The most frustrating thing about editing the Hadlow Down Community Web Site is not trying to keep the pages fresh and up to date, not having to contact people about news from clubs and societies when they should be contacting me to promote themselves, not having to try and help people remember their passwords to log on, not having to cope wth the inadequacies of my own software in uploading material, but it is.....trying to get our Parish Council to understand the ethos the web site uses to reflect our community!  Hadlow Down Online is a total communication organ for the benefit of all the residents of our village, its raison d'etre is to quickly disseminate all the news & notices of events that it can gather that may directly affect, or be of interest to all villagers without prejudice or favour.  The site is also there to facilitate the people of our community to communicate with each other via the Forum facility, where any registered viewer can start a subject thread or add their comments to an existing one, or the Blog facility, where any registered viewer can put their own thoughts into a diary and open that diary to the whole community if they wish, when people do this they will also usually allow any reader to comment on their posts.  So, in both the Forum and Blog facilities there is the opportunity for others to comment on, agree with, show their disagreement with, or add to a subject.   It is a facility for democracy; the very word Forum is reminiscent of the original idea of 'democracy'. 
The site moderator has in the past, and will in the future, cut, delete or arrange alterations to any posts that are deemed unacceptable by the rules of the web site. Censorship cannot be dictated to the web site editor by others, such as the Parish Council, just because an item is not quite 'polite', or for any other reason.  Our Parish Council, as a body, does not seem to understand any of this. (Although we have been told that some individual elements that make up the Parish Council do!?!).  On several ocassions now they have publicly sniped at a group of villagers excercising their right to lay bare their thoughts about certain activities and organisations on the Blog facility of the site, usually via the minutes of their meetings, but more recently via the pages of our Parish Magazine.  In this most recent attack it implicitly denounces the use of a group name (Neighbours of Tinkers Park?) whilst writing the article using a group name itself (The Parish Council)!!!  I find double standards extremely frustrating!
These attacks seem to me to intend that a distinction is not made between the main object of their attack and the Village Website itself!   In the December edition of the Parish Magazine the Parish Council urges parishioners to forfeit their right to express their feelings in an indepedent medium such as a web site and, presumably, a newspaper or radio, where others can see or hear, and agree or disagree, with the matter raised, but to only send criticisms privately and confidentially to the Parish Council to do what they will with them.  I would, very politely, remind the Parish Council that this is Hadlow Down, in England, in 2010, and not North Korea or Moscow in the 1960's! 
I personally think that our Parish Council generally does a good job when keeping within the 'Statutory Provisions' area of its remit but as I started saying at the beginning of this post it is very frustrating when not only is the website constantly sniped at, and the people of the village often deprived of receiving important information emanating from or via the Parish Council due to a peevish attitude in not using the web site to publish it.
We will always do our best to support and promote all village clubs, societies and institutions of the village including the Parish Council if they so desire it.
This support is also extended to the Parish Magazine and the wonderful job it does for the village which means that Hadlow Down Online will not be submitting to the editor any response to the Parish Council's attacks in that particular publication in order to ensure that the relationship and ocassional funding received from the Parish Council is not prejudiced.  As a villager and not wearing the 'Editor's Hat' I have today spoken to others who may have felt inclined to respond but will now exercise restraint.
In order to preserve total independence the web site does not accept any advertising at all or even seek occasional hand-outs from bodies such as the Parish Council.  The site is maintained solely by the generosity of the site owner and my own time and effort and ocassional help from others.
It has been suggested that some members of our community could benefit from added subjects in the How Do I...section of the web site to help them understand what interactive communication is all about.  We'll try!
The Village Web Site is a great project but sometimes very frustrating to be the editor of!!!