diff --git a/playbooks/nginxplus.yml b/playbooks/nginxplus.yml
index 44a777d90b..7bff40305f 100644
--- a/playbooks/nginxplus.yml
+++ b/playbooks/nginxplus.yml
@@ -23,23 +23,3 @@
   roles:
     - role: ../roles/nginxplus
 
-- name: restart nginx with updated loadbalancer configuration
-  hosts: nginxplus_production
-  remote_user: pulsys
-  strategy: linear
-  become: true
-
-  tasks:
-    - name: nginxplus | restart nginx for realsies
-      service:
-        name: nginx
-        state: restarted
-      tags: always
-
-  post_tasks:
-    - name: tell everyone on slack you ran an ansible playbook
-      slack:
-        token: "{{ vault_pul_slack_token }}"
-        msg: "Ansible ran `{{ ansible_play_name }}` on {{ inventory_hostname }}"
-        channel: "{{ slack_alerts_channel }}"
-      tags: always
diff --git a/roles/nginxplus/tasks/validate.yml b/roles/nginxplus/tasks/validate.yml
index 6123626b69..dd17638384 100644
--- a/roles/nginxplus/tasks/validate.yml
+++ b/roles/nginxplus/tasks/validate.yml
@@ -3,4 +3,5 @@
   command: /usr/sbin/nginx -t
   changed_when: false
   become: true
-  tags: always
+  # testing the config template
+  # tags: always