You may have already heard, but today, things will be changing in a big way for Jezebel commenters… and those on every other Gawker Media website: after months of hard work and dedication on the part of our design and tech department, we are introducing - wait for it - threaded comments. What's a threaded comment, you ask?Threading is a way to make comments read more like conversations instead of a bunch of disconnected single replies. Now, when a comment is replied to by other commenters, all the replies will appear directly below the original comment. Each of these blocks is called a "thread". All of this will be self-explanatory once you start using the new system, but read on for a more detailed explainer. The first comment in a thread will have a few distinguishing features, among them, the number of replies in the thread along with the time of the most recent reply. Clicking the reply arrow on the lower right side opens a comment reply input box directly underneath the comment. No need to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to reply. Replies to replies - sometimes known as second or third (or fourth) level replies - will not be indented as is the custom in most forums. Instead, second and third level replies will be collapsed. How are the threads displayed, still in chronological order? Each conversation will be displayed in chronological order. But organization of the conversations overall will be displayed based on popularity. The most popular conversations will migrate to the top. The most recent comment that has no replies will appear on top for 15 minutes before being filtered down. If a more active conversation receives a reply within those 15 minutes, that conversation will overtake the stand-alone comment. Where did the plus and minus go? The plus and minus, which was used to friend or un-friend a fellow commenter, has been replaced by a heart. Friends show a red heart, and the rest are empty. What's the deal with the star again? Star commenters were readers who have 25 or more followers, or were designated as stars by a comments admin. With the introduction of threading, the number of followers required to attain star is increasing to 40. Is there a way to view comments the "old-fashioned" way? You can switch to the old style comments layout by clicking the "classic view" link in the comments bar at the top of the threads. We would also like to reiterate how commenting works on Jezebel, as first outlined in this post, excerpts from which are reproduced below: 1. Commenter moderator 2. Good comments vs. Bad comments 3. Banning 4. Disemvoweling 5. Deleting comments 6. Best/Worst comments of the day 1. Jezebel Commenter Moderator As most of you know, we have an funny, thoughtful, and fair-minded commenter moderator, "Hortense". Hortense comments on posts as a regular reader but she also carefully surveys comment threads to make sure that they don't get out of hand, warns and admonishes obnoxious commenters, and, when needed, bans commenters who are not contributing anything informative or interesting to the discussion. She can be reached by emailing commenters@jezebel.com or via her profile page. 2. Good vs. Bad Comments Read carefully before you comment - we can't tell you how many times people comment on posts they haven't read carefully, or read at all - and ask yourself, do I have something to add? Want to know what we define as "good" or "bad"? See below: Characteristics of a good comment: •Insight/additional information •Intelligent critique •Wit/humor •Calm, courteous, reasoned disagreement, either with the opinions/facts presented in a post itself or with other commenters •Sharing of relevant, personal anecdote (within reason) Characteristics of a bad comment: •Attacks on other commenters or Jezebel editors •Deliberate provocation/trollishness •Excessive vulgarity •Self-promotion •Banality •Creating/contributing to an echo chamber: ("So cute!" or "I hate...") •Whining/Complaining: ("I don't want to read about this, can't we see pictures of puppies?") •Irrelevance: "I don't know who this person is" or "First!" •Assumption/speculation over an editor's motivations: ("This post was only put up in order to garner [editor name] pageviews") •Posting copyrighted material: (posting large swaths of news articles in comments instead of just linking to another page) •Thread hijacking Note: Although Jezebel editors have strong feelings on a whole host of issues - political and personal - we don't expect everyone to share them. Nor should you. Ganging up on commenters who don't share your point of view is not only unnecessary, it is tacky and contributes to a cliquish atmosphere that is not in the spirit of this blog. Differing viewpoints should not be shouted down; try to engage those with opinions opposite to yours with reasoned, polite disagreement. And if you find that difficult? Don't comment. 3. Banning We reserve the right to ban for any reason. We do not owe banned commenters an explanation, although we may give one if we feel like it. As always, banned commenters can re-apply for commenting privileges after 2 weeks. 4. Disemvoweling Disemvoweling is a function in which we remove the vowels from every word in a comment to make it virtually unreadable. The point of disemvoweling is to neuter an offensive comment and warn the commenter her/himself that they are on the verge of being banned. (Sometimes we will disemvowel AND ban.) It is permanent, and commenters who try to "reconstruct" and re-post a disemvoweled comment will themselves get disemvoweled. 5. Deleting In rare cases we can – and will – delete comments altogether. Period. 6. Best/Worst Comments Of The Day There have been some disagreements among readers over what constitutes a "worst" comment and complaints about "fairness". Let us repeat: We work with what we have, meaning, if you think there is a comment that deserves consideration as "worst" status, you need to send it in to either Hortense or the tips email or else we probably won't know about it. In addition, sometimes we are going to call out commenters who have committed what we think is a "bad comment" offense (see above for definition) even if the offense seems mild to others. Earlier: The Girl's Guide To Commenting On Jezebel A Message From Hortense, Our Commenter Moderator