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THE GAWKER MEDIA OFFICE, NEW YORK — The rows of sleekly designed desks to my left are suspiciously quiet. The technical corps of our publisher, Gawker Media, is feverishly working on an update to our comments. And I'm here to witness it all! The big change: Related comments will be displayed together, as a "thread." And instead of being displayed oldest to newest, comments will be grouped by relative activity; the most tangled threads will get shuttled to the top. Update: We've decided to undo this change, displaying threads in chronological order, oldest to newest. The theory behind this: Threading is a way to make comments read more like conversations instead of a bunch of disconnected single replies. Participating in a thread is easy; instead of replying "@" another user, you can now join a thread by clicking the large circular "reply" arrow. And if you want to start a new thread? Just comment as usual. More details:

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.

How are the threads displayed? What happened to the chronological order?
 Each "thread," or conversation, will be displayed in chronological order. But the conversations will be displayed by 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 standalone comment.

Where did the plus and minus go?
 The plus and minus signs, which were used to friend or unfriend a fellow commenter, has been replaced by a heart.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 Valleywag editor. With the introduction of threading, the number of followers required to attain a star is increasing to 40.

Is there a way to view comments the "old-fashioned" way?
 You can switch to the old comments layout by clicking the "classic view" link in the comments bar at the top of the threads.

How do I become Commenter of the Day?
 Leave an outstanding comment.