Neighbours - the good, the bad, the ugly

8:28am Friday 21st March 2008

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THE Good. The Bad. And the Ugly. Neighbours can be the best thing that ever happened. Or the worst.

From a time when talking about neighbours was more than likely to be about the Australian television soap, to today when it is more likely to involve a complaint, this is one hot topic.

A UK organisation has even set up a new website to act as a one-stop resource for how to deal with neighbourly' problems.

Here is a look at some websites that deal with those folks who live down the street - in reality and virtually.

Problem Neighbours, http://www.problemneighbours.co.uk/, is a new site full of resources on how to resolve problems with the people next door.

It covers your rights, how to resolve problems and putting respect' projects into action.

If you are considering any action involving neighbours or your neighbourhood, this is a good place to start.

Focusing more on the complaining side is the Neighbours from Hell in Britain website, www.nfh.org.uk.

This includes a forum, where you can explain problems and try to elicit help, or sympathy, from others. Its resources may not be completely current, but the forums continue.

One organisation is using the web to gather up helpful, virtual neighbours for communities in need. World Volunteer Web, http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org/, an interesting site about people being good global neighbours, links to this Dutch site that offers virtual help from neighbourly' Net users around the globe.

The site, Nabuur, http://www.nabuur.com/, defines neighbours as "people that want to take action now for the benefit of people in developing countries." Anyone, anywhere, can post a neighbourly' request for assistance and anyone, anywhere can come to their rescue.

Requests for help get virtual assistance. For example, Estelle in Greece needs help doing a classroom inventory. Khusbu, from Nepal, could use some assistance on customs regulations for importing books into Nepal.

This whole premise is based on online interactivity. They are even involving the public in their site redesign. But the idea that you can have a positive global neighbourly experience from your home is one of the most fantastic uses of the World Wide Web I have come across.

Locally, we offer a number of ways you can be active in your community online, including: Community Correspondents: If you are interested in providing news from your local community for our website, get in touch with the Web Editor, Kate Whiteside, at: kate.whiteside@kendal.newsquest.co.uk.

Events Listings: We provide free online events listings. You can keep everyone up-to-date on the next event you are hosting, involved with or promoting in your community. See: http://events.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/ Forums: If you have a local issue you want to get others opinions on, or involvement with, why not post something in our Forums: http://forum.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/ CommuniGate: This free platform for non-profitmaking organisations is great for setting up neighbourhood websites. It even has parish and community sections. It only takes a few minutes to set up a site, and it is yours to run. See: http://www.communigate.co.uk/lakes/