On September 1, WYPR will be shutting down the comments section on our website, and we want to let you know why, and how you can best continue to comment and share your feedback online with us and other listeners.

With this move, WYPR is following the lead of NPR.org and many journalism organizations in shifting the conversation about stories and reporting away from the website to social media.

Our website comments section has not provided the kind of useful forum for discussion that is now carried on more easily in places like Facebook and Twitter. Specifically, the comments section has proved cumbersome for users; it is underused, tends to facilitate anonymous commenting, and requires a fair amount of time to maintain. In the meantime, we've found our listening audience is more frequently interacting with us and other listeners on established social media.

NPR has a good, thorough explanation of this decision, which mirrors much of our own local station experience, here.

We're reluctant to give up any avenue for feedback, but we feel we'll better serve our listening and online community by focusing our attention where the discussion is already most vibrant.

It's always important for WYPR to hear from listeners. Your comments and feedback are critical to the mission of public radio.  We encourage you to continue the discussion on our Facebook page and through Twitter.