MassLive has consistently been at the forefront of community engagement since the site launched in 1998, offering readers a chance to have their say first in Forums - with topics ranging from community news to various high school sports - and then in the comments section of stories starting in 2012.

The goal has always been to give the communities we cover a voice, to ensure that public opinion was indeed public, and to encourage civil debate.

We recognize that those conversations weren’t always perfect, and could often be negative, and our efforts to screen comments for personal attacks, profanity or off-topic remarks weren’t always successful. We did our best to make the comments a place for everyone, but that effort increasingly drained newsroom resources, and offered diminishing returns in terms of the quality of the conversations on our site.

Much has changed in the more than 20 years since the site launched, and while there were very few places for readers to connect online in 1998, in 2020 social media is ubiquitous with daily life. The conversation has moved to social media, and we’ve made the decision to move with our readers, and eliminate comments on MassLive this Thursday, Feb. 20 at 6 a.m.

While comments will no longer be available on MassLive, engagement with the communities we cover remains central to our journalistic mission.

Readers will still be able to comment on the many stories we post daily on Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms. Send us a private message to alert us to news tips or simply comment on our work via Facebook messenger on either our main Facebook page or our Worcester Facebook page.

We also encourage submissions for letters to the editor, which will be considered for publication both on MassLive and in print in The Republican.

As always, you can click the byline on any story to email that reporter. You can reach me via email at ed.kubosiak@masslive.com or voice at 413-731-2478. And we are posting a story addressing frequently asked questions with more information on how to contact us and to answer any questions readers may have about the change.

We want to thank the many people who took the time to contribute thoughtful, enlightening comments on our stories over the years.

We greatly appreciate all the excellent story suggestions and valuable news tips you provide. Your toughest criticisms are often well deserved and have helped make us a better news organization.

While many readers will no doubt celebrate the loss of comments on the website, we are aware that others will be upset over losing this source of conversation.

A very small group of readers has had a disproportionately negative impact on the tone of many of the conversations we host on MassLive over the past several years. And numerous readers told us they stopped contributing to the comments because they feared the personal backlash that could ensue.

Across all 11 Advance Local websites — which serve 50 million visitors in an average month — just over 2,300 people produce more than half of the comments.

Some news sites have tackled this problem by continuing to invest in expensive moderation systems that too often struggle to stop inappropriate posts. We did as well, in an effort to supplement our in-house staff. But it became increasingly apparent that outside monitoring wasn’t a permanent solution for us.

We’re following in the footsteps of many other news operations that have dropped comments, including National Public Radio, Reuters and The Atlantic.

Again, readers will still be able to comment publicly on our coverage via social media. MassLive’s main Facebook page publishes hundreds of posts each week and provides a high-quality venue for readers and our journalists to engage. Our dedicated Worcester, New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox and High School Sports pages also host great conversations.

You can also engage with reporters on Twitter or follow our main accounts at @MassLiveNews and @MassLiveHS.

Thank you to all of our loyal readers for your continued support of MassLive. Your loyalty has made it one of the largest digital news sources in New England and helped us win recognition from our peers as the best news website in New England in 2019 at the recent New England Newspaper & Press Association awards.

We promise we’ll continue to work hard to deliver the great journalism you expect from us every day, and we look forward to continuing to hear from you.

Ed Kubosiak Jr. is Vice President of Content for MassLive. Contact him at ed.kubosiak@masslive.com or 413-731-2478.

Please take a moment to help inform our engagement decisions and strategy through this user survey.