Hello dagsters. Several weeks ago, longtime dag reader California Paige suggested that dagblog should add a "reader comment interface." I was very keen on this suggestion and enthusiastically promoted it to the whole dag crew. The whole dag crew was open to the idea, but some of us were troubled by the fact that we didn't know what a reader comment interface was. So we scratched our virtual heads and engaged in a tedious semantic debate over the term "interface" until Orlando came up with the brilliant idea of asking Paige what she meant.

What Paige meant, according to Paige (who is not entirely unbiased), was this: "A way for readers to leave comments that aren't specific to a blog post -- so either a general, open-thread sort of thing or some sort of reader blogs."

Ask and ye shall receive, though ye might have to wait patiently until Genghis has time to code it for ye. But the waiting is over. At long last, "some sort of reader blogs" have arrived at dagblog. Commence rejoicing.

Now I know what many of you are wondering: "What the heck is a reader blog?" An excellent question; I'm glad that you asked. A reader blog is your opportunity to write about whatever it is that you'd like to write about--Rwandans in Congo, African-Americans in the White House, cockroaches in your underwear, whatevs. Just keep it clean. Relatively clean. No racist rants or fart jokes please. Racist fart jokes are way, way out. We reserve the right to delete you, ban you, and ridicule you, in no particular order.

Anyway, quit reading this post and start writing your own. If you're logged in, just click the link on the top left that says helpfully, "Create reader blog entry." If you're not logged in, then get logged in. Yes, I'm talking to you, anonymous not-logged-in person.

PS Once some of you blog, we'll list the latest reader posts in the right column. If we find a post we particularly like, we'll stick it on the front page. I assure you that this is a great honor.