Save our 606

Mark Thompson



Director-General



British Broadcasting Corporation.











Dear Mr Thompson,







RE: 606 Football Message Boards







I write to you with reference to the 606 Football Message Boards on the BBC website, asking you and the BBC team to consider both their short and long-term strategy with regards to this service as a matter of priority. Regular 606 users are distressed that the excellent 606 service is having its opening hours curtailed and may even have to be abandoned due to its popularity. We are informed that the BBC is struggling under the weight of some 400,000 posts per week and unprecedented increases in user numbers over the last year.







The 606 message boards have become a very popular resource for a number of reasons, particularly -



1. They are free, funded by the licence fees that we pay



2. They are moderated to a high standard



3. They are easy to use and navigate



4. They are provided by a highly trusted media network



5. They dont serve one club so they genuinely bring football fans together from all around the world. In fact, 606 helps people develop friendships, speak freely about the sport and learn by engaging in real debate with fans from many different backgrounds.







I personally believe that 606 is an excellent forum and is within the BBC manifesto of being informative, educational and entertaining. I am sorry that some people spoil the fun by posting aggressive, childish, irrelevant or profane messages. I can assure you that most posters want nothing more than to stop these people from abusing the service, spoiling everyone elses fun and challenging the very fabric of the 606 online community. To this end, the vast majority of posters are behind the efforts of the 606 team to provide a world-class service for football fans and will do whatever we can to help single out and remove inappropriate posters.







606 users do understand that the BBC has to operate within a budget like all other businesses and government bodies. However, I must urge you to give these web pages the support of as many resources as possible, both now and in the future. Respectfully, I would like to ask you to let all the signatories to this petition know what you intend to do to support the BBCs forum for our most popular national sport in 2006, a World Cup year.







We really need our BBC football forum open, from 9am to 10pm, 7 days a week. Please dont let us down.