We’re unveiling a new feature for registered LGF users — the dreaded nefarious CommentSpy. The link shows up in your login panel at the top of the left sidebar.

When you click that link, a new window opens displaying the most recent 10 comments posted in all front page articles and all spinoff links. The list is automatically updated every three seconds; if new comments have been posted, they appear at the top of the list and push the oldest ones off the bottom, in a sort of rotating queue, so there are never more than 10 comments displayed.

The commenter’s username is shown at the top of each comment, followed by the thread in which it was posted and an excerpt of the comment (minus any HTML formatting). The username is a direct link to show the comment in full, and the thread title is a link to that thread.

It’s extremely cool to watch the comments coming in as they’re posted in all the LGF threads, in close to real time.

But wait! There’s more!

There’s also a new link at the bottom right of each front page article, labeled “spy.” This lets you use the CommentSpy to watch comments being posted for a specific thread, instead of for all threads.

Again, you won’t see any of these CommentSpy links unless you’re logged in. I may experiment with opening it up to unregistered users (who can read the comments anyway), but that may place too heavy a burden on the database server hamsters.

This is still a beta version (b3) and there may be bugs, and there are features still to be added, but it’s working well enough to release to the lizard hordes for further testing and fun. Have at it.