February 2020 GSM Results

Hello everyone! The February 2020 GSM has concluded, and with it the GSM series for Epsilon. We will be posting information about our Zeta migration in the next few days, so please continue to check back for updated information on that migration. If you missed the meeting’s public portion, MBS covered it live.

In the meantime, let’s talk about the staff meeting!

City rank updates

We reviewed the town of Radiance Square for promotion to Premier, and while many staff members were happy to vote it onwards, it didn’t quite meet our 80% majority threshold. Feedback and voting details will be posted in the usual feedback folder. Overall we noticed a lot of progress within Radiance Square since our last review, and we look forward to our next chance to review it at the April GSM or later.

All new Senator, Governor, and Premier submissions are temporarily suspended due to the Zeta migration. We will re-open submissions when Zeta opens, and any city candidates currently under review will be automatically extended by two weeks to account for the downtime.

Some staff docs will be published

We are happy to announce that some of our “top-level” staff documents and spreadsheets will be published in the coming weeks (these are called “top level” because they live within the top level of the staff docs folder hierarchy). Links to the following items will soon be provided:

• Town List: Our master record of ranked (and a few unranked) towns, their locations, current mayors, ranks, and their list of prior mayors.
• Event Funding List: All events that have been issued server funding grants, and how much has been paid out.
• Plugin List: Which plugins (and which versions) are installed on which server, and which new plugins are officially under consideration (please note, due to the upcoming migration, we have a moratorium in place on new plugin suggestions until the migration finishes)
• Road List (once it gets updated) – the list of road numbers and what roads they correspond to. This one will take a while to get updated.

Additionally, we are researching our options regarding the master membership list, and we hope to publish it soon.

Members who have questions about prior decisions or want to know other information that’s not included in these documents should first contact the staff members who were involved with the appropriate decision, or for general questions, any available staff members. If this informal conversation doesn’t help, members may email the ADMINS their question, and we can potentially provide more details if required. We will ask that formal information requests to the admins be used as a last resort.

We will apply similar standards to Freedom of Information type requests. This means:

• Your request needs to be specific, you can’t just ask for a copy of the entire staff documents archive.
• We can deny releasing information if we deem it confidential (for instance, decisions made regarding specific players – we will not release complete information on warning or ban histories, nor will we ever release email addresses or other identifying information) or related to security (for instance, we won’t release our exact VPNGuard or Docker configurations).
• Audio recordings of GSMs, and transcripts thereof, are out of bounds and can’t be asked for.

We hope that we have been transparent enough with our decisions in the past so that you all can understand how we’ve made them, however we are always happy to have conversations if you have further questions.

Zeta migration prep

We approved the following definitions of lake numbering and ward boundaries, which will take effect at the Zeta migration. (Note: The boundary between Wards 3 and 4 in the southeast will be adjusted slightly to better handle all of the islands; a final map will be published by Vickiposa once the exact placement is all set. All other ward boundaries are approved.)

Three lakes have had their official names assigned or changed:

• Lake 15 is now known as Lake Lumeva
• The South Sea (Lake 23) is now known as the Coral Sea
• Lake Thanos (Lake 30) is now known as Bay of Thanos

Seaplanes are officially permitted on Lakes 31 through 52, as well as the appropriate extensions of lakes from the existing system. Additional lakes may be added, or names submitted, by member proposals once Zeta opens.

Finally, we made some decisions regarding random boats in the middle of lakes:

• We have instated a temporary ban on random boats in the middle of lakes until at least the end of May 2020. This means that any boats built in a lake must be a part of something that’s based on the shore, and have a good reason to be there. This moratorium must be lifted by a GSM proposal.
• Boats built in lakes must observe, but do not constitute claims for, the 300- and 500-block sovereignty rules. This means that boat owners must respect existing claims when building boats, but there are no exclusion zones around boats.
• Boats that are built in a lake before a town is added to its shores may stay there, even if the town later grows to the point where the boat is within the sovereignty rules. This is similar to the road and rail right of way rules.

Franchise modification and relocation

We argued about this one for half an hour. It was… a lot.

Effective immediately:

• Mayors may decide to remove franchises within their town, or relocate franchises within their town, and may do so without permission from the franchisor.
  • For franchises located within transit stations, malls, or other buildings controlled by a third party, this permission is extended to that third-party controller, but only within the context of the controlled building.
  • Exception: Franchises may not be moved from one town to another unless authorized by the franchisor.
• Mayors wishing to modify any new franchises built on or after Sunday, February 9, 2020 must obtain permission from the franchisor to do so.
  • This rule includes all modifications of interiors and exteriors.
  • This rule may be waived by mutual agreement between the mayor and the franchisor.
• Mayors and individuals who control and sublease buildings (for example, transit station owners who lease out franchise space) may define restrictions that must be honored at the time of franchise construction. These restrictions generally include space restrictions or which blocks may be modified, but may also include agreements on future modification permissions, or any other reasonable restrictions or conditions of construction. Franchises that are built in areas with these restrictions are assumed to have accepted the restrictions.
• Mayors may not claim ownership of franchises built by others within their town borders.

Please note that we have decided to defer a decision on what happens to previously built franchises within a town. There is one exception that has been decided – squatter’s rights or adverse possession:

• In the event that a town contains a franchise, for which neither an owner nor a company can be identified by any means (including signage and CoreProtect logs) the mayor may make any modifications they wish. Franchisors are strongly encouraged to place identifying signs in conspicuous places on their property to prevent this from happening.

Blimps!

We decided that, for the purposes of the rules, airships and blimps are very weirdly shaped giant helicopters. This means that airships and blimps are allowed and may be built in accordance with the helicopter rules.

• One slot is available to towns at the Councillor rank, which may be used by an airship, blimp, or helicopter.
• Two slots are available to towns at the Mayor rank, which may be used by any combination of airships, blimps, and helicopters.
• There is no limit on slots to cities at or above the Senator rank, however any such slots above the first two count against airfield and airport size allocations. These slots may be used by any combination of airships, blimps, and helicopters.
• Just like helicopters, there is no limit on the number of decorative airships or blimps that may be built within a town. This means airships and blimps may be built in the air, or on the ground without functioning warps, without restriction.

Homes increase with Zeta

We’ll be increasing the number of homes available for all ranks at or above Councillor. This means that your number of available homes have increased as follows (these numbers are all in addition to your bed spawn, which can be accessed with /home bed):

• Member: 0 (no change)
• Citizen: 1 (no change)
• Trustee: 3 (no change)
• Councillor: 6 (+1)
• Mayor: 10 (+2)
• Senator: 15 (+3)
• Governor: 20 (+4)
• Premier: 25 (+5)

The increase in available homes have taken effect immediately.

Formalizing no retroactive funding

Somehow this isn’t on the rules page? Who wrote that??? (Wait, that was me.)

Anyway, we have long held the precedent that events can’t receive funding grants retroactively. As such, the following rule has been officially approved and will be added to the rules page:

Events seeking grant funding must receive GSM approval in advance. Funding requests will be denied if submitted after events begin. Retroactive funding requests will not be accepted for consideration.

This decision affects the MRT Winter Games 2020, which was organized by frogggggg and Frosty_Creeper10. This means that any prizes awarded from this event must be paid for by the event organizers.

MRT Jungle Line South Extension (JSX-1)

Watch someone make a React joke. Or is that too niche?

AP_Red will be extending the Jungle Line south to Sunshine Coast. The approved map is as follows, and as with any MRT extension, new construction along this line is now prohibited until the line is officially opened:

Roads and rail bypasses

• The B76 from Chan Bay to Tembok has been approved.
• An extension of the B58 from San Vantino to Redwood has been approved.
• i____7d has been granted permission to build railway tracks under an inactive town at SW36.
• autobus22 has been granted permission to build RaiLinQ tracks under Villedyn and two unnamed inactive towns.

IATs

• The town of Armada (A26-C107) has been transferred to PtldKnight, on the condition that it must remain independent and can’t be integrated into or annexed by Waterville.
• XenRail and all Xenive holdings have been transferred to FredTheTimeLord.
• The town of Insula Montes has been transferred to daltdisneyland.

Projects

• Some members have set up a survival server that we’ll be linking to in our Zeta announcements. Please note that, while this server is run by MRT members, it is not an official affiliate of the MRT. More details will be coming soon.
• The 6th MRTvision Screenshot Contest has been funded in full. There is a crab emoji in the minutes and I don’t know why.
• “Operation: Airlift Monte Isola” has been denied.
• A spleef (not spleen, AutoCorrect) tournament in Crystal City, organized by Skelezomperman, has been approved.
• The Winter Olympics 2020 has been conditionally approved with reduced prizes, based on event attendance and quality.

That’s all for now – stay tuned for the Zeta migration updates!

<3, Chief