As Gawker comments taketh away, so does it giveth. Many readers have already noticed a few cute new perks in the commenting system. Let us splain the community-building hotness. New features include:

It's been far, far too long since we've cleaned house. Not that our house will ever really be clean. Still, let's irrigate the rosebush of comments with the blood of eejits, or however that goes.

Our comment policy is fairly simple: Comment privileges are only open to those who have been invited, either by us or by a friend. (And, of course, the lucky unwashed who sneak in during our infrequent amnesties.) Still, that doesn't stop the clueless hordes from filling our inbox with requests for admission, the majority of which go immediately to the trash folder.

In case you're wondering about the average Us Weekly reader — and really, who isn't? We're always asking ourselves, Who the fuck reads this? — let's look at the comments section from the Us blog post about Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade. The readers respond:

So, we were just lounging around in our midafternoon pjamas, wondering when we can shift from white to brown liquor and measuring out the evening's pretend cocaine, when inspiration struck. Comments have been so much fun lately, why not open the floodgates? We could create another one of those anonymous comment logins for anyone to use over the weekend. After all, what could go wrong? Therefore: until it becomes too much of a hassle, the uninitiated may play around with an open comments account on this post by logging in as [redacted] with password [redacted]. In the comments below, feel free to respond to recent posts, make suggestions, or complain like a lil' bitch. Play friendly, or mommy spank, and not in the good way.

Overlooked in all the excitement during our one-day commenter invitation free-for-all was the note that banning of commenters would become "much more arbitrary and punitive, and such banning may be accompanied by public ridicule and execution." Well, guess what time it is? May we present commenters who have been banned, as of right now, for the following criminal trespasses:

In case you didn't get the memo, the cutoff for the general comment amnesty was noon yesterday. The vault is once again closed, the dread angel once again guarding the door. All comment invites that are gonna be sent, have been sent. If you sent in a comment invite request during the eligible period, yet haven't received your invite, there are several possible explanations. In descending order of likelihood, they are: (1) The invite was redirected to your spam mailbox. (2) The amazing comment invite machine malfunctioned and did not send you anything. (3) Human error, ours or yours, resulted in no invite being sent. (4) You suck. Fortunately, the result is the same regardless of the reason — we're back to our standard comments policy, so plead your case if you want, but most of our ears are already deaf. Meanwhile, enjoy the flood of new commenters who made the cut, and chuckle at the endlessly inventive ways they employ the word "snark" in their usernames.

For one day, we're unlocking the castle gate to new commenters. Starting now until noon Tuesday, anyone who sends in a request for comment access to gawkercomments@gmail.com will duly receive a comment invite, no questions asked. You must include a valid email address, and of course you must abide by the rigorous strictures of the Gawker Comments FAQ, but otherwise it's an All Skate rink. New comment invites will be sent out en masse on Tuesday. Of course, there's a catch. Banning of comment trolls, idiots, and undesirables will become much more arbitrary and punitive, and such banning may be accompanied by public ridicule and execution. Play nice, or at least don't let the teacher see you.

A good week for wit. Blackjack blows everyone else away with the lyrics to Marissa Mayer's beatbox:

The wittiest wits that ever...wittcized...checked in this week. Blackjack, sadly, didn't have any bon mots for us.

Best comment of the week award (winner gets half the Webvan profits) goes to sarahka:

Fighting server issues and fidgety comment accounts this week, Valleywag readers bravely soldiered on in the War to be Witty.

For Blackjack, "MSN" means "Evil Dead":

Peanut gallery's been roasting again:

As always, the wittiest people on Valleywag are the commenters. This week's best:

Openwag hyperbolizes in Nathan Tyler, the hottest man in Google:

Does anyone work all day? The chattering class has taken over Valleywag, commenting when they ought to be out biking Mount Diablo with VCs or dumping their stock portfolios. Here are the top comments, or at least the ones I was bribed to feature:

Google, Google, Google. There, that's out of the way. The biggest kid in the pool will always be the most fun to splash, but others need a soaking too. Time to tell me whose swimsuit needs a wedgie.

Hopefully this doesn't count as citizen journalism. Valleywag has an invitation-based comment system for the wittiest readers — and those most deeply embedded in the Yahooglesoftacle hegemony.