Independent Voices is the new home for comment, campaigns and community on The Independent. We’ve built a new platform for you to express your thoughts on the subjects we write about, to let us know what you think we should be writing about, and to contribute to debates and comments on issues that are important to you. Please also take a look at our community standards guidelines.

Comments

To leave a comment on Independent Voices, you need to sign up for an Independent Voices account. The easiest way to do this is using a Facebook, Twitter or Google account, but you can also sign up to the site using just a verified email address.

Currently the Independent Voices commenting platform is exclusive to Independent.co.uk/voices/ but in the next few weeks we’ll be rolling the platform out across the whole of Independent.co.uk

Debates

On selected articles and on articles in the debate section, you’ll see two boxes underneath the article, titled for and against, and comment streams underneath them with comments for and against an issue that’s outlined above. To post an argument for or against the debate question, just enter your comment into the appropriate box and click submit. Your comment will be added to the side of the debate you’ve posted in for users to vote up or down based on its merits.

There are no replies to comments on Debates; to respond to a particular point outline your objections to it in the opposing thread, or vote down the arguments you think are the least valid.

Voting comments up and down

A big part of the role of community in commenting on Independent.co.uk is voting on comments. This is how you let us and other members of the community know when someone has left a great, insightful comment, or that they’ve left one that’s off-topic or disrespectful; log in to the site to vote up comments or down.

Deleting comments

If you’ve left a comment you want to delete, just click the grey x in the top right corner of the comment and it’ll be deleted. There’s no way to restore a comment that’s been deleted, and deleting a comment also deletes all of the replies to it. Keep this in mind when you’re leaving a reply; the person who left the first comment ‘owns’ that thread, and can delete your comment along with their own if they don’t like the tone of the thread. This is another reason to be respectful of your fellow commenters.

Flagging comments

If a comment is beyond the pale, and includes a personal attack or insult, it’s possible to flag it to bring it to the attention of the moderators. You can do this by clicking the flag in the top right corner of a comment; you need to be logged in to flag a comment.

Reactions

You can post a reaction on Independent Voices using the “React Now” buttons beneath any article. This is a way for you to show that you agree or disagree with a piece, or to register the mood the piece put you in.

If you’ve logged into the site with Facebook, or have installed the Recently Read Facebook app separately, your reactions will be posted back to your Facebook timeline for your friends to see. To change the privacy settings on the Independent app or remove it from your Facebook account, check your application settings here, and to see your activity, click here.

Logging in with Facebook

Logging in with Facebook is the easiest way to sign into Independent Voices to leave comments and reactions. We also encourage people to use their real identities when commenting on the site to improve the standards of commenting by making users accountable for what they say.

Because of the popularity of the Independent’s Recently Read Facebook app, many readers will have already installed the Independent Facebook app that’s used to enable readers to sign into Independent Voices. Independent Voices and Recently Read both use this app, so that it’s easy to log in and comment, react and share your reading activity, but if you’ve already installed Recently Read you won’t be signed up for Independent Voices until you click sign in and set a password.

Facebook: Independent Voices accounts and Recently Read

If you’ve signed up for an Independent Voices account with Facebook but don’t want to share your reading activity, that’s no problem. In the Recently Read block, just change the Activity control to 'Off' to stop sharing your activity.

To change the privacy settings on the Independent Facebook app or remove it, including Recently Read and the link between your Independent Voices account and your Facebook account, you can check your application settings here, and to see your activity, click here.

To find our more about Recently Read, click here.

Read: Independent Voices: What's new