Terms & Conditions
Effective Date: January 1, 2025
Welcome to the OpenRockets Community and Forum Service ("OpenRockets", "we", "our", or "us"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the OpenRockets forums, discussion boards, submissions, comments, messaging systems, and related community services collectively referred to as the "Forum Service".
By using the Forum Service, you agree to these Terms.
1. Purpose of the Community
OpenRockets exists to encourage scientific curiosity, engineering discussion, open knowledge, education, research, software, hardware, rocketry, space technology, and intellectually interesting conversations.
The community is intended to remain constructive, respectful, and curiosity driven.
2. Eligibility
You may use the Forum Service only if you comply with applicable laws, comply with these Terms, and your account has not been suspended or banned.
Users under the age required by local law must obtain parental or guardian permission where necessary.
3. User Accounts
You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account, all activity occurring under your account, and keeping your login credentials confidential.
You may not impersonate another person or organization, create misleading identities, evade bans or moderation actions, or sell or transfer accounts.
OpenRockets may reclaim usernames that impersonate public figures, organizations, or brands.
4. Content Ownership
You retain ownership of content you post, including posts, comments, uploads, messages, code, images, and other submissions referred to as "User Content".
By posting User Content, you grant OpenRockets a worldwide, non exclusive, royalty free license to host, display, archive, reproduce, distribute, and promote your content within the Forum Service.
This license exists only for operating and improving the platform.
5. Community Rules
Users are expected to be respectful, engage in good faith, discuss ideas rather than attack people, and contribute constructively to the community.
Users may not post harassment, bullying, hate speech, threats, incitement of violence, spam, scams, malware, malicious code, pornography, explicit sexual content, illegal material, personal information without consent, deceptive content intended to mislead, excessive advertising, or automated spam content.
6. Scientific & Technical Discussions
OpenRockets encourages discussion about science, engineering, software, hardware, aerospace, mathematics, open source technology, education, and intellectually interesting subjects.
Users may not use the platform to coordinate illegal activity, distribute harmful weapon instructions, promote terrorism or extremism, share dangerous exploit material intended for abuse, or provide unlawful operational guidance.
Educational and research discussions may be moderated for safety.
7. Moderation
OpenRockets may remove content, limit visibility, issue warnings, suspend accounts, permanently ban users, or restrict features when necessary to protect the health, legality, safety, and quality of the community.
OpenRockets is not obligated to host any specific content.
8. Automated Filtering
The Forum Service may use automated systems to detect spam, filter inappropriate language, identify abuse, and improve moderation.
Automated systems may occasionally make mistakes.
9. No Guarantee of Accuracy
User generated content is not guaranteed to be accurate, complete, verified, safe, or reliable.
Opinions expressed by users do not represent OpenRockets.
Users are responsible for independently verifying technical, scientific, legal, medical, or safety related information.
10. Intellectual Property
Do not post content that infringes copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, or other intellectual property rights.
If you believe your rights are being violated, contact team@openrockets.com.
11. External Links
Users may share external links. OpenRockets is not responsible for third party websites, downloads, services, or external content.
Use third party resources at your own risk.
12. Availability of Service
The Forum Service is provided "as is" and "as available".
We do not guarantee uninterrupted access, permanent storage, uptime, or error free operation.
Features may change or be discontinued at any time.
13. Termination
OpenRockets may suspend or terminate access without notice if these Terms are violated, community safety is threatened, abuse is detected, or legal compliance requires action.
Users may stop using the service at any time.
14. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, OpenRockets and its contributors, volunteers, moderators, affiliates, and sponsors are not liable for user generated content, data loss, indirect damages, service interruptions, or damages resulting from use of the Forum Service.
15. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms periodically.
Continued use of the Forum Service after changes become effective constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.
16. Contact
Questions regarding these Terms may be sent to team@openrockets.com.
17. OpenRockets Community Principles
The OpenRockets community values curiosity, scientific thinking, respectful disagreement, learning, experimentation, and open discussion.
Help make the community thoughtful, constructive, and welcoming to others.