Probably our most desired new feature and the one we’re most proud of is the Talkbacks area. Each news story will now have a discussion area for comments, questions, and the like. We hope this will do a few things for us: First of all, it will allow you to ask questions regarding items in the story that others may be able to answer quicker than us (while at the same time eliminating some of the e-mail clutter). They’re also intended just as an area where items can be discussed amongst the most important folks out in the Askewniverse: the fans.

We’ve created VIP slots for all the key players in View Askew, so if a name’s in RED, you know they’re the real deal. Anyone pretending to be someone from View Askew or a direct affiliate of ours that does NOT post in red is an impostor. That being said, if you think yourself a candidate for this, and we have not already gotten a special password to you, please let us know and we’ll get you set up.

At presstime, “RED” posters will be as follows: Kevin (Kevin Smith), Vincent (Vincent Pereira), Deadshot (Jason Mewes), Ben (Ben Affleck), Brian_Lynch (Brian Lynch), CartoonGuy (Chris Bailey), DanteHicks (Brian O’Halloran) and, of course, Brad & Chris (us). We can’t promise if ANY of these folks will show up, mind you, but their accounts are there and can be used anytime they’d like.

Some talkback areas are allowed to run rampant with continuous nonsense and flaming. We will stand for no such thing. These areas are meant for fun, sure, but there are limits. We’re not going to censor bad language or your right to an opinion (positive OR negative), but we do have the right to remove anything that we find offensive or inappropriate. We also can suspend and ban accounts at any time, and this goes for the first offense. We want Talkbacks to be a place everyone can go and enjoy, not a dumping ground for flaming and other garbage.

A word of caution: Talkback posting will be a bit time consuming since our news database has to completely regenerate for each item posted. The wait is not due to transfer speeds or modem speeds, simply for the amount of data that must be processed when a post takes place (the front page must be updated to indicate that your comment was posted). We apologize for that, and hope that the slight speed problems won’t discourage you from posting once in a while.

So, what are you waiting for? Go get your name reserved in the Talkbacks area! It’s important, by the way, that you register with a proper e-mail address. If not, any password problems or other issues relating to your ID will not be taken care of, and it’s possible if you ever forgot your password that you might lose your ID forever. So please be careful. Talkback DOES include an e-mail address suppression feature if you would like your address to remain private. This feature is available to every user.

Okay, so ya got it? Alright then, get talking!