Hogwarts is Home - Where do you belong?

General Rules

These are the rules for the whole community, this includes hogwartsishome and all of its subsidiaries.

Do not bash other Houses. Anywhere. Doing so will lose your House points. Also, do not post about how your house is misrepresented or stereotyped wrongly. We've seen it all before -- stick that sort of thing in your common rooms.
Do not use derogatory terms or incessant obscenities. We realize that how offensive something is depends upon who is being insulted, but a lot of things are obvious and we expect you to be smart enough to know the difference. If a Mod or Prefect sees something of this nature, we will warn you (or take points, depending on the severity and if you've been warned previously); if you see something offensive that an official does not see, please email us.
Use appropriate spelling and grammar in your posts -- anything with excessive net speak or all around indecent violation of the English language will be deleted, and the poster will be warned.
The start of any in-community drama or flame wars will result in major point loss. Encouraging drama will also result in points loss. If a controversial topic is posted, you are free to speak your opinion -- you must, however, respect everyone else's right to do the same.
Do not post general questions about the community or activities. Please email the appropriate official or the Mods, or perhaps use your common room to ask other members of your house. Any general questions or complaints about the community that are posted will be deleted.
The use of sockpuppet LiveJournals is strictly prohibited. Any suspicion of this act will result in immediate banning. Suspicion includes but is not limited to... Journal recently created, little or no friends, little or no posts, little or no comments. Also, we keep track of IP Addresses. You are forewarned.
If you feel harassed by another member either in instant messages, email, or LJ comments, please inform them that you wish for them to stop or you will report them. If they continue, please contact us with all of the evidence so that we may deduct points accordingly. Please note that this is only for situations that are related to HiH and its subcommunities.
Please keep all content, sigtags, icons, posts, within the community's rating. This community is rated in line with the BBFC 15. To find out more about that rating, please refer to the 'rating' section below.
Cheating in any form will not be tolerated. This includes sharing answers, collaborating unless specifically allowed by the activity guidelines, and abusing officials access to view answers. Voting fraud is also prohibited, including telling others to vote for you or identifying your entry to others. If someone votes for their own entry, their vote will not be counted, their entry will be disqualified, and 10 points will be docked from their house. Any other form of cheating will receive a more severe penalty based on severity of the offence.
Respect each other.

The first time you break any of our rules (unless it is outlandish by all standards), you will be warned. Thereafter, it will result in a point loss for your House -- or worse, banning. If you have issues with a warning or point deduction, please email us; posting complaints about the issue will most likely move the point loss or warning to a permanent banning.

Hogwarts is Home operates a three strike system. Break the rules three times and we will have to ask you to leave the community.

Official's Rules

These are rules for people who are officials at HiH

Officials should post in their capacity as official at least once every two weeks. Failure to do so will result in a warning. Appeals, Hogwarts Icons, Stamping, Diagon and Hogsmeade are excluded from this.
Officials must reply to the post in hih_officials with their contact info. This can be just an email address, or informing us that you have private messaging on livejournal turned on.
Officials must keep their community's userinfo and member list up-to-date. When a list of members that have been cut from the main community are announced, each Official that is in charge of a community must remove these members from their community.
Each community must have an up-to-date FAQ, in addition to a Suggestions/Complaints post. The FAQ can be used as the Suggestions/Complaints post if it is correctly labelled. Prefects must also keep a returning/leaving post for their house.
If, as part of your role as an official, you are required to carry out points-earning activities (this is all Officials apart from Appeals, Hogwarts Icons, Flourish, Platform, Diagon, Hogsmeade and the Main Clubs Mods), you must post at least one points-earning activity a month. For Writer's Block and Sugarquill this includes prompts.
All activities must be submitted and approved through The System before they can be carried out. There are a list of recurring activities that are auto-generated each month and as such do not require approval. If you are not sure the chances are you require approval. Activities must be submitted at least 3 days before the start date of the activity.
If for any reason the activity needs to be moved within a month, this can be done without notification to anyone. However, if moving the activity will cause it to end in a different month that originally planned, you will need to contact the mod incharge of The System.
If your community has a limit on how many activities can be carried out per month, the month an activity ends in is the month for which it counts.
Points are due in as soon as possible after the activity ends. A points deadline will be posted each month when the points for all activities ending in that month are due in. If you cannot meet this deadline for a valid reason, please notify the mod incharge of The System immediately. If you leave it until the last minute to notify the mod that the points will not be in on time there will be a points penalty and the points may not be accepted.
Late points are fined at the rate of 1pt/minute they are late over the points deadline. After an hour the points will not be accepted and the official incharge of the activity will be fined 60pts.
Once an activity is entered into the System it is the same as if it has been posted to the community, as members have access to upcoming activities. This means that if points are not handed in for it (regardless of if it was posted or not) there will be a fine. If the official notifies the mod incharge of the System and explains the problem which has caused this activity not be posted, there will likely not be a fine.
All activities should be posted with an end date in UTC and the officials local timezone. The local timezone is option, including the date and time in UTC is not. Please see the Timezones page to assist with this.
Voting around HiH has a few simple rules. On general principle members are not to vote for themselves, they're not to tell people which entry is theirs or get people to vote for a specific entry. Points may be given for voting at the discretion of the person running the contest. These should not exceed 2pts/vote.
You may not abuse your role as a HiH official outside of HiH. If you are replying in a personal journal in order to prevent drama from spilling into hih in a tactful manner, that is acceptable. Bullying members or speaking beyond your authority will not be tolerated. If you're speaking as an official, the rules of conduct apply, whether the conversation takes place on livejournal or through an outside service, i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Chat or email.
From time to time, you will become aware of information and situations due to your position as an official that are not general knowledge. Regardless of how you learned of the situation, you are expected to treat it with sensitivity and responsibility. This means that, though you may want to rant about something in your personal journal, you are asked not to. Confidential issues need to stay as such in order to promote respect for all members and to avoid drama.
You may have people help you out in your position as official, but you cannot share passwords without permission or let other members use your official account. You also may not obtain help from people outside the community without express permission from the Main Moderators.

The mod team will take serious action only when major concerns warrant it. That is to say, we're not here to be your babysitters and we're not here to constrain your actions. However, if we receive concerns from several sources about a situation, we will act.

Hogwarts is Home operates a three strike system. Break the official's rules three times and we will have to ask you to leave your position but if you have not broken the HiH rules as well, you will be free to remain within the community. If an action breaks both HiH Rules and HiH Official's rules it will count as a strike towards both.

Rating

Discrimination

The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour.

Drugs

Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.

Horror

Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.

Language

There may be frequent use of strong language (for example, ‘[the f-word]’). The strongest terms (for example, ‘[the c-word]’) may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity

Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context.

Sex

Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.

Theme

No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds.

Violence

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification.