{"id":848,"date":"2010-08-04T16:47:32","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T15:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/?p=848"},"modified":"2010-08-04T16:47:32","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T15:47:32","slug":"wv11-one-year-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/08\/04\/wv11-one-year-on\/","title":{"rendered":"WV11 – One Year On!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year I helped set up a hyperlocal website<\/a> to cover the area I live in\u00c2\u00a0 and we’ve just passed the first year anniversary – To celebrate we had a stall at Wednesfield Community Fayre trying to make more people aware of the site and invite community input -What do you think we should be writing about? Would you like to write for us? and so on…<\/p>\n

While I was there I got into conversation with a teacher of one of the local high schools about\u00c2\u00a0 WV11.co.uk<\/a> and what we – the individuals that run the site get out of it.<\/p>\n

He couldn’t believe that we did all this for free – That we volunteered our time for no financial reward or recognition\u00c2\u00a0 and it made me sad that he struggled so much to see why we were doing this – that he was so surprised at the idea of someone doing something for perceivably nothing that he actually implied that he didn’t believe we didn’t get some financial gain!<\/p>\n

So I thought it about time I shared my story about why WV11.co.uk came into existence and why it’s about a lot more than money for me!<\/p>\n

I have pretty much always lived in the area and as I grew older I moved briefly to Lichfield and when I moved back I could really appreciate the community vibe of the my estate,\u00c2\u00a0 I was surprised at the negative attitude from some of residents – It’s not something you get everywhere and I think people who have always lived and worked in the area sometimes take for granted.<\/p>\n

Then they proposed the closure of\u00c2\u00a0 Danesmore Park Primary School, the school my son attended. We fought long and hard to save the school\u00c2\u00a0 (and we all know how that ended<\/a>) and in doing so we quickly realised that there was nowhere online that communicated the sense of community I felt on the streets and in the playground, and I now know to be evident at all the schools in the area – Conversation and coordination was hard because there was no where already established online unbiased enough to let the conversation unfold – the ONLY forum we could (and did) use that was relevant locally and that was available at that time was heavily moderated by an extremely biased hand or the then local councillor!<\/p>\n

So the idea for a local site was born -\u00c2\u00a0 we wanted somewhere unbiased we could try and highlight the positives of our area and hopefully over time encourage community engagement and conversation. It started as an idea for a forum, or\u00c2\u00a0 chat room where local people could talk to each other about local issues but quite quickly evolved into something else.<\/p>\n

I was one day trying to find some information out on the council website – I can’t even remember what it was now something to do with my bin collection I think\u00c2\u00a0 but whatever it was I became increasingly frustrated with how hard it was – The city is a HUGE place so trying to pinpoint specific information for my area was hard – and I’m fairly Internet savvy – so how would my Mom\u00c2\u00a0 for instance found *it*, if she was looking for the same information?<\/p>\n

So we decided the local site should also be of good use to people looking for information not just for discussion – a lot of time was spent before the launch building the resource page<\/a> – listing local amenities and hopefully other useful information relevant to our area, and other handy tools such as houses to let and for sale, jobs and traffic updates have been added since – and it went from there, a news feed was included and Wv11.co.uk <\/a>came into fruition<\/p>\n

We launched the site at 11pm one night by inviting a few friends that I knew were local to become a fan of our facebook page<\/a>, within a couple of months we had 600 fans and a nearly 2000 visits to the actual site.<\/p>\n

Now, 12 months on, the site is going from strength to strength,\u00c2\u00a0 The visitor numbers are still going up, any one so inclined can see a break down of our visitor figures here<\/a> but as an overview 16,000 unique visitors in the first 12 months – that’s nearly half the population of Wednesfield – and the conversation between the community is starting to take place around\u00c2\u00a0 what we hope are considered non-biased articles\u00c2\u00a0 (which can be hard when we’re talking about things we care about or things we’re directly affected by!). Users will comment on articles – some people are by nature negative and some are positive but what’s good is both sides get a chance to voice their opinion and these things are getting discussed – we’ve had discussions based on graffiti and anti social behaviour to home improvements talk about local bands and GOOD news stories from our area – we don’t pretend bad news doesn’t happen but we do try and be balanced.<\/p>\n

We never moderate comments unless they are libellous or abusive and then we inform the individual involved why we’ve removed the post and so far we’ve received no complaints\u00c2\u00a0 – The only thing\u00c2\u00a0 we are guilty of is playing devils advocate if a discussion or sometimes arguments become too negative, – don’t tell us there’s nothing good happening, nothing interesting to do or no way you can fix a problem for yourselves because we’ll give you the information to prove you are wrong.<\/p>\n

For me this is why the WV11 site is so valuable\u00c2\u00a0 and rewarding I don’t have to get paid to do it because this is my opportunity to put something back into the community- Be it an easy way for someone to find out what time the local library is open, or the chance to combat some of the negativity by showing people what’s on their doorstep !<\/p>\n

The site and associated facebook page are used by all ages, with people asking questions which the community can answer.\u00c2\u00a0 For instance – what’s happening this weekend I can take my kids to? or does anyone know the opening time of x,y or z? or where can I find a window cleaner?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year I helped set up a hyperlocal website to cover the area I live in\u00c2\u00a0 and we’ve just passed the first year anniversary – To celebrate we had a stall at Wednesfield Community Fayre trying to make more people aware of the site and invite community input -What do you think we should be … Continue reading WV11 – One Year On!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[140,1,56],"tags":[287,284,286,285],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-wbiagw","category-work","tag-blogging","tag-hyperlocal","tag-wednesfield","tag-wv11"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6WGy-dG","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":900,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/10\/24\/that-time-agian-4am\/","url_meta":{"origin":848,"position":0},"title":"That time again – 4am","date":"October 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Just like back in April we were up an at 'em cameras to the ready, Just \u00a0Dave and I this time though and we hit the streets of Wednesfield:","rel":"","context":"In "4am Project"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1136,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/08\/04\/talking-to-each-other\/","url_meta":{"origin":848,"position":1},"title":"Talking to each other…","date":"August 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"What is community engagement? For me it's about communication with\u00c2\u00a0the people who\u00c2\u00a0both\u00c2\u00a0live and work where I live. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about conversation, Saying hello asking questions and listening - and that comes from the community and any partners working in the community, local government, police,\u00c2\u00a0LNP's\u00c2\u00a0etc. \u00c2\u00a0But, how do you encourage engagement? The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","img":{"alt_text":"This Way","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2447\/3812093767_16b62f1c8f_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1149,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/08\/09\/move-along-please-nothing-to-see-here\/","url_meta":{"origin":848,"position":2},"title":"Move along please, nothing to see here.","date":"August 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night while the country seemingly went insane with looting and rioting in London, Nottingham, Liverpool, further afield and closer to home in Birmingham, the WV11\u00c2\u00a0Facebook page and\u00c2\u00a0Twitter feed came alive with rumours that there was rioting and looting at Bentley Bridge, Wednesfield and further afield in Wolverhampton. We were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/facebook1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/02\/03\/wordpress-for-android\/","url_meta":{"origin":848,"position":3},"title":"WordPress for Android.","date":"February 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I've downloaded Wordpress for Android, an handy app for my hero that will let me blog on the move. I've added multiple accounts so I should be able to post to here and to www.WV11.co.uk by selecting the correct blog at the log in screen. This is my first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1548,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/04\/16\/4amproject-15-04-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":848,"position":4},"title":"4amProject 15.04.12","date":"April 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Another 4am project photowalk - this time in Walsall. Just me and Dave again but another fun one! Previous trips out include: Wolverhampton (and how it all started)\u00a0 4th April 2010 Wednesfield\u00a017th October 2010 You can see there's a gap in 2011 because the date was the end of March\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4am Project"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1553,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/11\/25\/4amproject-25-11-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":848,"position":5},"title":"4amProject 25.11.12","date":"November 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Another trip out at 4am, this time to Lichfield \u00a0- Getting there was an adventure in itself as we nearly ended up in the middle of one flooded road but thankfully Dave's driving skills (and brand new car) got us out of there only to be diverted by another -flood\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4am Project"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":855,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions\/855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}