ROOT RIOT's RULES AND STANDARDS FOR POSTING AND COMMENTING

 

It can be distilled down to this: don’t be a jerk.

 

Here are some specifics, though…

 

ROOT RIOT is here to promote, expand and strengthen the vegan community.

Our posts and comments should reflect this goal. This is a place for vegans to feel comfortable with expressing their feelings and ideas and a place where the vegan-curious will feel welcomed and open to ask honest questions without fear of exclusion or ridicule. We discourage language that isolates and shames. Please accept that everyone is their own path. If someone is not meeting your own vegan standards, treat them with kindness and consider moving on. Don't attack people who are still learning. Please instead show humility and compassion, remembering that your own path has been imperfect. 

 

ROOT RIOT IS A TROLL-FREE ZONE.

 

ROOT RIOT is designed to be a safe space for our visitors and as such, we are taking a lot of steps to keep trolling to an absolute minimum. This particularly includes, anti-vegan trolling, but also a lot of other things described below:

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We believe in science, history, inclusion, truth and the public good.

Our community standards do not allow for the spreading of mis- or disinformation. ROOT RIOT has the right to delete posts and comments that we deem to be untruthful and/or harmful and we reserve the right to ban users who violate our standards. We believe in free speech but not at the expense of spreading unfounded claims or lies.  

 

No hate speech.

What qualifies as hate speech? We are amending the description from the United Nations as hate speech “attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender, ability, body size or other identity factors.” If you cannot be here without insulting people based on these characteristics, you should go to a different platform. 

 

Do not spam or overly-advertise.

If you want to promote your business, feel free to post in the THE BUSINESS EXPO category of our PUBLIC SQUARE. Even there, please limit the number of promotional posts. Our visitors would love to learn about your business, but not again and again. Once you have introduced your business, please limit posts to newsworthy updates, special promotions, etc. If our moderators believe you are spamming our audience, you may receive a warning from us.

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We also are planning an innovative MARKET PLACE section and we will be sending out messages as this comes into fruition.

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Here are the rules for commenting on ROOT RIOT:

 

No hate speech.

 

Don’t use bigoted offensive or obscene language.

 

Don’t personally attack any person or group of people, including the writers and the moderators. 

 

No spam or advertising.

 

Don’t post content that you didn’t create without crediting citing the source.

 

Don’t repost the same comment multiple times.

 

Don’t impersonate someone you’re not.

 

Don’t comment from multiple accounts.

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ROOT RIOT welcomes criticism, debate, and disagreement. We believe that in order to have a healthy debate people from all backgrounds must feel valued and welcome to contribute. This means that, on occasions when a free airing of views comes into conflict with welcoming people from all backgrounds, we will prioritize  trying to make those from marginalized groups feel safe. These groups include people of color, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ community, for example, and do not include political parties or ideologies.

 

Our moderators’ decisions are subjective. They are trying to improve the overall quality of the comment threads for all users. They have to work quickly and efficiently. They have broad discretion to remove comments.

If you believe a moderator has deleted your comment in error, please contact us with questions and concerns.

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Can you summarize all those rules for me? TL;DR.
It's pretty simple. Just make your comments civil, succinct, and relevant.

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You deleted my comment! That’s censorship! Aren’t you violating my right to speech?
If you disagree with our decision not to publish your comment, we encourage you to publish it elsewhere. Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms make it easier than ever to express your views.

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There are also other ways to send feedback to ROOT RIOT:

• Email general comments to info@rootriot.org

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• Notify us about factual errors at info@rootriot.org

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• Send questions about commenting to info@rootriot.org

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I posted a comment, but it’s not appearing on the site. What happened?

Your post may have been directed to a pre-moderation queue, in which case it will not appear on the site until it has been approved by a moderator.

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Comments can end up in pre-moderation for a variety of reasons. They may have been flagged by a moderator or an automated filter for further review. In some cases, ROOT RIOT pre-moderates all comments on an article if the discussion has generated an unusually high number of comments that violate our commenting policy.

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It’s also possible that your comment was deleted by a moderator. If you believe your comment was deleted in error, please review our commenting policies. Do not repost your comment or debate the deletion in the thread. If you have a question about why your post is not appearing, email info@rootriot.org

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How do we enforce the commenting policy?

We do our best to keep up with comments and delete those that are trolling, offensive or off-topic as fast as we are able but it is impossible to be perfect. Please be patient with us as we maintain the quality of the comment threads. We do not and cannot review every comment or catch every infraction. Our moderators have been trained to do their best to flag such posts but you can also tag us to let us know if you see something that violates our standards. 

 

Ultimately, we reserve the right to remove any posts that we deem unacceptable.

 

What happens if my account is banned?

To facilitate a healthy exchange of ideas and combat spam, hate speech and trolling, we will ban commenters who repeatedly violate our commenting policy. We do our best to work with commenters around minor rule violations, and to issue warnings when possible before moving on to outright bans.

 

If you believe you were banned by mistake, or if you have been banned but would like a second chance to enter the discussion in a constructive way, contact us here

 

We may contact you directly about your commenting activity and ban your account if you fail to reply. Our moderators have discretion to ban users.

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OTHER STUFF

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Usernames

All of the guidelines for commenting also apply to the creation of usernames. Hate speech, inflammatory terms, coded names referring to known disinformation groups and personal attacks, for example, are prohibited.

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Room to Grow

ROOT RIOT reserves the right to modify these rules at any time as we see fit and better understand what is needed to create a healthy, welcoming website. We are imperfect humans but we are trying our best.

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By commenting on ROOT RIOT, you agree to be bound by the moderation policy described on this page. Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved.

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While ROOT RIOT is committed to respecting your privacy, we reserve the right to report unlawful behavior (such as threats) and vandalism of our website to your Internet service provider or, in extreme cases, local law enforcement.

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