Streetsblog Commenters, Unite!

Regular readers will notice something new and different across all our sites starting today.

Currently, some of the posts you see on the local Streetsblog sites — New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Capitol Hill — actually originated on a different Streetsblog site and are being syndicated.

Starting today, you’ll see a little icon, like the one pictured at right, to let you know where the post was first published.

Why is this important to you as a reader? Well, when you click on the post now, you will be taken to the originating site. Same goes for clicking to view or contribute to comments.

The best part of this is that all comments will now be collected in one place. If you’re reading the New York site and want to comment on one of Elana Schor’s Streetsblog Capitol Hill pieces about federal policy, for instance, you’ll be doing so in the same place as readers of the LA and SF blogs.

In addition, all of the Streetsblog Network posts, which I write daily, will originate on the Streetsblog.net site — where you’ll also find links to nearly 400 independent member blogs around the country.

We hope that this will help to make the conversation among our commenters even richer and more rewarding.

We want your feedback on the new system. So please, if you have any questions, suggestions or complaints, you can leave them — for everyone — in the comments.