Rules
When entering or engaging with races, we expect everyone to follow our site rules to the best of their ability. These rules are detailed below. We reserve the right to terminate any user's account if they do not abide by these rules, or restrict their access when using the site (e.g. category bans).
This rule document may be updated from time-to-time. Please make sure you are familiar with the rules in place when you start participating in a race.
Global rules
[R1] Conduct and sporting behaviour
Everyone has the right to enjoy racetime.gg without abuse, threatening behaviour, or anything else that might make them uncomfortable. You are expected to remain civil at all times. This also extends to your conduct on our related services, such as raising issues in GitHub repositories, or talking on our Discord.
During races, you are expected to act sportingly and not antagonise or deliberately attempt to sabotage other entrants. You may be disqualified from a race if a moderator feels your conduct was detrimental to other race entrants. Seriously bad behaviour will result in a ban.
[R2] Race participation
Entrants in a race must complete the goal conditions within a short a time as possible, and always within the race's time limit. Entrants that fail to complete the goal conditions can be disqualified by a moderator, even after the race is completed.
Your completion time is based on when you indicate your entry is completed via the controls on the race room page. Times may not be adjusted post-completion, with the exception of the "undo finish" feature, if you accidentally finish too early. Note that once a race is done (i.e. all entrants have finished or forfeited), you may not undo your finish time.
[R3] Appropriate use of race rooms
Races started in a category must relate to that category and abide by any additional rules decided by that category's moderators and owner. Recorded races must be relevant to the goal selected, if you do not categorise your race correctly or select an incorrect goal your result will not be recorded.
If you set a custom goal, that goal should still remain relevant to the category in use. Do not race custom goals that are unlikely to be relevant to the chosen category.
A race's goal may not be changed once the race has begun.
[R4] Emulator use
Usage of emulators to play games is allowed, unless forbidden or restricted by a category rule.
If a category bans certain emulators from use, you may not use those emulators for any race in that category.
If you use an emulator that is inaccurate, glitchy or otherwise likely to affect your run compared to others, it may disqualify you from the race. If you do this deliberately in order to gain an advantage over others you may be disqualified or banned in accordance with [R1].
Emulator-specific functions that are not possible without using emulation (including but not limited to: save states, fast-forwarding, turbo buttons and cheat codes) are not allowed in any race.
If you participate in a race using an emulator, you must always stream your race entry, even if streaming is normally not required for the race.
[R5] Streaming and proof
When a race room requires streaming, you are expected to stream a visible and audible view of your entry live during the race. If your stream goes offline, crashes, or becomes unavailable for any other reason you may be required to supply proof of your completion time via a VOD or similar. Acceptable proof is at the category moderator team's discretion.
Category moderators must make a best-effort attempt to vaildate runs when proof-called. Proof requirements should be set reasonably and fairly, and must apply equally to all races and entrants.
[R6] Using more than one account
You may register more than one account on racetime.gg, however you may only register one account per email address.
If you have multiple accounts you must not use them to enter more than one race room at a time, or to enter the same room multiple times. If you are found to be doing this it will result in a ban for every account that you use.
Using multiple accounts in order to get around other site rules, or to circumvent bans or other restrictions placed on your main account will also result in an immediate ban.
[R7] Use of category ownership/moderation
Category owners and moderators are expected to conduct themselves with particular care when using the site. We reserve the right to strip ownership and/or moderation privileges of users who do not uphold suitable standards or otherwise cause issues within their community.
Category rules
Category owners and moderators may enforce additonal rules for races within their own category, within reason. When applying rules to a category, those rules come into force for any race room opened after the change. Category rules may not affect a race room which is already open or in progress.
[C1] Specifying category rules
Category rules must be clearly listed within the category information box (found in the sidebar of the category's main page). It is acceptable to link to a separate rules document for particularly complex rulesets, however, the linked page must be publicly available at all times.
Links to rulesets which are not public are disallowed. An invite link to a Discord #rules channel for example is not considered sufficiently public information. You must make your ruleset document readily available on the web; there are many free services that will allow you to do this easily (e.g. Pastebin, Google Docs).
[C2] Rule precedence
A category rule may not supersede a global rule, unless said global rule specifically allows for this to happen.
[C3] Rule enforcement
Category rules should be enforced by the moderators (and owner) of that category. If you believe a user has violated the rules seriously enough to merit a category- or site-wide ban, the category owner should contact the site administrators, giving as much evidence as possible of wrongdoing to ensure a fair and sensible outcome.
Category rules must be indiscriminate, applying to all users who participate in that category. This includes other category moderators.