Website Guidelines

This page offers resources on website guidelines collected over the years. Like all things technological, some of the content is very out-dated. But principles are principles and serving in accordance to those principles has not changed.

We begin with a short missive from Erik R, Hawaii:

Much has changed with the way the fellowship uses the internet since we started this PI/PR website in February of 1999. When the original na-hawaii.org site was created by a member in 1995, the site was created with a plain text editor using free server space of a local NA member on Maui!

This member created the site without authorization from any service body or committee, he just did it to “help visitors find NA meetings in the Hawaii”. When he left Hawaii he gave the site to me to manage.

In 1997, I approached the HRSC in hopes that the Hawaii Region adopt responsibility for the site – and they rejected it! I couldn’t understand it at the time and turned to the Oahu Area Service Committee and the responsibility was taken by the OASC PI Subcommittee. Eventually in 2001 the HRSC changed its conscience and asked to take over the website. I served as the webservant using commercial software (MS FrontPage), publishing to a web host server on the mainland paid for by the fellowship.

It was then that I completed an updated version of the guidelines for the “Web Page Working Group”, which is somewhat of a sad joke as few if any members of the fellowship paid attention to the numerous requests for participation. In the ten plus years of the HRSC taking responsibility for the website, there have been only 3 persons who maintained the site (at different times). Only in January of 2012 did we get a different member to handle the responsibility!

Recently (2011) one Hawaii RSC member protested very loudly when it was suggested that the regional website be frozen if a competent webservant could not be found (the webservant at the time had relapsed in January of 2011). The HRSC felt it was “right” to keep the the person at that position even though the HRSC policy clearly states that the person should have been removed. It took a whole year to replace the webservant.

This is a reminder of how narrow the pool is for members with the proper technical skills to handle publishing a web site for the fellowship. The fellowship in Hawaii is not small but it is not large. Larger fellowships may not experience the problems we have, but any fellowship should be cognizant of the limited number of members that can manage a website for the fellowship.

Below are sample guidelines for the presence of a regional and an area committee on the world wide web. You can search the web for more guidelines as more and more service committees are publishing their guidelines.

Mid-America NA Website Guidelines 2009 Mid-America Regional Service Committee website

Web Services Sub-Committee Guidelines South King County ASC South King County Area Service Committee website

Marin County Fellowship Web Guidelines, October 2006 Marin County Fellowship Area Service Committee website

Hawaii Regional Website Guidelines Hawaii Regional Service Committee website

Greater Los Angles ASC Web Guidelines Greater Los Angles Area Service Committee website

Sun City ASC Website Guidelines Sun City Area Service Committee, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, website

Seattle Area Service Committee Web Guidelines, 2002 Seattle Area Service Committee website

Michigan RSC Web Guidelines Michigan Regional Service Committee website

Capitol ASC Web Guidelines Capitol Area Service Committee, New Jersey, website

World Wide Web Resource Paper WSC PI Committee, March 1998

Sample Webpage (from PR Handbook) – NAWS – 2007

Website Creation Tips (from PR Handbook) – NAWS – 2007