THE popularity of your Worcester News website is growing all the time.

We now have almost 43,000 unique users of this site every month. That's an increase of more than 24,000 in the last seven months.

This site allows us to break news from your area 24 hours a day and complements our newspaper perfectly.

It allows us to speak directly to our readers - as I am doing now.

More importantly, it allows you to speak directly to us. You can comment on our stories, offer your opinions, and share them with the rest of our online family.

We use the most pertinent in the paper every day.

Our website is a great way of making the news and information we provide interactive.

I would like to make one plea, however.

While we want to hear your views, we'd rather not hear from you if you simply want to use this site to post offensive material.

Please remember this is a family website used by people of all ages.

If you have something unpleasant to say, please say it somewhere else.

The vast majority of site users post interesting, constructive comments that spark useful debates.

Censoring the website is not the answer, though we will react to complaints by removing offensive comments.

The answer is self moderation.

So please continue to give us your views. We value them. But remember this is a family site.

Should you wish to comment on this article please do so. Alternatively, you can email me by clicking on my name above.

Kevin Ward, Editor, Worcester News