As part of the multiple updates we’ve been making to The Retrograde’s website, we have created comment sections for all our articles so our readers can ask questions, provide additional information and express their opinions. We have also created a community guidelines page that all comments must adhere to.
These community guidelines come in the wake of an overwhelming number of discriminatory, inflammatory and generally hateful comments directed at trans members of our community. On Oct. 28, The Retrograde reported in an article titled “All this for a lame party” that three people had been removed from a frat party, allegedly because two of them were trans women. Immediately after publication, individuals using fake names and claiming to be current or former members of Greek life organizations left comments making personal attacks against the people removed from the party and engaged in unacceptable forms of discriminatory speech against the article’s subjects because of their trans identities.
While we welcome criticism and a diverse range of opinions, The Retrograde does not welcome any kind of discrimination on our platforms. The Retrograde strongly encourages those who have critiques or opinions about any of our news, life and arts or opinion publications to submit Letters to the Editor explaining their perspective instead of leaving inflammatory comments.
Comments will be removed if they contain personal attacks, discriminatory or inflammatory language, or are spam — for example, by including self-promotions, affiliate links, astroturfing or misinformation. Attempts to shut down others’ perspectives or intimidate others out of a conversation will also be removed. The Retrograde encourages healthy debate, curiosity and good-faith challenges to our writing and editorial staff and seeks to cultivate a commenting space that is fair and welcoming to everyone.
This new moderation policy will be enforced effective immediately; comments posted prior to the publication of this policy will be removed for egregious violations of these rules. If you think your comment has been unfairly removed, please follow the procedures in the commenting policy to reach out to us.
If you wish to submit a Letter to the Editor or have questions about how to write one, please reach out to The Retrograde at theretrogradenews@gmail.com or through Instagram at @retrograde_news. We hope that the new Community Guidelines help limit the discriminatory and inflammatory hatred we have seen directed towards members of our campus community. Please reach out to The Retrograde if you have any comments, concerns or questions.