Most recently, we added the Monthly Outlook to our UK Forecast page. We've also made improvements behind the scenes to make the site quicker to load and even more reliable.

The next release of improvements, coming soon, will be visibly more noticeable than others we've made since February.

These are part of our continuing effort to make the site clearer and easier to use, whether you use the site to get a quick snapshot of the current forecast or want more detailed information about the weather conditions.

Following feedback from our audiences, and ideas from our weather team, we have made it easier to "Find a Forecast" when you arrive and easier to scan the 24-hour and five-day forecasts to see the weather trend over the coming hours or days.

Everything you found on the site before, you'll still find there now - it'll just be easier to get to the forecast information you need.

When you arrive, you will see our Forecast Finder has more prominence and a new UK Summary gives a quick snapshot of the weather across the UK. The full set of UK maps is still available on the UK Forecast page.

Once you've found your local forecast, you will see that the 24-hour and five-day information is arranged on two tabs again. We have put back the temperature and wind symbols rather than displaying them as text. You can also choose to view all the available detail we have for each of the five days.

As I said above, these improvements are building on the work we started in February and we'll continue to add further improvements and new features in the coming weeks and months.

Richard Chapman is editorial manager of BBC Weather.

Update 06:00 GMT: The planned work has now been completed and I'm pleased to say we're publishing normally.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website

We have increased the number of headlines under each of the section headings in the bottom half of the page, made the popular Business and Technology sections more prominent by adding pictures, and we have increased the number of featured items in the video area.

Internationally, advertisements appear on the right hand side of the page alongside editorial content and this has resulted, some of the time, in that side of the page becoming much longer than the rest of it. The modified layout should allow us to balance the two sides of the page better, and provide more headlines at the same time.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

In some cases these will be longer than they are now, to allow us to spell out in more detail what and who the story is about. This is so that people using search engines to look for the story can find it more easily.

That's probably enough detail for anyone who's read this far. But if not, and you'd like to know more about why we are doing this, please read on...

The practice of "search engine optimisation" - making content in such a way that it is easily retrieved via search engines - is an important area for us and for others across the web.

A growing number of users come to stories on the BBC site from places other than our own front page - for example search engines, other sites, personal recommendations, Twitter or RSS feeds.

So our developers have done a bit of work to allow journalists the scope to create two headlines for a story if they want to - a short one which appears on the front page and our other website indexes, and a longer one which will appear on the story page itself and in search engine results.

The front page headlines will remain limited to between 31 and 33 characters and will continue to appear on Ceefax and Digital Text, as they do now, along with the top four paragraphs of each story.

The space constraints on those platforms mean that on the website the headlines have always been short - which, it has to be said, also has its merits, making them easy to scan and fit into lists. They will also continue to appear on mobiles.

The new longer headlines will be up to 55 characters (with spaces) and will aim to include any key words which we might expect a search engine user to type in when searching for news about that particular topic.

So, for example, the difference between a longer and shorter headline version might be as simple as: "Queen's speech: Brown draws election battle lines" instead of "Brown draws election battle lines". Or "Possible counter-bid for Cadbury" might become "Ferrero and Hershey in possible counter-bid for Cadbury".

It'll also be easier for journalists to include full names eg "Janet Jackson blames doctor for Michael's death" instead of "Doctor 'responsible' says Jackson".

None of this should affect the way you can use the site once you are here, but hopefully it will make it easier to find our stories if you are somewhere else.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

Audiences have always contributed directly to the BBC's newsgathering, especially on breaking stories. But the technology allowing people to share and send photos, video, and eyewitness accounts is developing all the time.

Important developments in Iran, China, and even New York, have been reported for the first time using services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

BBC News is always working to keep across new sources of information, assessing and verifying them as it would any other potential source of news-making content, and this new role will help to develop that.

Many internet users are also changing the way they consume news, by sharing and commenting on stories on social networks.

In common with other media organisations the BBC wants to ensure it is as simple as possible for audiences to interact with us, and deepen our relationship with them in the interests of strengthening our journalism.

Alex Gubbay, who is currently news editor for BBC Sport Interactive will take on this new role in January, co-ordinating the work of correspondents and reporters using social media tools, and ensuring best practice is developed and shared within the BBC.

He will manage the existing user generated content hub within BBC Newswire, making the most of news stories suggested by users, as well as their case studies, photographs, videos and comments, across our website, and on TV and radio. The new role is being funded by redistributing money within BBC Newsroom.

Alex will have a particular focus on developing new ways for audiences to have their say on stories being covered by BBC News, and he will be blogging here frequently in the New Year.

Sam Taylor is the editor of Newswire.

That was one of the questions discussed this week when The World Tonight, co-hosted a conference at Chatham House with the journal International Affairs and the Royal Society looking at the challenges governments all over the world face with climate change and the potential scarcity of natural resources.

We also discussed how measures to deal with climate change could make food, energy and water shortages worse. You can listen to the programme we did from the conference here.

Most of the people at the conference were climate experts, technology specialists, politicians, lobbyists and activists, but there were also journalists ie us.

At one point, the discussion turned to concerns that many climate scientists have that public scepticism about climate change may be growing just as the models these scientists use to project the rise in global temperatures and the impact that will have on ice melt in places like the Himalayas, are suggesting a worse scenario in the next few decades.

They expressed surprise that this should be so.

One explanation offered was that the counter-message from climate change sceptics and lobby groups, especially in the US, that climate change is part of a natural cycle and nothing to worry about is a much simpler message to convey than the arguments for taking action which are based on a precautionary principle and complex climate modelling.

Others asked if the problem was a decline in public trust in scientists generally, because they are often asked to make projections which may not be subsequently borne out by experience.

Still others asked whether the media was responsible for the apparent rise in scepticism, arguing that the media in the interests of balance give airtime too much prominence to climate change sceptics, given the overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree climate change is happening and it is man-made and measures need to be taken to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

From the BBC's perspective, the answer to this question is that our journalistic role is not to campaign for anything. Impartiality means not taking sides in a debate, while accurately representing the balance of argument.

So, in the case of climate change we need proportionately to reflect the sceptical view but also, for example, reflect the debate among climate scientists about the most effective way of dealing with global warming.

On our programme, for instance, one of our panellists argued an all-encompassing global conference like Copenhagen is not the way to make progress as it is trying to deal with too many issues at once.

Another of the panellists argued that capping emissions and developing a market to trade in carbon is too slow and uncertain a way of dealing with the problem and we should invest in technical solutions to reducing the amount of CO2.

On the wider issue of reporting risk which is often what reporting what scientists are saying involves, the BBC has specific guidelines which you may be interested in reading.

Anyway, take a listen to the programme and let us know what you think.

Alistair Burnett is the editor of The World Tonight.

Update, 11:07: I'm pleased to say the problems should now be fixed - we're not aware of any remaining issues.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

Earlier this month, David Rohde of the New York Times wrote about his experiences during the seven months and 10 days he was kidnapped by the Taliban before he escaped earlier this year.

His colleague, Sultan Munadi was not so fortunate: he was killed during a mission to free the British reporter Stephen Farrell last month.

This morning's attacks give people like me pause for thought. The BBC is the only British broadcaster to have a permanent bureau in Kabul.

We were there during the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, and remained throughout the US led assault on the country in 2001.

It would be so much easier to simply report that troubled country from behind the wire of the British base at Camp Bastion or position ourselves alongside the Canadian media pool at the ISAF base in Kandahar.

But we have a responsibility to tell all sides of the story - not simply report Afghanistan as it looks from inside the perimeter of an army base.

That we're able to do so is a tribute to the bravery of my colleagues in Kabul - not just those you read online or see and hear on air such as Ian Pannell and Martin Patience, but those behind the scenes who help them tell the story. The risks as we have seen this morning are all too real.

Jon Williams is the BBC World News Editor.

So much for the charges. The reality is a bit more straightforward.

It was Question Time. With a lot more people watching than normal. And a lot more column inches written in advance about it than normal. And significantly more demonstrators outside the venue than normal. But otherwise, in all the core elements, it was Question Time as normal.

As in any Question Time week, members of the public guide producers on what's to be debated. The programme is driven by the questions submitted by the audience itself. And unsurprisingly, they chose to focus on topics that were in the news this week - immigration, Jan Moir's article on the death of Stephen Gately, the BNP's co-option of historical figures and, yes, Question Time itself.

What, no post strike? No Afghanistan? They were on the list of issues to be debated. But, from the weight of questions, other topics galvanised our audience more, and there simply wasn't time to get to them. This isn't a stopwatch tick-box format. A question might take ten minutes to debate. Or twenty. It is the audience and its members' engagement in an issue which leads the content of the debate. They demand their say and ensure that answers are properly scrutinised.

That means editorial fluidity and flexibility. As in Grimsby and Salisbury earlier this year, occasionally one topic dominates, because the public just doesn't want to move away from it. Back then - as you may have spotted - it was MPs' expenses. This week, it was the BNP and its beliefs and policies, albeit encompassing questions on race, Islam, homophobia, immigration and Churchill. So we didn't change the format. Questions, and debate, just are the format. And again it's the audience which guides it.

And so to the "rigged audience". The audience, as always, was made up of a broad cross-section of views and backgrounds reflective of the location. That would be the same whether we were in Liverpool, Llandudno or - as in this case - London. Every week, they're encouraged to participate and to ask probing questions to provoke debate. So: were BNP supporters invited and allowed in? Yes. In fact, they made more than one contribution to the discussion. Was that enough? Did they applaud sufficiently or counter the boos directed at their party leader? Hard to judge. But who needs to? That's the thing about people who come to see Question Time - they have minds of their own.

As does David Dimbleby. His job was not to "get" Nick Griffin, or to "expose" him as a racist and crush him in public. It was to chair a debate. Which he did, brilliantly. That meant giving not just the audience members their say, but panellists too. All of them. And probing panellists - all of them - on past policy, utterances and beliefs. So David did indeed forensically grill Mr Griffin on everything from the Ku Klux Klan to the Holocaust. And likewise Jack Straw was questioned over government immigration policy. Sayeeda Warsi on civil partnerships. Not ganging up against one member of the panel. Just robust questioning to achieve clarity. It's what the audience expects - every week.

Chasing ratings? Question Time has been going for 30 years and has very healthy viewing figures, rising to a recent record peak throughout the past series. The decision to invite Nick Griffin onto the programme had nothing to do with ratings. It had to do with our obligation to show due impartiality and the fact that only now has the BNP crossed a particular electoral threshold in securing European parliamentary seats. (See a previous post by my colleague Ric Bailey.)

But the key manner in which this was Question Time as normal is that it was unpredictable. Week in, week out, none of us involved in the programme has any idea how the audience will react, what will anger or amuse them, whether this or that panellist will shine or sink or even whether a cat called Tango will wander behind the set while we're on air (Google it. You'll get the drift).

But amid all the normal unpredictability, one question remains the same every week. Did it work? And, as is the answer to everything with Question Time, you decide.

Update 1515, 24 October: The document that appeared in both the Daily Mail and on its website today is not, contrary to the claim by the Daily Mail, the same document issued to members of the Question Time audience.

The version of the instructions printed in the Daily Mail has Nick Griffin's profile first - the version issued to the audience had Jack Straw's profile first.

There was only one instruction guide given to members of the audience and it is the same format as issued every week. The BBC instructions always begin with the panel member from the government - in this week's case Jack Straw.

On the version printed in the Mail, the Nick Griffin entry has been placed over that of Mr Straw.

As a result, Mr Griffin's entry appears twice in the version on the Mail's website and Mr Straw not at all.

Gavin Allen is executive editor, Question Time.

Nothing comes for free though, and inevitably, this means that the BBC's existing Freeview service has had to change to help accommodate HD.

It's been a busy time for Freeview users, with them recently being asked to re-tune their TVs or set-top boxes as part of a country-wide rearrangement of broadcast transmissions. Now at the end of October, the BBC will have less room to broadcast interactive TV on Freeview. More details on this are provided here.

For BBC News, this means that we're no longer going to be able to provide one of our services.

The News Multiscreen, which we've been broadcasting on Freeview for a number of years now, will close on Tuesday 27 October 2009.

Obviously News content will still be available for viewers of Freeview.

The BBC News channel continues to broadcast on channel 80, and a comprehensive News, Sport and Weather text service will continue to be offered via the Red Button.

As well as that, the bulletins that we provided via the News Multiscreen can still be found on BBC Online via the following links - News, Sport and Weather.

Our Entertainment bulletin, which was not available on Freeview, is also online.

This change does not affect those of you with Sky or Virgin Media - if you currently watch the News Multiscreen on one of those services, you'll still able to do so.

Removing a service is always a hard decision, but as television broadcast develops, with the arrival of HD transmissions and also with broadband-to-TV technology beginning to take a foothold in the UK, the BBC is exploring how it takes advantage of these changes to ensure that it continues to offer viewers innovative News services.

TVs and set-top boxes are emerging in the market that are connected to the internet and we are looking at what exciting video services we could offer in the future.

Pete Clifton is head of editorial development, multimedia at BBC News.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

For the first time, the public is being asked to comment on them in draft form before they are finalised. BBC staff will also be consulted, by our Editorial Policy department, on their attitudes to the new draft.

One of the issues they cover, picked up by the Guardian's James Robinson, is writing for the web.

The new draft, also for the first time, fully integrates the original editorial guidelines and the (formerly separate) ones for Online.

The new guidelines state that nothing should be written online that would not be said on air:

It's perhaps worth explaining that it is already the case that all output, whether in text, audio or video, must comply with the BBC's existing editorial guidelines.

The first page of the existing guidelines says:

So the new guidelines are really spelling out, in the impartiality section, a principle which has long been enshrined in the BBC's editorial code.

As far as blogging goes, as we've launched each new reporter's blog on the BBC News site over the past few years, we've positively encouraged new recruits to the blogs to write informally, to respond to comments and just generally be themselves.

But we've also stressed that there's still a framework of editorial standards they must work within.

Sometimes we point out it's not much different from a "two-way", a broadcast interview with the reporter, where they answer a few questions from the studio to convey the latest on a story, and their analysis. Think Radio 5 Live, or John Simpson being quizzed by Huw Edwards on the Ten O' Clock news.

This informality translates well to blogs - and indeed to Twitter (as Laura Kuenssberg has been proving in the past few weeks of reporting from the party conferences).

Our news blogs, like our online news stories, are checked by a second journalist before publication.

For Laura's Twitter reports, we've applied "live broadcast" principles - for live news broadcasting, the rule is that it is monitored by an editorial figure as it goes out, normal editorial rules apply, and any mistakes should be swiftly and openly corrected.

Going back to the new draft guidelines, it's also worth pointing out that the "not saying online what you wouldn't say on air" principle works equally the other way round.

When Nick Robinson in an inadvertent slip on air this week referred to David Cameron as the prime minister, he was able to flag the mistake and set things straight in his blog.

If you want to read through the guidelines yourself rather than relying on media reports, and if you want to say what you think about any aspect of them - they are here in full, with feedback form. And of course, you can comment below too.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

Why did we judge that to be the most important story of the day on the The World Tonight? A question I've been asked.

Well the official in question is the American Deputy Head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith.

He was considered a close ally of the powerful US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, so the sacking is surprising.

But more important is the reason he fell out with his boss, the head of the UN in Afghanistan, Kai Eide.

They didn't agree on how to handle the widespread allegations of fraud in August's Afghan presidential election, where the Electoral Complaints Commission is investigating thousands of suspect ballots which has held up the official announcement of the result.

Just after Mr Galbraith was informed of his dismissal, he gave The World Tonight an interview (you can listen here) and alleged that he had seen evidence of widespread fraud in the voting, especially in the south of the country, and that he had also raised concerns that the elections commission was trying to manipulate the vote in favour of the the incumbent President Karzai, who has received the largest number of votes as things stand.

He alleges that Mr Eide told him not to share these concerns with international diplomats in Kabul and that was why he had been told to leave the country and had now lost his job.

In the interview he was also strongly critical of the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon for removing him. He said: "I think it sends a terrible signal when the UN removes an official because he was concerned about fraud in a UN-sponsored and funded election."

We also spoke to Mr Ban's spokesman, Farhan Huq, who denied the UN had sided with President Karzai or had minimised the fraud in the election. He said Mr Galbraith had been dismissed for the good of the mission, because it was necessary to have unity at the top in Kabul.

The elections in Afghanistan have been presented as a centrepiece in the Nato and UN strategy to demonstrate that Afghanistan can be turned into a viable, democratic state and that the military intervention in which thousands of civilians, more than 200 British troops, and more than 800 American troops have been killed since 2001 is worth it.

This is why we judged the resignation a very important story. I hope you agree.

Alistair Burnett is the editor of The World Tonight.