
Reminds me of that old saying about wrestling with a pig - you both get dirty and the pig likes it.
That's exactly what happens in document comments. Nobody wins, but somehow everybody keeps diving back into the mud.
Every PM has been there - you're putting together the quarterly roadmap deck, or the strategy update, or whatever slice of PowerPoint hell you're currently inhabiting.
Someone leaves a comment. And then... it happens. The COMMENT RESPONSE.
"Actually, this bullet point was specifically requested by..."
"Well, we thought about that, but..."
"The data shows that..."
Comments on documents? They aren't a chat room. They aren't Slack. They aren't your chance to defend your thesis to your dissertation committee. They are feedback about your content.
When someone leaves a comment, you have exactly two options as the author:
Change the content
Don't change the content
That's it. Those are the choices. Notice how "start a comment thread to prove i'm right" isn't on that list?
But a lot of PMs (and let's be honest, a lot of other people too - looking at you Devs) love to turn comments into their own personal Thanksgiving dinner argument.
You've seen it:
Comment: "This section isn't clear - what's the actual timeline?"
Response: "Well, actually, if you look at slide 4..."
Reply: "Yes, but that doesn't address..."
Response to reply: "Let me explain why..."
And suddenly your document looks like a Reddit thread.
Here's the core problem - and this is the part that should keep you up at night as a PM - If you're having to explain your ideas in the comments, your ideas are not clear.
Your deck, your doc, your PRD, your user story, your whatever-it-is should stand on its own. If it doesn't, that's not a comment problem. It's a content problem. It's a YOU problem.
When someone leaves a comment, they're telling you one of two things:
Your content isn't clear enough
They disagree with your content
Neither of those problems gets solved in a comment thread. Ever. In the history of comments.
So what should you do instead?
If the content isn't clear: Make it clearer
If they disagree: Either change it or don't
Then close the comment and move on with your life.
Because here's the thing - every comment thread you start is a tiny failure. It means your content wasn't good enough to speak for itself. And no amount of "well akshully" is going to fix that.