*House of Pain Community

These rules are disclosed to clarify the various responsibilities of all community members here on House of Pain Community. They shall be adhered to by everyone to ensure that our board runs smoothly and provides a fun and productive experience for all of our community members and visitors.

1. General Rules

   1. Respect Others

      1. The purpose of the forum and servers is to provide a platform to hang out together with, find people to play games with or share gaming and community/clan related topics.
         Occasionally, conflicts may arise when people voice opinions. Be courteous when disagreeing with others. Debating the opinion is appropriate, however criticism against the originator is not allowed.
         Disrespect can be construed as flaming, trolling, harassing, profanity, abusing language or abbreviations, personal attacks, racial, religious, ethnic, sexual slurs, or similar behavior/language.
         
         • Flaming is defined as posts which are designed to personally berate or insult another.
         • Trolling is defined as deliberately posting derogatory, inflammatory comments/threads in order to bait other users into responding. Trolling or accusing someone of being a troll is also a form of trolling and is not permitted.
         • Posts similar to "Moderator Notified" or "Needs thread lock" are discouraged, as these types of posts are a form of trolling. If a thread is in violation of the rules, use the notify moderator button (report) or send a private message to a moderator or administrator directly.
         • Personal attacks include, but are not limited to insulting a poster directly.
         #

   2. No Inappropriate Talk

      1. Although many of the games we play are 18+ games, our forum is a place for everybody, including minors, therefore inappropriate talk will not be allowed, unless specifically posted in the NSFW forum. #

   3. No Profanity

      1. Thanks in advance for keeping the language on the forum and servers clean and not profane. Intentional misspellings of swear words are also not allowed. #

   4. Never Reveal your Personal Information

      1. None of our members or guests have any business in knowing your personal information such as your address, email address, password or phone number.
         Therefore, the best way to stay safe online is to NEVER share your phone number, email address or passwords. Please do not disclose your, or anyone else's private information.
         
         In case you've lost your login credentials and have contacted an admin, they'll confirm your email, username or provided "real" name and won't ask you for any such details but provide them for you to confirm.
         They may also request the first 3 or last 3 characters of your email to verify if it's actually you. #

   5. Impersonating another user is prohibited

      1. Please do not impersonate anyone else. It might seem funny at the time, but it can lead to a lot of confusion.
         Especially, impersonation of moderators, administrators or high ranks on a respective clan will not be taken for granted and may result in a website ban, and potentially a game ban depending on the severity. #

   6. No Advertisements

      1. Advertising on these forums or servers is prohibited, so please do not do it unless administrators have given specific permission to the advertisement.
         
         Exceptions to this rule are the following:
         • House of Pain Community Affiliated links such as discord.houseofpainserver.com are allowed.
         • Clan's that have their forum hosted here are allowed to use their own clan night to redirect to our forums for their specific clan section. Meaning e.g myclan.com redirects to your clan category on this forum.
         • Gametracker links of affiliated servers or clans are allowed to be shared using the "server" code tag. These are servers that are presented under the "Clan" category of our forum such as "House of Pain".
         • Permission has been asked and granted for the specific advertisement.
         • Gamefront, sof2.org and mdk download links are always allowed to be shared.
         #

2. Website Rules

   1. Non-Constructive posts are prohibited.

      1. Below is a non-exhaustive list of examples of non-constructive posts. As a rule, non-constructive posting is not permitted:
         • Spam - this is considered to be repetitive posting of the same topic or text or nonsensical posts that have no substance and are often designed to annoy other forum users.
         • Bumping posts in order to keep them near the top of the list is also prohibited.
         • Do not create threads/posts to “petition” or “lobby” for game features, additions, changes, or other issues. You may post suggestions and/or ideas to the boards, but you may not create a ‘petition’ for others to sign. This is bumping in disguise and will not be allowed. Lobbying is continually bringing up the same topic repeatedly in numerous different threads or as an off-topic post in official threads to get administrator attention. This form of posting is not permitted.
         • Cross posting - As a courtesy to others before beginning a new thread, please look to see if an active thread on that topic has already been established using the Search feature. If so, place your comments there instead. Multiple threads on the same subject clutter up the forum needlessly and many good ideas may be lost. Use the Search link to keep discussions about one topic to one thread only.
         • Negative feedback can be very useful, provided that it is presented in a civil, factual manner. Tell us what you don't like and why and how you feel it could be improved. Posts that are insulting and rude may be deleted, no matter how valid the ideas behind them may be.
         • A rant is a post which is long-winded, redundant and filled with angry, non-constructive comments. A free exchange of ideas is essential to building a strong sense of community and helpful in the development of the game, but rants are disruptive and incite flaming and trolling. Please post your thoughts in a concise, clear manner and avoid going off on rambling tangents.
         • False obituary threads are considered highly improper, and knowingly posting false news of a player’s real-life death may result in a ban of both your forum account and your game account.
         • Threads that make threats or use other combative language are not allowed.
         • “Necro” posting - Please do not submit a reply to a thread that has been inactive for more than 60 days. Rather, create a new thread only if you believe that topic is still relevant to the community today. Sticky threads are exempt from this rule.
         #

   2. Keep Private Conversations Private

      1. Please keep private conversations private. You are not permitted to publicize any private correspondence without permissions. As such, internal discussions regarding ban appeals, or recruitment processes are prohibited from being "leaked" or discussed in public, unless permission from the respective clan leadership has been given or a verdict has been given.
         If you have questions regarding a post or thread that has been removed or is subject to other moderation, please contact a moderator to discuss it. #

   3. Do not post about exploits.

      1. If you figure out some way to exploit one of the games, please do not post publicly about it. Instead, use the private message system and contact one of the Administrators or respective clan leadership.
         Exploits also include links to hacks or exploits.
         
         Depending on the severity, links to hacks or exploits will be dealt with, with an instant ban on both our website and servers. #

   4. No proxy posting; no account hopping to evade suspension

      1. Posting on behalf of a suspended user is not allowed. Working around a ban through other people's accounts or secondary accounts to continue posting is also not allowed. You are personally responsible for your conduct on the forums.
         Threads designed to announce, appeal or contest a banning will also be removed without notice. #

   5. No Legal Action Threads

      1. Using the forums or PMs for encouraging, promoting, endorsing or inciting any kind of legal action against anyone is strictly prohibited, and will result in an instant website and game ban. #

   6. Player Generated Content.

      1. We do not host every screenshots, signature, pictures, or other images on this forum. You are more than welcome to link to images hosted in other places, as long as they are of an appropriate and non-offensive nature and/or do not otherwise infringe the intellectual property rights of any party. Below is a list of examples of what is not permitted.
         
         • Images which are: sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive; obscene or contain vulgar language; images that illustrate/show illegal activity.
         • Avatars that are overly annoying, disruptive or in an administrator's sole discretion found to be in poor taste will be removed.
         • Links to images that are inappropriate will be removed and your forum account may be shut down.
         • Copyrighted, proprietary images, trade marks as well as images that do not belong to you (i.e. photographs or artwork which are used without permission of the creator) are also forbidden.
         #

   7. Zero Tolerance Policy

      1. Immediate suspension or bans from the forum can result from any of the following: the posting of pornography; discriminatory remarks which are sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive; excessive obscene or vulgar language; posts which discuss or illustrate illegal activity; providing links to sites that contain any of the aforementioned. #

   8. Proprietary forums

      1. This is a private gaming forum. All content is allowed at the discretion of the administration, assuming non-violation of the forum rules.
         We reserve the right to remove any content at will without notice for any reason. #

   9. Changes to the rules and regulations

      1. We may revise these rules and regulations at any time by amending this page. You will receive a notifications any time a modification to the rules is made, and are therefore expected to check this page whenever such notifications has been received. #

3. House Of Pain Server Rules

   1. Cheating

      1. • We do not tolerate any form of cheating from any user let alone from our own members.
         • Certain mods and commands are counted as cheats, as they may give you an unfair advantage. If you are not sure if a mod or command is allowed on our servers, then please ask one of our admins.
         • If you are a known cheater or have been known to be cheating then we would suggest that you do not bother making a join request to begin with, as your application will be denied.
         • If you are caught cheating on our servers regardless of your membership status then you will be removed from the team and you will end up with a permanent ban from our website and servers with no hope of return.
         • If you have been known as a cheater in the past then we would suggest that you don't bother making a join request to begin with as your application will be denied.
         • If you are caught cheating in our server regardless of membership status you will be removed from the team and you will end up with a perm ban from our site and servers with no hope of return.
         #

   2. Tag Removal

      1. If you are a member of the House of Pain Clan (not community) and you remove your ingame clan tags without a good reason, then we'll see it as a "leave" request and will remove you from the member list (when first notified, you'll have a change to tag up again).
         
         Exceptions to this rule are:
         • configuration reset - In this instance we expect you to tag up asap.
         • undercover operations - We expect you to notify another admin that is online (or on the forum) with an explanation and who the suspect is.
         #

   3. Teamspeak & Discord Usage

      1. We encourage users of our server to take full advantage of our teamspeak or discord servers to communicate with other players & members of our community. However, we do not allow uses to abuse this form of communication in our server.
         Meaning that at least one person is playing and at least one person is in spectate, then the person in spectate is NOT allowed to call out anything related to the gameplay (unless explicitely watching from that persons eyes and not ghosting or following other players).
         
         All players involved in any misuse such as "spotting" will be punished as this kind of behaviour is disruptive and unfair for others. #

   4. Usage of our Branding

      1. We do not condone any form of replication or mocking of our branding. Meaning "House of Pain" with black and red coloring (or similar namings).
         Any person hosting such server will be permanently banned from our servers and website without any possibility of being unbanned.
         
         This means servers as "House of Boom" are fine, as their name is different with different colors and no possible affiliation to us. However, House of Shame with black and red letters will not be tolerated and result in a server ban for it's server owners.
         We also strongly discourage to join such malicious websites, as they're most likely used to gather player information such as IP addresses.
         
         As of 2021 all our servers are hosted on 31.186.250.124 and any server that does not have that IP address is NOT our server. #

   5. Admin Abuse

      1. If you have been lucky enough to be granted admin powers on our server then make sure that you only use them for the good of the server and nothing else , this means that if you having a bad game that you are not to lash out on players that are killing you and popping them or kicking them from the server.
         
         We DO NOT have a rule against general camping, and a visitor can not be punished for this by an administrator. There is however an Anti-Camping system, that requires you to move every once in a while.
         Be aware that Spawn & Flag Camping however is NOT allowed, and is punishable by our members.
         
         If you need to punish someone then you should mute them before kicking them , normally muting gives the player a 5 minute period to calm down and the server will automatically unmute after 5 minutes. If but only if they remain abusive then can you kick them from the server but make sure you have covered yourself by taking a screenshot of the abuse before you kick the player just in case they accuse you of admin abuse.
         
         **Please note that admin powers are not a entitlement and are not given to everyone unless we feel they can be trusted with it. Normally admin powers are given to active users who have proved they are mature enough after a 1 month period. #