The parish council of Gorse Hollow has voted to require that every notice pinned to the village noticeboard carry a photograph of its author, looking sincere. The rule follows months in which residents refused to read anything unsigned, on the grounds that an anonymous notice was probably bait.

Mr Gerald Fennimore, who chairs the noticeboard subcommittee, said the measure had restored trust in a place where trust had been thin on the ground. "For a while there, you could not put up a notice about a lost cat without people assuming you were farming their reactions," he said. "Now they can see your face. It changes everything."

The background

The trouble began, residents say, when several notices turned out not to mean what they said. A poster advertising a jumble sale led, those who followed it reported, to a man with a clipboard who wanted to talk about parking. A notice appealing for witnesses to a dog incident appeared to have been written by the dog's owner, who had also written a second notice condemning the first.

After that, residents began approaching the board in pairs, one reading aloud while the other watched the author's house. Unsigned notices were left to weather. One offering a free piano stood for a year and was eventually taken by nobody.

Mrs Prudence Ellery, who has lived in the village for three decades, said she welcomed the new rule but had struggled with its terms. "I had my photograph taken at the chemist, and the chemist said I looked sarcastic," she said. "I went back the next day and he said I looked worse. On the third go he said I looked sincere enough for a lost umbrella, which is what I was advertising, so that was all right."

The implementation

The council has installed a laminated guidance sheet beside the board explaining what sincerity looks like: a slight tilt of the head, the corners of the mouth raised but not too far, and a willingness to be looked at for as long as it takes. Photographs may not be filtered. A resident whose picture shows a hat must reattest, in writing, that the hat is sincere.

Three authors have already asked to retake their portraits, one of them twice. Mr Fennimore said the retakes were a sign the system was working. "If somebody is not happy with how sincere they look, that is exactly the kind of person we want posting notices," he said. "The ones who are happy with their first photograph are the ones we watch."

The next subcommittee meeting will consider a proposal to require photographs of the photographs' photographers.