Welcome to the New Jezebel

Ta-da! Yep, we’ve had a little work done — went after our angry elevens with some Botox, fried our cellulite with lasers, and treated ourselves to a stem cell facelift. You know, the usual.

So welcome to Jezebel Version 35264.0, AKA The Kinja Experience. It’s both an aesthetic redesign and a bloggy new platform designed to open up all of Jezebel’s bells and whistles and make them available to our readers.

Things look different.

We’ve returned to the endlessly scrolling blog format, which is good news for those of you who’ve missed it. And there are two ways to view Jezebel: the “recommended” view, which is where you will automatically land when you go to the site. It features our bigger posts that we want to highlight. The “latest” view shows you everything. The option to toggle between the two is at the top of the page next to our logo.

Comments have been expanded so that you can see a thread in its entirety. You can “star” stories and comments to help recommend and promote them; “follow” anyone in the system (this is the same as “hearting”) to keep track of folks you like, from Jezebel writers to io9 commenters. You can read posts and comments from anyone you follow at kinja.com/private. We’ve added image annotation, which lets you attach comments to photos at the top of a post. There are also more stopgaps in place to keep comments from being overrun by the trolls and spammers that have been hanging here out as of late; we hope it helps.

Okay, so why is this all called “Kinja”?

Kinja — which is a totally made up word that sounds like a strain of weed — is the new system we’re using to run Jezebel. It’s also a platform for you to write and publish your own stuff, if you wish. Kinja allows us to open up Jezebel’s system to all of you. You’ll have access to the same tools as Jezebel’s editors; any blogs you create on Kinja will be formatted like Jezebel.

Now, about this blogging business.

If you have a Jezebel account, you already have your own Kinja page at yourusername.kinja.com. Finally, a room of one’s own! You can post whatever you like there; it’s your space. In addition to whatever content you create, comments you make on other posts — be it on Jezebel or other Kinja sites — will show on your page. With a push of a button, you can republish (“share”) posts from Jezebel; we’ll likewise be able to republish stories from you. You may have some proprietary concerns about this, which is justifiable — but don’t worry. You will always get the byline, linkage, and credit.

Kinja is a universe, dude. We’re all connected. (Again with the weed.)

Are you encouraging us to start blogging on our own Kinja sites so you sell more ads and slide around on piles of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck?

Actually, no — there will be no advertising on your Kinja blogs. We won’t profit off of your work. But we’d be lying if we said we didn’t want a chance to reenact the Ducktales intro. (D-d-danger, watch behind you! There’s a stranger out to find you!) Alas, Kinja will not help us achieve any such dream.

Where’s Groupthink?

Groupthink has now become its own blog at groupthink.kinja.com and is being run by the commentariat. Several active commenters already have access to post there, and they’ll be opening up the gates for more folks over the coming days — but you’ll have to get moderator permission to post there. (This is less about exclusivity and more about troll control.)

I love it! I hate it! ! I’m so excited! I’m so SCARED. Who do I talk to?

Check out our FAQ; if something seems buggy, open a ticket with our help desk or email [email protected]. Please keep in mind this is a work in progress and we’re constantly rolling out improvements. Rest assured, we want this to be the best system it can be, and we appreciate any helpful feedback you might have that can help us get to that point.