Here at Uproxx, we promise a lot of things — affordable robot insurance, an end to child slavery, and a silkier lathering experience — and I’m sure there’ve been plenty of times we haven’t quite followed through. But I’m not here to talk about our failings, the goons at my door would beat me. I’m here to talk successes. Namely, direct messaging. When I asked what you were looking for in a site redesign, the overwhelming response was that you wanted to be able to direct message other commenters like back in the day. We had to do some complex technoficial rejiggering, but now you can.

• To direct message other commenters, just click on their avatar and hit the “SEND MESSAGE” button. Pretty simple, you say? You’re right!

• If someone sends you a message, you’ll be notified by email, so it helps to connect your Uproxx account to an email address that you actually check.

• Another way to check your direct messages is if you’re logged in, you should see a “FILMDRUNK SOCIAL” banner with your avatar in the top right of the page. If you click your screenname, it will take you to your profile page, and from there you can just click the messages tab.

Totally sweet, right? I thought so. Go ahead and move one Uproxx promise into the “KEPT” column. We’ll be following through on the child slave thing any day now, just as soon as we find another way to cool these servers.

Thank your engineers, because I sure as hell had nothing to do with it. I’d be writing this site on a chalkboard at the Y if it weren’t for them.

In honor of our new commenting system (more new features still to come, including threaded replies, badges, and direct messaging), on Tuesday we staged both a caption contest for the above picture for a $150 Amazon Gift Card), and a random drawing (for a $100 gift card).

Our random number generator selected number 42, a comment belonging to Elderberry Hamster — (which, although not caption-contest-winner-worthy, was still a respectable level of funny).

Elderberry Hamster says: The only photo evidence from the Flock of Seagals first and only concert.

Meanwhile, here’s your winner of the caption contest:

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As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve rolled out a new commenting system here on FilmDrunk (and across Uproxx). As evidenced by years of past Comments of the Week posts, we’ve never had trouble getting you to comment, but the system needed an upgrade. The new system allows you to have a universal log-in across all Uproxx sites, the ability to log-in via Twitter and Facebook, and the ability to create detailed profiles with enlargeable avatars. Eventually we’ll even have direct messaging and badges. BADGES!

Still, we’re sorry we made you re-register. And just to make sure this stays the awesome community it is, we’re sweetening the pot to give you even more incentive to register (or re-register) and crack-wise (as if hearing yourself type wasn’t incentive enough).

First, we’re going to randomly select someone. Anyone who registers and comments in the post below will have a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift certificate, chosen at random (if you leave a thousand unfunny comments I’m going to ban you).

Secondly, since what makes FilmDrinking great isn’t a thousand obnoxious, uninformed comments and asinine 13-year-old arguments like YouTube, but quality, clever commenters, we’ll be throwing a caption contest and giving the winner a $150 gift certificate. I tried to throw you a softball, so check out the picture below and give it your best shot.

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Howdy, guys and gals. Here at FilmDrunk, we try to do everything we can to encourage commenting, because we know we have one of the best comment sections on the web. The FilmDrunkards have long made me seem a lot funnier than I actually am. So when we were designing an improved commenting system (and by “we” I mean some engineers, who actually designed stuff while I screeched and threw bananas at them), we went to you first for your input. Improve the comment system or die tryin’, that was our mandate. Hopefully we didn’t f*ck it up too bad. Here’s what’s new:

• A universal login that lets you comment on all the Uproxx sites with having to sign in separately to each one.
• Your own commenter profile, with easily uploaded avatars (no more having to email me to get it approved) and commenting history (that way you can see what commenters have admitted liking in the past as an easy way to invalidate their opinion during arguments)
• The ability to reply to or “like” comments left by others, which may someday streamline the comments of the week nominating process
• The ability to sign in with Twitter or Facebook, or perhaps even future social networks that haven’t yet been invented yet, such as Flitter, and Quackle.

And because you demanded it, we’ll soon be integrating direct messaging between commenters. Here are some features that are coming soon thanks to the new system:

• Direct messaging
• Threaded replying
• Badges for distinguished commenting

The new system should go live sometime tonight, so check it out. The downside is that you may have to re-sign up. After that, it should be smooth sailing. If not, feel free to shout your disapproval and roam the streets cursing my very name.

"Down with Birthday Dog! Lobster Dog is infidel!"

While may have been reading this site for so long that you ceased to notice, like an old lady with her perfume or a family that lives across from the water-treatment plant, but the fact is, our site banner and graphics were pretty janky, and had been for a long time (“janky” is a highly technical word I like to include in all declarations of scientific fact). Our new site design is set to go live tonight (or it already has, depending on what time you’re reading this), and it updates our top site banner in such a way that, how shall I put this… in such a way that it doesn’t look like a blurry piece of crap. The new design:

• Adds a helpful Uproxx navigation bar across the top and links to FilmDrunk features (we’re still working on additional tags that will go there — we should have dedicated  links to Comments of the Week and Latest Comments either there or in the sidebar soon)
• Instead of the old log-in bar across the top above the site banner, now it’s on the right below the search bar. And either way, you can always click “comments” and log in to comment where it says “you must be logged in to post a comment.”
• Wider pictures – yay, 50 more pixels of Sad Keanus, Sandwich Gyllenhaals, and all manner of related corgis!
• No green background. I’m still getting used to all the white.

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