Big White Wall

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The Big White Wall is a Social networking website where people reveal secrets and concerns anonymously by posting "bricks" onto an interactive wall. The website attempts to be a peer to peer support group.

Contents 1 History and company information 2 Website features 2.1 Profile 2.2 Brick Builder/create a brick 2.3 The Wall 2.4 Talkabout 2.5 Useful Stuff 3 Moderation issues and suicide 4 Emotional health survey 5 References 6 External links

[edit] History and company information

The website was initiated in London by Jenny Hyatt, a social entrepreneur who was the director of the Development School^[1] and also founder and chair of the Balkans Community Initiative Fund (BCIF)^[2]. In collaboration with Vanda Scott, who holds an OBE for suicide prevention^[3], and Charlotte Vere, the site was launched in beta in November 2007.

The company of the website is a privately funded limited company. Its head office is in London, UK and its three directors, Jenny Hyatt, Vanda Scott and Charlotte Vere, are significant shareholders.

The web site was designed and developed by Anorak Digital, and branded by Green Target. Since launch, there have been well over 2000 bricks posted onto the interactive wall on a variety of topics including relationships, parenting issues, depression, stress, regret, illness, grief and more.

[edit] Website features

[edit] Profile

A user’s personal information, or anything relating to their identity is kept private. Their profile pages outline all activity on the site, and includes a personal ‘wall’ where all of an individual user’s bricks are displayed, all comments they have made in Talkabout, the discussion forum, plus a list of all their ‘friends’ on Big White Wall. They also have the ability to private message other site users.

[edit] Brick Builder/create a brick

The Brick Builder is a Flash tool that enables users to upload images and use digital graffiti and/or text. Tagging functionality allows others to find relevant bricks through search. Users can send a blank brick to others, as well as sending personally designed bricks to members and non members.

[edit] The Wall

The Wall is a permanent construction of every brick created on the site. Users can browse The Wall and comment on individual bricks. Using tags, users can filter up and down to find bricks most relevant to their interest or needs.

Specific walls are built for special occasions such as a Christmas wall for bricks tagged with the word "Christmas", and a Valentine’s Day wall for bricks tagged with "Valentine’s Day"

[edit] Talkabout

Talkabout is a discussion forum where users can join conversations or start new ones about larger issues they wish to discuss or receive feedback from. Due to increased traffic this section is currently subject to further development and will be relaunched with greater functionality later in 2008.

[edit] Useful Stuff

The Useful stuff section contains articles, expert interviews and book reviews on subjects relating to emotional health.

[edit] Moderation issues and suicide

There is no pre-selection as to what bricks are posted onto the site, and no review option. On January 6, 2008 one anonymous user posted a spell of 5 bricks potentially inciting suicide. After contacting the user, they removed the bricks themselves, but one complaint of the site is regarding the moderation of The Wall. It is as yet not possible for bricks placed on the wall to be self moderated by the community, which means that moderation is currently done at administrative level.

[edit] Emotional health survey

Over Christmas 2007 Big White Wall ran an emotional health survey which was featured in The Irish Times feature on December 18, 2007 Christmas Not All Fun and Games.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Big White Wall Website
• Indebted to fellow sufferers. The Times Money supplement. January 12, 2008. - article about how the Big White Wall benefits those in debt.
• PsychSplash review of the Big White Wall