Have Your Say is one of the most popular parts of the BBC News website - but what is it you want to talk about - and what does it tell us about world events?
In a year when 'You' the public has been named by Time magazine as their person of 2006 - we can look back on 12 months when ordinary people really did have their say.
Here on the BBC News website we have been asking what people think about news topics and events for a few years now. In 2006, rather than being an 'add on' extra, the public voice came centre stage.
Now every single day the opinions, stories and other forms of user generated content like pictures and video make it into our news coverage and have fundamentally changed the way we cover and reflect what is happening in our world.
So what were the topics over the last 12 months that got people talking?
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TOP 10 DEBATES
4,347,884 page impressions
All debates are closed to new comments
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Out of our Top 10 have Your Say debates based on the numbers of people reading and contributing to, five were related to the Middle East or relations with the Islamic world.
Two were reactions to personalities - the death of 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin and the high-speed crash of BBC TV presenter Richard Hammond.
In total these 10 debates drew 295,168 e-mails from you the public.
On the top three debates on the Middle East nearly 4.4m people read what others had to say about the situation. In July/August 126,157 e-mails were received for five separate debates, all asking broadly the same question, can the crisis there be resolved?
It is a powerful body of opinion, one larger than any focus groups and one which can be viewed anywhere in the world.
It speaks volumes about people trying to make sense of the new world order post 9/11, trying to work through the relations between different religions and cultures and shed some light on what is increasingly a complex and difficult world.
Seen but not heard?
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On the questions raised by Jack Straw "Would removing the veil improve community relations" nearly 19,000 people sent e-mails - on the debate around the remarks by the Pope about Islam it was 36,301, and 29,640 for the debate around the publication of the Danish cartoons. All debates that relate to how Islam and other faiths co-exist.
Number nine and 10 in our list also relate to us the public's feeling of security in this global village - Can North Korea be restrained? and Should Iran develop nuclear energy?
Terror alert prompts contacts
In August, the terror alert which led to airports in the UK and America cancelling flights had a massive response.
Again, among the eyewitness accounts of missed flights and chaos at the airports, out of 16,000 e-mails, were many commenting on what this tells us about living in an more insecure environment where turning up at the airport for your summer holiday flight can no longer be taken for granted.
A selection of your messages were passed to the Top Gear team
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It is no surprise that personalities (Steve Irwin and Richard Hammond) draw a huge empathetic response. The difference now is people can share this with millions, not just their local group of friends and family.
Our boards have become the global noticeboard sending messages and tributes to people who made a mark on their lives.
For our team, going through these thousands of messages of grief and goodwill is quite an experience.
Readers recommend ...
One of the key features of our debates is the recommended section. The idea behind this being a page reflecting the most popular one with our users will be a key way to display mass public response.
Any registered user can recommend a comment (only once though!). We are noticing that far more people are recommending than contributing - and many are registering just to recommend.
On the Pope debate mentioned earlier, out of 36,301 e-mails, 92,000 people recommended various comments, with Terry Humphries' comment the most recommended.
We have a diverse and vocal audience. Our top contributor Randal S sent in 3,633 comments (765 were posted), while Peter Sym had the most comments published - 1,980 - of the 3,411 he sent in.
So what does all this tell us about the world in 2006? That the most energising subject for our audience is the situation in the Middle East and consequent relations between the West and Islam, that second is global security or insecurity, and third is the ubiquitous human response to celebrity on a global scale.
Thank you to all of you for your contributions - and to those of you who read them. It really has been the year of 'You'.
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~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~02~RS~)
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While the West gets a constant barrage about being evil, decadent etc, etc, the Muslim world gets all worked up about anything and everything they perceive as an insult. Why should the West and the rest of the world have to tip-toe around Muslims whilst the Muslim world can issue countless diatribes full of garbage aimed at the West? Since when did the Muslim world have the monopoly on sensitivity?
