Community Guidelines

Hot Sauce HQ is for honest opinions about hot sauce, shared with respect. These guidelines are part of the Terms of Service and apply to ratings, reviews, comments, replies, Community posts, messages, lists, recipes, photos, tasting-party notes and profiles.

1. Be honest

• Rate and review only sauces you have actually tasted, based on your own experience.
• No fake reviews. Do not write reviews for anyone else, buy or sell reviews, offer or accept anything in return for a review, or post reviews that misrepresent who you are.
• Disclose connections. If you work for, own, are paid by or received free product from a brand, say so in your review. Brand employees and owners must not rate or review their own brand's sauces, or a competitor's, from a member account.
• Do not use multiple accounts, coordinated groups or bots to push ratings, votes, points or awards up or down.

2. Be respectful

• Critique sauces, not people. Strong opinions are welcome; personal attacks are not.
• No harassment, bullying, threats, intimidation, doxxing or encouraging others to target someone.
• No hate speech or content that attacks people based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or serious illness.

3. Keep it appropriate

• No sexual or sexually suggestive content, and no nudity.
• No graphic violence or content that promotes self-harm.
• No dangerous challenges. Heat challenges must not pressure anyone to go past what is safe for them; no content encouraging minors to take part.
• No illegal activity, including selling alcohol, drugs, weapons or unlicensed food products through the Service.

4. Keep it relevant and non-spammy

• Stay on topic for the board, sauce, brand, list or post.
• No spam, repeated posts, chain messages or unsolicited advertising. Brands post announcements only in the Brand Announcements board.
• No giveaways, contests or sales without written approval from HQ.
• Tag sauces instead of pasting shopping links. HQ may add affiliate links; members may not post their own.

5. Respect privacy and ownership

• Do not post anyone's personal information, private messages or photos of people without their permission.
• Post only photos and text you own or have permission to use. Photos of products you bought are welcome.
• Tasting-party results show names only for people who opted in; do not reveal others who did not.

6. How comments work

• Comments are text only. Each member can post one comment per sauce, brand, Pepper Press article, list or recipe, and edit it later (edits are marked).
• The owner can reply once: the brand on its sauces and brand page, the Pepper Press team on articles, and the list or recipe owner on lists and recipes.
• Community boards allow threaded discussion.

7. Reporting and moderation

• Use Report on any review, comment, reply, post, message, list, recipe, photo or profile.
• A comment or reply reported by 2 different members is automatically collapsed and shown as "flagged, click to view" until a moderator reviews it.
• All reports go to HQ moderators, who may leave content up, edit it, hide it, remove it, or take action on the account.
• Consequences include removal of content, loss of points or badges, messaging limits, suspension and permanent account closure. Serious or illegal conduct may be reported to authorities.
• If you think we got it wrong, reply to the moderation email to ask for a second review.

Questions: stayspicy@hotsauceheadquarters.com