Find a Comment Offensive? Flag It and Email Us.

On Patch, we pride ourselves on offering a great place for people to engage with others in their community. But, heated discussions sometimes can lead to heated language on the site.

Our terms of service detail the acceptable usage of language on the site.

The terms of service include not posting content that:                

• Is defamatory, abusive, obscene, profane or offensive;

• Infringes or violates another party's intellectual property rights (such as music, videos, photos or other materials for which you do not have written authority from the owner of such materials to post);

• Violates any party’s right of publicity or right of privacy;

• Is threatening or harassing or which promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual;

• Promotes or encourages violence;

• Is inaccurate, false or misleading in any way;

• Is illegal or promotes any illegal activities;

• Promotes illegal or unauthorized copying of another person's copyrighted work or links to them or provides information to circumvent security measures;

• Contains “masked” profanity (e.g., F@&#);

• Contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment; or

• Contains any advertising, promotional materials, "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes" or any other form of solicitation.

We encourage you to email Potomac Patch editor Laura L. Thornton (laura.thornton@patch.com) when you think these terms are violated.