Since Gawker Media embraced the anarchic tag page system, we've had people posting news tips and story ideas on the #tips page and celebrity sightings on #stalker. Some of the other sites in the Gawker family have also designated certain hashtags as ways for commenters to talk among themselves without being tethered to a specific post. For example, Jezebel has #groupthink, Deadspin has their #duan page (a holdover of from their Deadspin Up All Night open-threads). We'd like to start one, too, and we'd like to know what name you like best. Here are a few of our ideas:

#gawkertalker — It has a nice ring to it, but maybe too sing-songy?
#circlesmirk — I think it's apt, but probably too cute.
#snitheads — Foster's suggestion.
#runningtext — A nod to print.
#fnff — Why not go with a classic?

Anyway, lobby for your favorite down in comments, but the only way to cast a vote is to actually use them. So click through to your favorite (or make up your own) and say something. Post early, post often. The tag page that attracts the most activity will be immortalized as a suggested hashtag on the top of every page of Gawker.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

I know the Awl and Gawker (where I'll be live-chatting tonight's results) have joined the haters who want to throw out the best mayor this city has had in my lifetime (which is longer than some). Here are the top ten reasons you shouldn't join them.

10. Term limits are for suckers. Seriously. Fuck ‘em. Gold stars to all the Council members who voted to override. Who are a bunch of Ron Lauder-manipulated voters from the anti-incumbent craze of the early '90s to tell me who I can and can't vote for? Oh, you say, the sacred will of the voters can't be touched. Well, go to California, where decades of voter-passed propositions that can't be changed have smothered the governing process in quicksand. And don't you support overturning the California voters' ban on gay marriage? Ah, as I thought. And if that still doesn't convince you, think of it this way: if the term limits law included a provision allowing the City Council to override it, then the override was totally legitimate.

9. He doesn't care what people think of him or the niceties of the political process, which often comes in handy. He just cares about outcomes. He's outside the city's established, still-clubby political structure.

8. The 311 system and NYC.gov. What a concept: customer service for everyone who lives in NYC.

7. He's kept crime going down without the Mussolini-like police tactics of Giuliani. There have been no mayorally-sanctioned police hate crimes like Diallo, Louima and Dorismond.

6. He supports the arts, instead of attacking them as Giuliani did.

5. Fuck Critical Mass. A bunch of spoiled, self-righteous kids who think they're striking a blow against… something, by indulging their free-floating aggression toward everyone and tying up neighborhoods. If they can't stop at red lights, take their bikes and slap them with citations.

4. Unlike Giuliani, who tried to shut down and sell off the city's community gardens, Bloomberg has been a champion of open space, reclaiming traffic lanes for de facto parks around Times Square, Herald Square, Madison Square Park, the Lower East Side and elsewhere. He's closed down Park Ave. during the summer and was key to rescuing the High Line. His planning commissioner, Amanda Burden, has waged war on overdesigned developments that would have disfigured neighborhoods, and works constantly to increase New Yorkers' access to waterways.

3. The Nanny State. I don't care what people say, using government to direct people away from habits that are bad for them is 100% awesome. I don't believe those studies that say posting calorie counts doesn't work - I've myself been surprised to find out how many calories certain foods contain, and grateful for the info that helped me avoid them. And the trans-fat ban is great for fighting obesity. Fuck "free choice" - you think you had free choice at age 13 when Joe Camel convinced you and your friends that it would be cool to adopt a deadly, addictive habit?

2. So: the smoking ban. If nothing else, this alone would make Mike Bloomberg a national hero. Don't you like not having to strip off your clothes, enclose them in a hazmat bag and drop them straight off at the cleaners after a night at a bar? Notice how it's spread to other cities and states, and even longtime smokers' bastions like Ireland and Italy? That, plus high taxes on cigarettes that come closer to paying the true cost smoking and smokers impose on society has nearly driven smoking onto New York's endangered species list, where it belongs, and strongly discouraged underage smoking when people have the least ability to resist adopting self-destructive habits.

1. He kept us from going under after 9/11, as many expected. Not caring about politics, he forced an austerity budget on the city and an 18% property tax hike - which he ended as soon as the budget was in the clear.

I got a lot of impressive applications (I apologize if I haven't been able to respond to you individually yet) and I've asked a few to be guest night editors. There'll be a few more over the next week or two. If you'd like to be one of them, the new #openmicnights tag page (I tried to explain our open forums here) is the place to show off your talents.

So, here's the plan for the #openmicnights forum: First, you need a commenter account. (If you don't have one, register for one and leave a comment below saying you'd like to try out and I'll approve your account.) I'd like to see you write your best example of a Gawker post using the "Share" box on the #openmicnights tag page: a snappy headline, compelling lede and sharply written item. Also, since there are tools to upload images and video, I'm looking for an eye for visuals. Lastly, be sure to include the #openmicnights hashtag so that your post appears on the tag page.

You will be graded based on quality of writing, timeliness, copy editing and ability to follow these instructions. In short, I'm looking for writing polished enough that we could run it on the front page.

The stage is yours. Have a blast.

Image via Thomas Hawk's Flickr

We're changing up Gawker's night shift a bit. Ryan Tate was an expert one-man band when he established night editor position, working from night til dawn, monitoring night-time television and the morning's breaking news. It may be too much to expect one person to duplicate him, so we're going to try splitting the gig into two half-shifts:

Early shift Early is relative, of course, as it'll run from, say, 8pm to midnight EST, Sunday through Thursday. Much of what we post on the site during that time is based on what's happening on TV, so the focus of the gig would be monitoring news and chat shows and finding clips and posting commentary as it airs. Of course, news can happen any time — juicy tips arrive around the clock, old media orgs are still fond of posting their biggest storiess at night — this person needs to be able to handle breaking news.

Late shift This shift would run from around 2am to 6am EST, also Sunday through Thursday. These hours are grueling hours for someone in New York, so it would be particularly well-suited for someone in the U.K., Australia or the West Coast. The main focus is making sure that Gawker has a jump on the major stories of the day by the time we're waking up in NYC. Writing experience is vital, as is a strong voice and news judgment.

If you're interested in either position, please email me at gabriel@gawker.com with a convincing argument for why you're right for the job. Be sure to say which shift you're applying for.

Image via DbS Count Zero's flickr

In the four years since comments were introduced on Gawker Media sites (yes, there was a time before comments), your tireless editors have always had a sort of love-hate relationship with the people who are kind enough to take the time to scrutinize our every move. As much as it can drive you batty to try and run an editorial operation in front of an audience of hecklers, our readers also supply the site with some of its best wit and tips. Traditionally the way we've heard from you is either through our tipline or in comments, and then one of your editors has decided whether something is worthy for the site.

Now there's a third way: we're throwing open the site to anyone who wants to publish anything.

The basic way this works is that you can type a comment, upload a photo, or embed a video into that box up top and it will be published on the site wherever you choose by giving it a Twitter-style hashtag. So, got a news tip or link? Tag it #tips and it will show up here. If you saw someone famous, use #stalker and it will go straight to the Gawker Stalker page. Or you can use your own tags. Got something to say about Anna Wintour, send it to the #annawintour page. Have an internal memo to post, tag it #internalmemos. Or make up your own. We're trying to learn to stop worrying and love the chaos.

While this all sounds fairly anarchic (it is), the hierarchical commenting system still applies. If you're not an approved commenter, your posting has to be approved by an editor, moderator, or star commenter and the two-tier system applies to these tag pages, too. And, as always, trouble-makers will be banned. There's a revised Commenter FAQ if you want to brush up.

Oh! And I almost forgot to add: there's now a very cool, long-requested new notification function. When someone responds to one of your comments, there will be a little box on the top of the home page that says "You have TK new replies" and will link you to them. One more: Also long-requested, under "Settings" in your profile, you can set your default comment view to see just the featured comments or all of them as well as whether you'd like to see them in newest first or oldest first. Just click your name at the top of the page to visit your profile.

If you notice bugs, please let us know in comments. Today should be fun.

Our video editor Richard Blakeley is looking for interns who can ferret out the newsworthy, entertaining and absurd moments from the hours of infotainment that fills our DVRs every day in exchange for resume-enhancing video editing experience.

The schedule is flexible but requires a minimum of 15 hours a week over the course of four months and you must be able to come work in our NYC-based office. College internship credit available to those who qualify. Please email Richard at tvinternship@gawker.com and convince him how much you love TV. No attachments, please.

Photo via YivaS's flickr.

(Normal this-may-be-a-fake-Twitter-account disclaimers apply) Update: It's real! A rep for Jared just confirmed the news for us.

See it's quite possible that the Trumps and the Kushners really don't like each other. Supposedly the Donald is upset because J-rad's dad was in jail for being a shady real estate mogul. And the Kushners didn't like that Ivanka is not, er, of the tribe. But perhaps all is mended now that the pair, who have been together about two years, have proved their commitment to each other and Ivanka has been dutifully becoming a Jew.

Aha! And for his part, the Donald has blessed the union, telling Us Weekly: "I'm very happy about it. They make a magnificent couple." A "source" tells that magazine "The ring is stunning!" We believe it.

We also now tingle with anticipatory horror thinking about what sort of New York clusterfuck of a wedding these two are going to cobble together. Hopefully they'll announce the date and location with a lot of notice, so we have time to get the hell out of town.

Image via Splash

Also, I'm going to be promoting and demoting threads today like crazy. Giving gold stars, taking away gold stars (hey, more antisemitism accusations! Hee.). But you're not allowed to make meta jokes, because that's boring, and I'll demote for that. Other thing I'll demote for: sucking. Something I'll promote for: being awesome! And that's how the new comments system works.

One final thing: I'm on the lookout for good blog posts from other places. Remember blogs? They're still out there! You see something, say something.

Now, after all that food posting, aren't you hungry? Let me know how your Free Slurpee Crusades To End World Starvation are going. Also, $500 to anyone with photographic proof of Ruth Madoff getting a free Slurpee. I'm serious.

It's all going down during a one hour special on Monday. Many people suspect they're going to announce their divorce, because Jon recently got caught maybe-cheating and Kate is also maybe-cheating and is a mean, mean lady. That the delicate pair are making this watershed life change on television should surprise no one who's participated in this failing American experiment in the past decade or so. Sigh.

But then again, maybe it's not a divorce! What do you think?

I landed here via a long, strange lineage representing Gawker of yore: one time Emily Gould banned me as a commenter on this very site. Sometime after, I started a blog parsing the exploits of Gawker mascot Andrew Krucoff, and his blog, Young Manhattanite. Krucoff soon adopted me as his son, and I started writing silly things for YM. Not long after that, former Gawker managing editor Chris Mohney - who got his gig with Gawker by starting the original Gawker-following blog, Gawkerist - hired me at BlackBook when I stopped bringing "daddy home the bacon" for AK. And after writing for founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers at Flavorwire, onetime Gawker editor Alex Balk at Radar (3.0), and again for Balk and two-time Gawker editor Choire Sicha at The Awl, I'm here. Sometime between all that was some silly Vanity Fair article, a few entertainment industry gigs, and that one time I got really drunk and threw a bunch of marbles down Nick Denton's stairs. Hello, new boss!

(I was told to put a Laurel Tobey joke here, but I'm politely declining.)

Essentially: I'm a Deliverance-level inbreed of New York's media scene, and now, I'm here. I'd butterfly my own credibility further, but we've got an entire weekend to do that! I'm a college dropout, I know nothing about this silly Internet business and I like rap music. At some point I might freak out and take a bunch of drugs. If you don't want me to die working Denton's brunch shift, be sure to send in tips and the like. Let's get started, shall we? We can break some news, we can bring the ruckus, and we can be heroes just for one (or two) day(s).

This'll be fun.

That sounds like a fun kind of time capsule. I had honestly forgotten about the Valley Girl craze. Do you remember that craze? Wait. Didn't everyone hate that craze? Wasn't it the basis for like, a million jokes that festered and died around 1998? I think so. But, oh well. If Mad Men is any indication people really like searing period dramas, which the new show is bound to be.

Rufus will not be making any appearances, at least not immediately. But there will be a sister character. The pilot will air on May 11th, as a stand-alone episode of Gossip Girl. Much like when they did that 11-year-long preview episode for the eventual Frasier series. So aren't you so excited?

Maybe Kelly Rutherford, who plays grownup Lily vandervee on GG could make a cameo as Future Lily. She's currently stuck in LA anyway, and if her nasty custody battle goes on any longer, she might be written off the show. So she'll need the work. Yowsers and yikes.

A young man, let's call him Ben even though that isn't actually what his name is, writes to our cruel-yet-cuddly overlord, Nick Denton:

Nick,

Have to thank you for something you aren't even aware of yet being responsible for. Last week I got engaged to my girlfriend of a few years. Your part in this? we met through the Denton media empire. [She] was a peripatetic commenter on Gawker. I read Gawker but spent most of my time on Deadspin. Reading her comments always made me laugh, so I followed a link to her blog. We corresponded, met for drinks, fell in love, moved in together and are now planning to marry. Life is good, and a tip of my hat to you, sir.

Cockles! Warmed! Congrats you two. Shine on like crazy diamonds or rubies or complete each other or whatever it is. We're still going to be here, typing away forever.

I made two turkey sandwiches to bring in to work, to cut down on my personal lunch overhead. Then I got to the office and heard... rumors. Were these rumors true, I asked my new boss? As it turned out, they were!

Still, I accidentally cried when he informed me of the termination of our mutually mercenary arrangement in the see-through glass box of a conference room. I was surprised by how much I cared. I mention this scene not because it is mine, but because it is wholly unremarkable, and it is being played out in workplaces across the country right now. (Two million jobs lost in 2008, says the Wall Street Journal.)

I hung out with one of my best high school friends over Christmas. Ron and I spent a good amount of time living in a van during the years we had a band together. Despite years of fighting "the shop"—that is, going to work on the line at General Motors—he's been there for a while now, making good money while going to school. He's just been laid off, at least temporarily. His coworker, an older woman, told him, "If something bad happens to me while I'm at work, drag me outside. Just drag me outside. I don't want the last thing I see to be the ceiling of this factory."

"OK," he told her. "If you're really serious, I'll do it. Just let me know that you're serious, because a bunch of people will be pissed at me if you go down and I drag you outside. But I will do it."

Tier 1 autoworkers make about $25 an hour, not the $70 that is often reported. Their deal with the devil is being worried about the factory ceiling being the last thing to see if you happen to die on the job—or keeling over the the vegetable patch after cashing that first pension check. I guess that's why they call it "work, and other sins."

I was lucky to spend a year being a smart-ass for a living, although it would be irrationally hubristic to view Internet news-aggregating and the snark-blogging fishbowl as anything more than a Dadaist experiment. Still, it's been more fun than most jobs should ever be—and thanks for the shot.

I enjoyed making Hills videos, harassing Keith Gessen, pissing off Julia Allison, and comparing the defacing of Sienna Miller's house to Passover. I covered the best election ever. I missed work because I was in jail, resorted to benzos to maintain my sanity after the Bellevue incident, stormed out of work in a huff, and finally took off my pants.

Where was I?

Oh right. I do have one thing to thank Nick Denton for. When he assigned me a piece, titled "We Have Seen the Future of Internet Microfame, and It Looks Anonymous," I called the subject of said item—who I didn't know and had never met—a blog 1.0 washout and wondered aloud if he had "been eaten by the Internet." Denton suggested I use the descriptor "supertan," so I added that too. God, I was such a bitch!

Then I met the guy in my writing class, sort-of apologized, and, anyway, now he is totally my boyfriend. Aww! The lesson here: mindlessly throwing e-bricks at people you don't know can occasionally pay off. So Nick: thanks or whatever. (Don't feel bad; I know it was a total accident.)

Anyway, here is a list of some people I like, in no particular order: Ian Spiegelman, Choire, Hamilton, Pareene, Ryan Tate, Richard/Lolcait, Blakeley, Super Squats, Doree, Josh Stein, Neal Boulton, David Carr even though he won't add me as a friend on Facebook, and my shrink. And obviously, of course, the commenters!

(I also made a list of the people I didn't like. But it was too long!)

Well, it's time to go. I got a friend who's gonna teach me how to mix drinks, so don't worry about me.

See you at the Holiday, everyone.

I remain yours, respectfully,

Sheila

[photo: Michael Menard]

• Ellen

Amy is a Bostonian-turned-Angeleno who graduated from the journalism program at the University of Southern California last spring. During college, where she was one of the rare pale-skinned brunettes, she had a column in the school newspaper entitled “Fish of Out Water” in which she wrote about finding her way in L.A. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, where she interviewed Sting and penned profiles of the likes of Mandy Moore and Kat Von D. She recently finished a stint at the Wall Street Journal, covering topics including a potential California state ban on helium-filled foil balloons (you know, the ones shaped like Hannah Montana sold at hospital gift shops) to the trials of the modern-day ‘indie’ musician.

Please give Amy a warm welcome! One last thing while we've got your undivided attention. You may have heard this already, but after months of hard work and dedication on the part of our design and tech department, we are introducing — wait for it — threaded comments sometime later today. What does that mean, exactly? Follow us after the jump for a long-winded explanation. MORE >>

What's threaded commenting?

Threading is a way to make comments read more like conversations instead of a bunch of disconnected single replies. Now, when someone says something interesting enough to get replies from other readers, all those replies will appear directly below the original comment. Each of these blocks is called a "thread"—kind of like in Gmail.

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.

Click the arrow on the lower right side to open a reply input box directly underneath the comment—there's no need to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to reply.

Once your reply publishes, you'll notice that like in an IM conversation, your avatar will appear on the right.

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.

What happens when you reply to a reply? Why aren't threads indented like in most tech forums, like Digg?

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, the avatar will switch sides again—like in an IM conversation. All even numbered nested replies (second, fourth, etc.) will appear on the left side, while odd numbered replies will be on the right. Second and third level replies will also be collapsed.

Are threads still displayed 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. Your friends will show up with 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. Commenter admins also hand out stars to commenters who may not have 40 followers, but illuminate our lives with flashes of brilliance.

Ack, change scares me. 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.

More info when it goes live at 11am!