If so, great! Because now you no longer have to keep them to yourself (or go all the way to the forum to start a thread about it). I'm pleased to introduce to you today our new integrated site comment system, which we are initially testing on the blog only but will roll out for news and articles very soon. Just scroll down this post's page to see it!

The comments use the same login as the forums, so if you already have a forum account, go ahead and try it out. Comments are not forum posts, however. You can't search for comments on the forums, they aren't added to your post count in your forum profile, and most importantly, comments have to be approved by a member of staff before they appear on the site. This is to ensure that comments stay on-topic and are of high quality. The staff will use subjective editorial criteria to filter the comments, though any comment that adds value to the site will generally be approved.

Of course, the forums are still the place to go for ongoing discussions and — in the case of the Chit Chat forum — to hang out with your friends from the community. The right way to think of the comments is perhaps like the "letters to the editor" section of a magazine, except with unlimited available space.

You might also notice the "thumbs up" feature right above the comments. No, we're not fishing for compliments (or at least, not just fishing for compliments). This tool is designed for you give us feedback directly. If you like a certain blog post, news post or article, let us know by giving it a thumbs up. What's neat about this is that we'll eventually be able to let you browse certain content by the number of thumbs-up they received.

If you prefer to read and not post, I hope you will still sign up for a forum account if you don't have one already, so you can use the thumbs-up to let your voice be heard. We know there are many "lurkers" out there and if you're one of them, I hope you'll come out of the woodworks for us!

I hope you're as excited about this new feature as I am and I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say.