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Q: What is the Comment Policy?
A: Community and Commenting Guiding Principles
The AOL properties have a thriving user community and actively encourages commenting
on our stories and blog posts. We are dedicated to this community and strive to maintain
a respectful, engaging and informative conversation. Towards that end, we have general
guidelines for commenting. If you wish to participate in the
community, we ask that you follow the guidelines below and the spirit of the community they
seek to create.
(I) If your comments consistently or intentionally make this community a less civil and enjoyable place to be, you and your comments will be excluded from it.
AOL promotes a receptive, transparent and civil atmosphere for comments and
users. Critical, in-depth and intelligent discussions and debates are encouraged and the best of
these are highlighted in various ways.
Everyone is welcome and encouraged to voice their opinion regardless of identity, politics,
ideology, religion or agreement with other community members, the author of the post or staff
members as long as those opinions are respectful and constructively add to the conversation.
However, this community does not tolerate direct or indirect attacks, name-calling or insults, defamatory statements, nor does it tolerate intentional attempts to derail, hijack, troll or bait others into an emotional response. These types of comments may be removed from the community where warranted.
Individuals who consistently or intentionally post these types of comments will be warned and, if necessary, excluded from the community. By submitting a comment to any of the AOL properties, you shall be the primary publisher and you will remain liable for your comments at all times.
(II) Many comments are pre-moderated.
To maintain a civil atmosphere, our moderation team may read comments before they are
displayed to other users. If this is the case, you may see your comment pending approval.
Approval times can vary depending on the site-wide comment load, so please be patient -- we
will get to all comments as quickly as possible.
(III) The community monitors itself, in conjunction with the core moderaton team - and you can help!
Every member of this community has the power and responsibility to help elevate the level of
conversation and remove the trolls who would degrade it. On every comment, you can "Fan
and Favorite" (F&F;) users who are posting great content, or flag a comment for review by a
moderator. Taking these simple actions helps bring great content to the top and removes bad
content quickly.
(IV) Be yourself, only yourself, and just one of yourself.
Every person's opinion is valuable and unique. Pretending to be someone else removes that
unique value from you or from others. Don't misrepresent yourself or others, spread mis-
information, create multiple accounts or "astroturf". If you do, you will make the community a
less enjoyable and valuable place to be and will be removed when we see it.
(V) This community is a safe space.
We strongly believe that the Huffington Post should be a safe space for individuals, groups
and their ideas. As such, violent and hostile language or calls for violence and hostility are
not welcome here. If you directly or indirectly threaten the physical or mental well being of a
member of this community, or an individual or group who is the subject of an article, you will
be removed immediately. If a credible threat is made against an individual or group, not only
will it be removed but it is likely that it will be reported to law enforcement agencies and we will
cooperate with them to any extent requested.
Personal identifiable information should never be posted to the Huffington Post comments
section. It never turns out well for anyone.
If you see any threats, harassment or personal information trolling please report it quickly.
(VI) If you have comments, we are here and we have real people who read and reply.
If you have complaints, questions, concerns, or just feedback - positive or critical - please get in touch with us here.
Please note if you have a problem opening any of the links in this document, you may send your question, complaint or concern to us via email to: community-support@huffingtonpost.com.