You can sign up to the From the Grassroots Community by clicking on Sign up/Log in in the menu. This guide is to tell you how the Community is managed, and lays out our standards for participation.

When signing up, all users are asked to provide us with the following information:

(Required) Full name, username, password, email address
(Optional) Where you are from, a brief personal description (for example your involvement in politics or in From the Grassroots), and a profile picture

Your username, where you are from and brief personal description will be available to view by other users. Your username and profile picture will be available publicly. The History of Parliament will not share those details that are not publicly available with anyone without your explicit consent or unless we are required by law to do so. We may, however, use these details to contact some users from time to time in relation to the History of Parliament’s own activities. You can choose not to have your details used in this way, and may unsubscribe at any time by emailing us via the Contact Us page.

All users are approved by moderators before they join our Community. You will receive email confirmation when your account is approved. We intend to do this as soon as possible. Similarly, posts will be moderated before publication. If you have any questions about moderation, see our Community Standards below or Contact Us.

We encourage you all to let us know a little about you and include this information when you are posting in the Community! We understand that you may not always wish to say who you are, but this is a site about people’s memories of politics: they are much more interesting and useful the more context you can provide – not just who you are, but how you were involved and when. Please tell us as much as you can so that historians and others can make more sense of the past.

Please read the below Community Standards, and abide with them when posting on From the Grassroots. Happy posting!

Community Standards

All comments and posts will be moderated before they become public, based on the below standards. We want to hear what you think, but our aim is to ensure that this platform is inclusive and safe, and that you will find lively and intelligent discussions. Moderators’ decisions are final, and users who repeatedly ignore these standards could have their accounts suspended.

1. We welcome debate and dissent, but personal attacks (on authors, interviewees, other users or any individual), persistent trolling and mindless abuse will not be tolerated. Please respect other users, and in particular our interviewees – without them From the Grassroots would not exist!

2. We understand that people often feel strongly about issues debated on the site, but we will not publish any content that others might find extremely offensive or threatening. Please respect other people's views and beliefs and consider your impact on others when making your contribution. We will not publish comments that are unlawful, harassing, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, or sexually oriented. Please do not post in capital letters (internet shorthand for raising your voice).

3. We will not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of hate-speech, or contributions that could be interpreted as such. We recognise the difference between criticising a particular government, organisation, community or belief and attacking people on the basis of their race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age. Also please do not swear – our pages are read by those of all ages.

4. We reserve the right to redirect or curtail conversations which encourage simple, unconstructive and unhistorical partisan argument. We don't want to stop people discussing topics they are enthusiastic about, but we do ask users to find ways of sharing their views that do not feel divisive, threatening or toxic to others. We appreciate that this is a site for political history and that passions run high, but please do respect one another’s views (and especially those of our interviewees).

5. We will not publish any content that may put us in legal jeopardy, such as potentially libellous or defamatory postings, or material posted in potential breach of copyright. A defamatory comment is one that is capable of damaging the reputation of a person or organisation. Please ensure that you own any material you share with us.

6. We will not publish any posts that are obviously commercial or otherwise spam-like. This space is for comment and interaction, not the advertising of commercial material or political propaganda. External links will not be published without adding substantively to the quality of the discussion.

7. Keep it relevant. We know that some conversations can be wide-ranging, but if you post something which is unrelated to the original topic ("off-topic") then it may not be published, in order to keep the thread on track. This also applies to queries or comments about moderation, which should not be posted as comments. If you have a new topic to discuss, please begin a new discussion in the ‘Your Memories’ section.

8. Be aware that you may be misunderstood, so try to be clear about what you are saying, and expect that people may understand your contribution differently than you intended. Remember that text isn't always a great medium for conversation: tone of voice (sarcasm, humour and so on) doesn't always come across when using words on a screen.  Please keep a reasonable tone, even in unreasonable circumstances.

9. Please post in English

10. Please do not impersonate other users or use inappropriate usernames. We want to hear what you think!

In short:
- If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should have no problems.
- Don't be unpleasant. Demonstrate and share the intelligence, wisdom and humour we know you possess.
- This is a website for political history, not for partisan politics.

Disciplinary procedure

Violation of any of the rules above may lead to your membership account be temporarily suspended or terminated. From the Grassroots additionally reserves the right to suspend or terminate any membership account at any time and at its sole discretion. While suspended, returning to the site by creating another account will constitute a further offence and will result in your account being closed permanently. We reserve the right to delete any posting, at any time, for any reason, and are under no obligation to publish any posts submitted.

To unsubscribe from the Community, please let us know via Contact Us and we will delete your account.

Please remember that by using the From the Grassroots website you have also agreed to our Terms and Conditions.