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As I read through 83 some odd comments on the Signal Vs Noise blog tonight I came to the conclusion that comments suck. It’s cool to have an ongoing discussion with your readers or fellow readers but when it turns into a biased bitch fest than what’s the point. It reminds me of my favorite corporate past-time: meetings.

Frankly, I don’t care about your personal opinions on the matter if you are just playing devil’s advocate. Personal opinion has some relevance but having data to back this up goes a lot further. Reading through these comments reminded me of why I quit participating in forums years ago. Sifting through irrelevant content and taking it personally while reading through other people’s comments is a waste of my time and theirs.

This reminds me of a situation discussed in the latest Forbes article on Google’s corporate culture. At Google, when you are participating in a meeting, the person with the best data wins — “In some meetings people aren’t allowed to say “I think … ” but instead must say “The data suggest … ” We’ve all been in meetings where someone with no relevant data or ‘hard’ proof insists that their idea is the only idea. This same atmosphere exists in comment rolls and forums. I don’t care what you think if you can’t prove what you think is right. To me, that’s just common sense.

So, I beg the question… should we include comments? Let us know

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