Now It's Time To Let Your Star Shine

So the new commenting system is live. Please hop to the bottom section and test it out. I'm sure there will be kinks, complaints, confusion and minor chaos. Feel free to contact bugs with the real boners.

Here's a little rundown, courtesy of Sir Denton, to get you acclimated:

THE KEY CHANGES

* Privileges for star commenters (see below) * Image and video embedding in comments * Comment threads switched (like Facebook and Twitter) to reverse chronological order * Related stories show to the right of each post (and a few other design changes) * Comments can now be edited (for 15 minutes after publishing)

RIGHTS OF A STAR COMMENTER

* A gold star next to each commenter's name (as now) * Comments given priority and published immediately after post * A star commenter can see comments even before a moderator has approved them * By replying to any comment, a star commenter can give it priority * Promotion of another's comments to the featured section

"THE FUTURE"

* Many more items such as interviews, live chats, live blogs, contests and photo pools * Web submission and publishing of tips * Discussion forums around personalities and topics * Commenting via Twitter * Rebuttal rights for the subject of an article * Commenters able to call on friends or colleagues for support in an online discussion

Confused? For further explanation, consult Mr. Hutchins' superb in-depth rundown which was posted before the holiday. The Comment Ninja Squadron has pulled together their own manifesto-like post outlining their vision and purpose. That will be published Monday.

For now, the best thing to do is play around and see how it'll all work out. I'll be down in a minute and you can crap all over me if you so choose. It'll be fun. Let me smoke first.

Thank you in advance for your patience. Onward.