Why I Removed Comments

I tell my clients: Pick the most important Things you want your visitors to accomplish and focus only on those objectives.

Do you want them to register for a program? Put a form on the page.

Do you want them to share the page with a friend? Provide tools to make that easy.

Do you want them to donate? Remove all other calls to action.

I asked before “Is your organization chasing meaningless metrics?” and now it’s time to ask that of myself. My mission is to empower passionate people within and outside traditional non-profits to create sustainable social good. Do comments serve that function? I’m not convinced they do, so I’m removing them.

There are some useful purposes comments might serve, though. And here are my proposed alternatives.

Discussion – Instead of leaving a comment, post the article to your Facebook or Google+ profile and stimulate the discussion there. Digging into an article with friends and associates will usually be more rewarding and immediate than if you leave a comment for a stranger. It’s also more private.

Questions – If you have a question about the article you want clarified, you can ask it directly to me or ask it to your social network. Contact me through email or Twitter. If you want the question answered in a more public way, you can publish my answer (or our back-and-forth) as an interview on your blog.

It’s my hope that in removing comments, you will not only have a richer experience on this site, but also that you’ll spend your time taking intentional, definitive action to create a better world (instead of leaving another comment). I do hope that you’ll share your story of change with me though.