Hey folks! We’ve just finished up our December 2014 staff meeting, so here’s what you need to know as a result of it.

The recording for the public portion of the meeting (including the Q&A and Roundtable on Maturity) is available here.

Also, Frumple forgot to upload the public recordings for the September and November GSMs, and those recordings are available below. I’ve eaten all of his tacos, so hopefully he’ll remember next time 😉

• Recording of September GSM Public Portion
• Recording of November GSM Public Portion

Promotions to Senator and Governor

We again reviewed several towns and are pleased to announce that four players have been promoted to the [Senator] (Elf) rank. Congratulations to:

• chiefbozx of Vermilion, XW15
• lalaboy67 of Kessier, T27
• LDShadowLord of Evella, M10
• 6687kittycat of Covina, C11

We also are pleased to announce that two cities have been promoted further to the [Governor] (Head Elf) rank. Congratulations to:

• Music3_0 of Zaquar, ZSC
• Cortesi of Airchester, C25 and future Eastern line

We hope to promote more of you up to Senator and Governor in the next few meetings. There are tons of great towns out there, so keep up the good work!

If you didn’t get promoted to Senator or Governor, please talk to us! We’ve got some feedback for you on how to improve your city for next time.

Policy amendment regarding stadiums

Previously, stadiums of all shapes and sizes were restricted to the Senator rank. We have now adopted an amendment permitting smaller stadiums to be built at any rank.

To be clear:

• Community, little league, or minor league stadiums and gymnasiums can be built at any rank (these usually don’t have any stands, or if they do, they are very small).
• Major league or Olympic-sized stadiums are restricted to Senators and above.

If you’re unsure of which category your stadium falls into, please ask your nearest admod.

Plans for MRT system expansion

We are preparing to enter the next phase of MRT line construction. While we won’t start construction for a while, at the meeting we outlined what lines should be prioritized.

1. Because it has the fewest stations, the Zephyr South line will be extended all the way to its terminus in Zaquar. This project will be started soon.
2. The perimeter lines – Northern, Eastern, Western and Southern – are coming soon! We will start with the Eastern line in early 2015 and build out the other lines as the year goes on.
3. As perimeter lines are built we may extend the existing lines out to meet them, or out to their final terminus stations.

If you have a city on the corridors of either the Zephyr South or Eastern lines, we will be reaching out to you over the next few weeks to make sure we can get the line to your city.

Public discussion on maturity

During the public portion of the meeting, we held a community roundtable discussion on how to improve the maturity of the server and Mumble, specifically concerning suggestive comments. The discussion resulted in some policy changes:

• Suggestive comments and constructions are completely banned from the Minecraft server. Period.* Players making suggestive comments in chat or explicitly suggestive builds may receive a formal warning. This ban includes, but is not limited to:
  • Public (global) chat channel
  • Project chat channels, P1 through P4
  • Constructions built in the world, especially franchises that are built specifically for making a suggestive statement. Staff will be asking players who have made a lot of these builds to remove or rename them.
• Suggestive comments are banned from most Mumble channels. Public channels and existing project channels must be safe for work and free of these comments. However, if you want to participate in these conversations, you have two options:
  • Create a locked channel yourself. We will post tutorials on the wiki and YouTube on how to do this.
  • Join the channel labeled “Late Night Mumble – Warning: contains suggestive conversations – Mature Players Only”. This channel does not have a password on it. Do not join this channel if you are uncomfortable with suggestive comments.

* To clarify, this applies to the Minecraft / Spigot servers operating on the minecartrapidtransit.net domain.

We made these policy changes to try to benefit everyone. If you have questions or feedback on these policies, especially if you disagree with them, please let the admins know.

Additionally, if you believe someone is offending you with suggestive comments or creations, please let the admins know so we can investigate the situation. We will not punish you for letting us know of something that’s bothering you.

Thanks guys!
-Chief