FanHouse Presents: An Aristocratic Guide to Our New Commenting System

Hi there. And welcome to the new FanHouse. You may remember us from such classic films as "Where the Hell Have You Been All Night?" and "What is This Plus Symbol Next to My Comment?"

Don't freak out though peeps -- not too much has changed here. We've got new URL's (that line up top next to the house with those weird symbols in it), an ability to search tags below each post and a recent post listing right below that. Both exceptionally handy navigational features.

As you're perusing those sweet, sweet features, jaw agape, you may think to yourself, "What are all these funky looking stars and symbols near the comments?" Or, "Wow! Why do I suddenly feel such a strong urge to tell Brinson to stop posting about MaRodonna?" Both very reasonable questions.

That's because what you're seeing is a brand spanking new commenting system that will juice up your ability to participate on the site faster than Debbie Clemens and Paul Lo Duca locked in the bathroom of a smoothie shop.

Anyway, the system thing. See, now you, dear reader, have your own profile page. Sounds pretty good, no? You may view mine, and my few unfunny comments anytime you like.

What's awesome about this? Lots of stuff.

First, when you make well thought out and wonderfully intelligent (or, alternately, misspelled and incoherent) comments, your fellow community members can "vote" you up or down, via the green and red arrows, respectively.

The stars next to your name will shift -- showing how b.a. you are at commenting -- based on how good a job you do of discussing and interacting with the posts at hand.

Additionally awesome is that, also within the comments, you can now directly reply to someone else's comment. Meaning, you no longer have to type the "@" symbol in your post and hope that said person is still refreshing that particular post every 20 minutes. Because, if they want to know you replied, they already have the option.

Of course, so do you. That's where your profile comes in. See, you can track and manage all of your comments from there (login and make a comment somewhere. Then click your name. It will assign you a number and you're own page. Very simple.)

For instance, say you kill me for thinking the PGA might be more competitive with Tiger out of the picture and you want hear what other people say in response to you, tracked neatly below the post. Hit up your profile page and click "Notify me when someone replies." Bam. Email all up in your inbox when it happens.

It's worth noting too that your comments on FanHouse will be separated by individual sports. Say you're an NBA head who occasionally drifts over to the raucous Fornelli-ruled world of MLB 'Haus. Well, your profile page will keep tabs of how many times you've posted in each sport, so you know where to call home.

It will also keep track of various comments that you make across any of the splendid AOL platforms run by Weblogs (like Engadget, Autoblog -- check out the zinger of a comment I dropped earlier -- or Parentdish; yes, I totally failed in commenting there) so if you're some sort of super commenter, well, you'll be getting your reward. It may come in the form of personal gratification, but hey, what's better than that?

Additional bonuses of the new profile and commenting system include privacy options for your profile, the ability to upload your personal avatar and letting everyone know what your website is on your profile instead of typing it in the freaking comment every time (looking at you Paris-Hilton-nude-scenes-dot-com guy!)

Anyway, enough of me telling you what to do. You're smrt. And witty. And sometimes full of correct punctuation. So dig in, mess around, get your fingers a little dirrrrty and if you have any questions, feel free to holler.