The NZ AIDS Foundation is closing down several of its safe sex and HIV information websites, in a "routine house-keeping" move, aiming to "reduce clutter." Images from the NZAF's Love Is website The Love Is..., Assume Nothing, Bullfighter, Hooking Up, CockSure and SafeSexTXT sites are being discontinued "as part of routine house-keeping," according to the Foundation's National Campaigns Co-ordinator, Douglas Jenkin. He says the issues covered by the sites will be addressed again "in different ways" in the future. Filmmaker and event organiser Andy Boreham, who has produced promotional material for the NZAF in the past and who created the Love Is... mini-film for the Foundation, says he is extremely concerned by the closures, which he believes will be "detrimental to the Foundation and its aims" and "will inevitably leave a gaping hole in the availability of online safe sex information for men who have sex with men in New Zealand." But according to Jenkin, the sites "no longer have supporting promotional or print information in circulation," and the six-year old Hooking Up site is for the axe "as much of the text is repeated word for word on the more recent menseekingmen site," which will remain on-line. Jenkin says cost was not a factor in the closures, but he is unable to provide useage figures relating to the sites, as "counters were reset when pages were changed." Jenkin says the menseekingmen and safesexposterboy websites are currently the most popular of the Foundation's information sites. Boreham, who earlier this year was highly critical of aspects of the NZAF's Poster Boys campaign, believes such changes should have been made after the NZAF makes an appointment to its advertised technology communications adviser position. He suggests such changes should be "left to the incoming adviser in consultation with those who have experience in this particular area." The decision to remove some of the NZAF websites targeted at men who have sex with other men, explains Jenkin, "was taken as a part of a broader piece of work to ensure our communications are clear, co-ordinated and focused. Neither Bullfighter, Assume Nothing nor Love Is… are current campaigns and it was felt that our internet presence had become a clutter rather than something concise." "From time to time we reassess all the social marketing we have in the market place and decide which products, both web and print, to withdraw. If there is too much product from older campaigns in circulation there is the possibility that current or new strategies will be diluted, especially when NZAF staff working locally in communities are focused on the current campaign only."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff
First published: Wednesday, 9th July 2008 - 9:04am