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"More Writing" Site Built in Gosport - Ex BBC
Following the Gilligan affair
and in the run up to its licence renewal, the BBC decided to close
some of its more adventurous projects. One of these was a web site
called Get Writing www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting.
This freely accessible web
site encouraged members of the public of all abilities to share
life experiences, create poetry or finally get started on that novel
they had always meant to write. The site allowed new and experienced
writers to comment on and help improve each others' work. There
were also forums for sharing ideas, developing characters, taking
part in word games and just chatting.
Anyway, the announcement of
the closure of Get Writing set all these writers penning letters
to the BBC, to their members of parliament, publishers and even
to the Queen. Names were also quickly added to an electronic petition.
As a frequent user of the
Get Writing site myself and having some experience with web development,
I set about negotiating ways of rescuing the site by taking it under
user control and bringing in advertising to pay for it.
Unfortunately, all the negotiations
and pleas came to nought, except that the BBC produced a very basic
web starter pack for anyone to use if they wanted to have a go themselves.
The political decision to close Get Writing proved irreversible
and at Easter 2005, the site was mothballed.
Undeterred, my Gosport team
beavered away with the starter kit and we have re-created the Get
Writing functionality on a new and friendly site called www.morewriting.co.uk.
This is hosted on a server in our Fareham office and is freely available
on the Internet for anyone over the age of 12 who would like to
try their hand at writing.
MoreWriting is improving all
the time and we think it is a minor triumph for Alverstoke and Gosport
folk who have managed to preserve a means of free expression.
An anthology containing 127
short works by users of the BBC Get Writing site was put together
in the site's final days and is available from the front page of
our new MoreWriting site.
Article provided by Gordon Brooks, Alverstoke Resident
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