The freest free speech in the Guardian is probably that found on the talk boards of our website. The latter embody one of the primary democratic virtues of the internet, in theory at least: unmediated discourse on any subject with the unrestricted participation of anyone who has anything to say. They began on the Guardian's website almost immediately after its launch a little over three years ago.

The Guardian provides the forum, generically known as "the Talk", and during a month many thousands of you - in some months perhaps 200,000 or more - take advantage of that. With around four million page impressions - page views - a month, it vies with the jobs as the second most popular site, after news, on Guardian Unlimited.

The subjects most discussed over the past few months have been the Middle East, the aftermath of September 11 and the "War on Terror", then domestic politics and other domestic issues. These discussions have been conducted by the participants themselves, for the most part in the tones of a civilised, if lively, conversation: we shall come to the departures, lapses and penalties in a minute.

There is no close parallel for this kind of exchange, in its immediacy and degree of freedom, anywhere else in the Guardian, although it might be seen as an expression of a principle that moves the paper as a whole. Restrictions of any kind run counter to its spirit. Those responsible for this area of the website run it with a minimum of rules and with an instinct not to intervene, to edit or delete or censor. The proven principle is that abstinence makes the user grow fonder.

At its best, the talk board epitomises the kind of interactivity - in this case user-to-user - that the paper wants with its readership as a whole. However you define a Guardian reader, passivity is unlikely to be considered a primary characteristic.

Anyone can have access to the talk boards by registering and providing an email address, password and a user name which will sign all that user's contributions to the running debates. This will enable that user to post remarks in any of the discussions taking place, or to start a new one.

Talk board users are an obvious expression of the idea of community on the internet and on Guardian Unlimited in particular (groups of the Guardian's users sometimes arrange to meet in a pub or cafe). When you use the talk boards you show your pass at the door, so to speak, and enter a kind of club in which a huge number of conversations are going on simultaneously. The quality of these conversations, although often high, varies greatly and is sometimes quite poor. Good or bad, all the utterances remain with a frozen spontaneity to be scrutinised later and sometimes objected to.

Everyone who participates in these conversations should be aware of Guardian Unlimited's talk policy. It is as much an appeal as a warning. "We want the Talk to be the place on the net where you will always find lively, entertaining and, above all, intelligent discussions. The last thing the net needs is yet another site where any attempt at conversation is drowned out by a few people hurling mindless abuse at each other."

It goes on to say that sometimes, and reluctantly, some postings have to be removed, and indicates the reasons why this might be done. "We discourage obscenity and mindless abuse... We will not tolerate racism, sexism or homophobia. We will remove any content that may put us in legal jeopardy... We will consider removing any content that other users might find extremely offensive or threatening. If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should have no problems on our boards."

And so we come to the space between theory and practice. More bans are being imposed than at any time since the talk boards started, although we are still speaking of a tiny number. Where it was once extremely rare to ban a user, there are now on average two bannings or banishments a week. Because of the ease with which some email addresses and user names can be changed, however, it is possible that a few individuals are being repeatedly banned under different names.

More postings than before are being removed, and users warned that they risk banning by breaches of the few guidelines. Some have been warned because of racist remarks in the context of the Middle East conflict.

Although vigilance is exercised, it is impossible to watch all the talk boards all the time. Users themselves will usually draw attention to something that seems to abuse and therefore threaten the freedom that they enjoy. The present policy of intervention as rarely as possible is still the correct one and possibly the only one.

· Readers may contact the office of the readers' editor by telephoning 0845 451 9589 between 11am and 5pm, Monday to Friday (all calls are charged at local rate). Mail to: Readers' editor, The Guardian, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER. Fax 020-7239 9997. Email: reader@theguardian.com

Apology
We have been experiencing technical problems with our talkboards for the past few days so you may have some difficulty accessing them. We are working to restore normal service and apologise for any inconvenience caused.