there and hope it becomes a useful tool for people. i enclose an article which explains what the site is about.

In 2005 two friends from Yorkshire thought a website might help people to get to know the neighbours a bit better. The idea developed and eventually they put hand to keyboard in their spare time and in January 2007 www.whosyourneighbour.co.uk was born.

Similar to the social networks Facebook and Bebo, Who’s your neighbour differs because it is trying to build up local networks where people live, not across a whole country. All a user has to do is submit a username for the household, an email address and a postcode. This gives each household their own profile whereby they can write a small introduction about themselves or equally nothing at all.

The site has many different sections to offer the user. In the discussion section you can chat about health issues, schools, or organise yourselves into school run groups. There are sections for the silver surfer (oap’s), mums and dads, and kids and teens so they can get together to organise local football games or parties, for example.

There is also a section called “share the knowledge” which is hoped will become a place for people to go and ask everyday questions about local life and equally help out on these posed questions. For example, someone may want to find out the cheapest place to buy flag stones or what the local aqua aerobic sessions are like. We all have little questions we would like answering from time to time and this is the place to pose them.

There is a lost & found forum to allow photos to be posted up on our lost pets (or found), a car share section, car boot section to sell or give away your items and an odd jobs section for teens to register their availability to do lawn mowing, car washing etc.

The site is all based around sharing local knowledge and we thought it would be helpful to tap into what residents think about their local trades people. So “find a tradesman” is where users can list the trades people they could recommend and because the site has its own internal email, members can ask other members exactly why they recommended Mr X builder.

The site also allows members to host their own groups on the system free of charge in “micro groups”. Say you run your own walking group, well it can be placed on the system and you will have access to your own private chat board to arrange meetings and days out etc. Another advantage for the group will be free advertising that you exist and so will attract more members.

As well as households, the site allows schools, community groups, sports clubs, and neighbourhood watch schemes to join and develop a profile. This will give them an outlet to all the residents in their area about contact details, meeting times or links to websites. It will also allow them to us the “notices & events” board to inform of up and coming events.

It is hoped the website catches the imagination, but we know it will take a few years to actually get going properly. So please do not be deterred if there is not much going on in your area and join. All data is protected under data protection and you have full control over your own profile, to be deleted or hidden as you wish