By David Topping

You probably noticed that, over the weekend, Torontoist got a brand new commenting system. (That was after a week of comments barely working, and several months before that of comments working intermittently.) Now, Disqus is powering your comments—you can see it below any and every Torontoist entry, including ones from way back in our archives. You probably have questions.

What’s better about Disqus?
You can find out a lot more about Disqus here, but a few things to start:
Commenting is easier. Faster—almost instantaneous. If you’ve commented on Torontoist before, you should notice a big difference in everything from how long it takes you to log in to comment, to how long it takes for your comment to be successfully submitted.
You can comment using your Facebook and Twitter, too, if you want to. You don’t have to. If you create a Disqus login (rather than piggybacking off your Facebook and Twitter account), you’ll be able to use it throughout the internet—NOW and Aux.TV, to give two examples, both use Disqus for their comments.
You can do more with comments, like “Like” them, as well as sort them by how well-liked they are. (There’s a button below each reply to either reply to or “Like” that comment, and a drop-down menu above all of the comments that lets you re-order them how you’d like to.)
You can watch comments flow in real time, without having to refresh the page, if you turn “real-time updating” on, and then sit and stare at your screen for a while.

Why’d Torontoist switch to it now?
Gothamist, that company that runs the network of city blogs that Torontoist is affiliated with—they provide our hosting and backend support—made the switch to Disqus across all their sites this weekend. (Some, like Chicagoist, had already been using it for a month.) In a note published on many of those sites on Tuesday, Gothamist publisher Jake Dobkin explained that, in addition to the benefits of Disqus, “we’ve also become concerned about holding commenter login information, which could potentially be misused if we were ever hacked.” It’s happened elsewhere

How do I merge my Disqus account with my previous Torontoist commenting account?
If you’re a long-time commenter, you probably want your commenting history to stay intact. And we know that, above the comments of any entry right now, it says you can merge your previous Torontoist account with your new Disqus one to do exactly that. But actually, you can’t—yet. “You’ll be able to claim your older comments pretty soon,” explains Dobkin. “You’ll see a message in Disqus, and we’ll let you know when they’re ready for merging.”

I like it/hate it.
Good! Tell us in our comments below, or better yet, tell Gothamist about it. You can submit feedback directly to them in a form over here. Tell ‘em Torontoist sent you.

I just want to comment on Torontoist again. What do I do now?
Well, for starters, you could always argue about our choices for Toronto’s Heroes and Villains of the year. You love arguing, right?!