In order to join The Root’s commenting community, you must register through Facebook. This allows a transparency that we consider crucial for a safe and tolerant commenting environment. We strongly discourage the use of pseudonyms. We encourage commenters to use their real first and last names as the username. Your username will be displayed with all the comments you post. Use of an alias may result in being banned from commenting privileges. You must have a verified email address for the username.
The Root encourages lively, respectful, polite discussion and debate in a safe space. The Root will remove posts that include profanity, hate speech, insults or personal attacks. Any commenter who violates these discussion guidelines may have commenting privileges revoked.
If you want to report an abusive comment, you can flag it. Multiple flags will cause the comment to be removed. Repeated flagging of comments, however, may be considered abusive and result in a loss of commenting privileges.
For questions and concerns about commenting, please email comments@theroot.com.