Coming to Kotaku, reading a story then reading another one is easy, but there's more to this site than the obvious. You can comment, share and create your own content. You can even filter content according to taste. And more. Here's how. We've picked up a lot of new readers over the past year, especially in the wake of E3. For those newcomers, think of this as your introduction to Kotaku! For old-timers, who know that we're still only a few months into a fairly major redesign, think of this as a primer on some of the sideshows of the site you may not be familiar with. KOTAKU IS FOR EVERYONE First things first. Kotaku is for everyone. Regardless of race, gender or sexuality, this is a place you should feel welcome. Remember that when you're reading stories you may not see on other gaming sites, and remember that when you go to comment on a story and interact with readers. GET INVOLVED Commenting on Kotaku is...different. You can sign into the site using your Google, Facebook or Twitter account, which in turn will prompt you to generate your own Kinja account. It's via this account that you can not only comment, but also blog (more on that later). If you're not cool with that, that's OK; you can also create what we call a "burner" account, which is an anonymous account untied to any of the major social networks. You can read more about burner accounts here. Once you're logged in, you can comment by scrolling to the bottom of a post and doing one of two things. You can either create your own discussion topic by clicking the "DISCUSS" button, or you can find an existing discussion and click the speech bubble (pictured above). The actual commenting screen looks like this: One last thing: stars. Next to comments, you'll see a little star. These are designed to allow users to elevate a discussion, as recommended comments are more likely to be near the top. With great power comes great responsibility, so we'd hope readers use this feature - which is not the same as a Facebook "like" - wisely. WE TALK ABOUT MORE THAN JUST GAMES This is a site for people who like video games. Most of the time that means we cover, yes, video games, but other times we'll branch out and cover stuff we think you'll find funny/interesting/cool. Every day, for example, we run a block of stories we call "Kotaku East", a slice of what's hot in online discussions in Japan, China, Korea and beyond. If you want to read those stories, cool! If not - or if you don't want to read any other stuff we post that isn't strictly related to video games - that's still cool. We've got something for you called "Kotaku Core". Bookmark/visit this link and you'll only see stories related directly to video games. BIG STORIES, LONG READING We don't just serve up quickfire news. You can find "Kotaku Selects", a collection of our best original work, here. If you want to settle in with a cup of tea for a long piece of reporting or interviews, you can find those here. If you want to see our editorial opinion pieces, those can be found here. THE BEST...AROUUUNDDD New to a system? Need some new games? We curate a list of what we, as a group, feel are the best titles available for each major platform. You can check it out here. If you disagree, or want to know what our individual recommendations are, well... TALK TO US! The staff of Kotaku are always here for questions, feedback and comments. You can find a full list of our contact details (email, Twitter, Facebook) here. In addition to individual details, you can reach everyone on the site at once by emailing tips@kotaku.com. As you might have guessed, that's also the best place to send us anonymous tips! We've also set up a new email address: feedback@kotaku.com. While we do our best to stay on top of comment moderation, the fact is with millions of readers and only a handful of writers, we can't see everything. So if you see a hateful, spiteful or just plain trolling comment in your travels, use that address and a little silver comment moderation bell will ring. TAGS While you're reading a story, you'll see little white boxes underneath the author's photograph. Those are our tags. You'll only see one by default; hover your mouse over it and you'll see all of them. Click on one and you'll be taken to every story we've written that deals with that subject. Those pages can then be bookmarked, so you can stay on top of specific coverage, whether it be related to a single platform or something like indie games or mods. SHARING Hypothetical: Imagine you finish reading a story here that was so good, or at least so stupid, that you wanted to share it with your friends. That's easy. At the bottom of every story is a little "command bar". Clicking on the star "recommends" the story. Clicking the arrow next to it opens a drop-down menu bar that lets you share the story via Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. KOTAKU IS NOT JUST A WEBSITE You can read us on Kotaku. Like, this site. Kotaku. But you can also keep up with us on various other networks. We've got a Facebook page where we share our best/coolest content, and a Twitter account that does much the same thing. In addition to those, we've also got a Tumblr site, which is a little different. We'll share some stuff we post on the main site, yeah, but it's also a place we can share content that may not make it to a front page post on Kotaku, but which we still think is cool. Finally, here's our YouTube page. It's not a dumping ground for trailers; instead, it's where we keep our original videos, whether they be interviews, impressions or something else. YOU TOO CAN WRITE FOR KOTAKU (SORT OF) Kinja, our new publishing platform, gives every registered user their own website. This site doesn't just collect your comments, but lets you write your own stories as well. Here's mine, for example. Why bother? Well, we've got a reader community set up for people to blog on. But the platform also means we can easily share and promote other stories written on Kinja. So if you write a particularly interesting opinion piece, or share some hot scoop, or present a compelling counter to one of our arguments, we can quickly and easily put that post on our front page, complete with your byline, where millions of people will see it. THE MENU Up the top of the page, you'll see this menu bar. It does a few neat things. Let's take a look. That red bubble over a portrait icon is your notifications centre. It's where replies to your comments, or posts, are shown. The magnifying glass opens a search bar, where you can search the site for whatever you want. Next to that, the pencil, that'll create a new post on your personal Kinja page. There's a part in the middle that shows you which stories on the site are currently the most popular, and will also show you how many people are reading it right now. Clicking on the arrow next to it will open a drop-down menu showing the top ten. Finally, you'll see a little arrow next to the Kotaku logo. That opens another drop-down menu, giving you quick links to not just the other sites on the Gawker network, but also our most important sub-sites/tags on Kotaku. GLOBETAKU There are various international versions of Kotaku which give you Kotaku with a more local flavour. But if you're in, say, Australia, or Japan, or Brazil, and want to visit this site instead of the local variant, the easiest way to get around automatic redirects is to visit this page, then bookmark it. It'll take you to the global site. GO, READ! That about does it! Hopefully this has opened your eyes to some of the cooler, smaller features we've got under the hood here. So go forth, read about video game stuff, and if you're feeling up to it, comment about it. Just make sure to be excellent to each other while you're doing it. Howtu is Kotaku's guide on how to get the most out of your gaming.