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To our users

We're making a change to our article comments and discussion forums this week, and are very excited to introduce a new feature: Personal profile pages for all of our registered users.

First, article comments:

There will be a couple of changes to our article comments starting on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 1:

• You'll be able to recommend comments you like with one click
• You'll be able to sort the comments so that those that have received the most recommendations are on top
• If you're registered on Boston.com and have a screen name, you'll have an image, or avatar, that represents you and will appear beside every comment you make on the site. A generic default image will appear at first, but you can upload another image you like.

One important note: All article comments that are currently on the site will disappear when we make the changeover Tuesday afternoon. We'll start anew when the ability to comment on articles is returned Wednesday afternoon.

Next, personal profiles:

This is your page.

Everything that you contribute on Boston.com - a comment in a Red Sox forum, an opinion on a Globe article - will be collected and displayed here.

This is also where you'll upload an image to be displayed with your comments, fill out information about yourself, and link to friends.

And you can choose to make your profile public or private - it's up to you.

Personal profiles also will debut Wednesday afternoon.

Finally, the forums:

About a year ago, we introduced new discussion forums on Boston.com, switching from one company to another. Your reaction was mixed, to put it mildly. Nonetheless, the most loyal among you stuck with us, and eventually grew accustomed to the new format.

However, we heard your complaints and took them to heart. For several months, we have been reviewing other companies that provide forums, and found one that meets our needs and your preferences.

So we're switching again, and as before, the changeover is going to take several days. We're moving thousands of discussions and comments, and syncing everything up with our registration system. So we have to take the forums off the site while we do this work. Our plan is to re-launch with the new forums on Friday afternoon.

Here's what the new forums will feature:

• Ignore this user. Somebody posting annoying comments you don't want to see? Click this link and you won't see their comments anymore.
• Unread comments. You'll see a gold star beside any discussion that has new comments since the last time you visited. And clicking the star will bring you to the point in the discussion where you left.
• Search. You'll be able to search for words that appear in discussion titles and comments, as well as for particular screen names.
• Avatars.Your image, or avatar, will appear in the forum discussions, too.
• Clickable screen names. Your screen name will click through to your Personal Profile page (see above).

We remember well how difficult the previous transition was, and we're determined to make this one go more smoothly. We're also confident that the new forums will be more to your liking.

We'll continue to add more features in the coming months. And as we do, we'd like to hear from you. Just drop us a line at feedback@boston.com with your reactions to what we've done so far, and your suggestions for improvements.

We listened to you before, and we always will.

Sincerely,

Teresa M. Hanafin
Director of Community Publishing
Boston.com