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What You Need to Know

• Commenting is easier than ever.
• You can now comment beneath all articles.
• We’re stopping the use of Discussion pages until we can evaluate whether they have a future role on the site.
• We welcome your feedback and suggestions here. Mahalo!

Why We Made the Change

Since launch, we’ve been passionate about giving our readers a place to voice their opinions. We began with our discussion section, where readers shared thoughtful opinions about Hawaii’s most important issues. As far as commenting on the web, you could tell right away that we were on to something different. The debate was lively — and civil.

But we thought more of you wanted to participate, and we wanted to include as wide a range of voices on Civil Beat as possible.

In July, we adopted Facebook comments. Now readers could share as long as they had a Facebook account that displayed their name and profile photo. The change attracted lots of new faces and opinions — exactly what we were hoping for.

But we were still hearing from our readers that comments on the site were tricky. People wondered why some Civil Beat articles allowed for commenting underneath, while others still sent them to a discussion page related to the topic of the article. We couldn’t blame readers for their confusion.

So now Civil Beat is offering commenting underneath each article. Just scroll down to the bottom of anything you’re reading and you’ll find a discussion you can begin or join.

Among the benefits of this approach is that Facebook’s commenting system has a notification system that will alert you when new comments are made in a discussion you’re participating in. Click on “Follow Post” underneath someone’s comment and never miss an update. You also can reply to specific comments and create conversation threads that are easy to follow.

We hope the changes help you navigate the conversations on Civil Beat more easily! Thanks for reading!