A creative Minecraft 1.20.4 server for transportation and city-building enthusiasts.
A creative Minecraft 1.20.4 server for transportation and city-building enthusiasts.

April 2020 GSM Results

by |Published

Hello everyone! We hope you and your loved ones are staying healthy and safe among the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve certainly enjoyed seeing so many of you online, and we hope the 1.15 performance issues haven’t been too big of an issue!

You can watch the MBS livestream of today’s GSM here, or read on for the details of what’s been decided!

Two new Full Moderators

We are pleased to announce two promotions to full Moderator, though for slightly different reasons:

  • Vulpicula has been serving as a Trial Moderator since January and has passed his three-month probationary period.
  • godzilltrain is a former admin who stepped down at the August 2019 General Staff Meeting. As his real-life obligations have changed and allowed him to commit more time to the MRT, we are happy to welcome him back to the staff team. Godz has been approved by the admins to skip the Trial Moderator rank and has been reinstated directly to the rank of full Moderator.

Congratulations to both on their promotions!

Changes to city rank promotion notifications and extensions

We hate having Senator and Governor cities’ review periods extended just as much as you do. To reduce the chance of this happening, we are making some adjustments to the notification process:

  • If a city’s review period gets extended, staff who are required to vote on it will be pinged in the #staff channel daily until they vote.
  • Updates will continue to be provided every 5 days of an extension. Each update will display the total number of votes that have been cast at that point. The identity of staff selected to vote will continue to remain anonymous.
  • Cities with extended review periods will have their results posted within 24 hours of meeting the 5-vote minimum. Cities that reach the 5-vote threshold will have their results published once the 14-day voting window closes, as usual.

We considered additional options, such as publicly naming staff involved in the voting process, keeping votes private (meaning not allowing staff to see each others’ votes during the voting process), or adjusting the number of votes required or selected, but chose not to implement any of these ideas at this time. If we find that cities’ review periods are still being extended even with these changes, we may revisit this topic later.

We have temporarily disabled new Senator and Governor review requests while we implement the changes listed above. Any existing requests will continue to be reviewed on the normal schedule. We’ll post in #announcements once review requests are open again.

Republic of Epsilon

The staff also held a postmortem discussion on the events that unfolded a few days ago, which culminated in a double warning being issued and Republic of Epsilon members making the decision to remove ModernArt from the organization. We won’t go into too many details here as we believe the story is Modern’s and Vulpi’s to tell, but we do want to clarify a few things from a more official perspective, as there are some misconceptions out there on how the situation over the past week was handled.

  • We have posted the MPO rules from the July 2018 GSM onto the Rules page. We apologize that this wasn’t done back when we did the Rules Revamp.
  • We have removed the rule where MPOs need GSM approval to merge. MPOs that want to absorb other MPOs can now do so freely without an approval process.
  • We have no intention to dissolve the Republic of Epsilon or take any other punitive action against it at this time. Our policy has always been that we prefer MPOs and other player-created entities to resolve conflicts internally and reach out to staff for help, rather than creating a situation where staff need to step in and assert control from the outside. Punitive action and forced dissolution, while they do exist as response options, are a last resort and we would rather work with players as long as that option is available.
  • Whoever is next elected as president of the Republic of Epsilon will be asked to expedite the creation of a judiciary branch. The outcome of the last few days likely would have been different had a functioning judiciary been in place within the Republic of Epsilon. As a result, we are asking that a judiciary be created as soon as possible once the election concludes. This fits in with the point above: we would prefer that conflicts within the Republic of Epsilon be resolved internally, but staff are otherwise happy to assist if questions arise.
  • A friendly reminder to all: staff are here to help.

Other community issues

  • We will be unveiling a rewritten and simplified Rules page in the coming months (we’re not changing the interpretation or effects of the rules, just how they’re presented). Some items like definitions, examples, and GSM proposal guidelines will be pulled out into their own documents. More to come on this.
  • We are placing further limits on WorldEdit requests in response to further degradations in Minecraft 1.15 performance:
    • No WorldEdits will be allowed when the 1-minute ticks per second (TPS) average is below 10. The only exception to this is WorldEdits that cannot be done manually (such as placing iron trapdoors that are forced into the “open” position): these WorldEdits will continue to be allowed, so long as 1,000 blocks or fewer are modified.
    • Staff are given additional discretion to refuse large WorldEdits even when the TPS is at or above 10. Large WorldEdits that affect a large number of blocks, stack something across a large number of chunks, or cause a significant number of lighting updates will likely be refused unless the TPS is near 20.
    • Players are reminded of the 5-minute rule with WorldEdit requests: Please do not request a WorldEdit if the operation can be accomplished manually in five minutes or less. This generally means you should not request a WorldEdit if you’re modifying fewer than 500 blocks in close proximity (unless, of course, you’re trying to change things that aren’t normally possible manually).
    • Proxy WorldEdit requests are not allowed: you must request them while in-game, and after both you and a member of staff have been online for at least 10 minutes.
  • We are also instating a restriction on Dynmap renders, and staff are instructed to only perform them while the TPS is at or near 20. Because this is a much more cumbersome restriction, we are permitting players to request Dynmap renders by proxy:
    • If you would like a Dynmap render performed, please politely request it in-game if the TPS is at or near 20.
    • If requesting in-game is not possible, you can politely request a render in the #requests-to-staff Discord channel. These requests MUST include the X and Z coordinates of the center of the render, as well as the radius to be rendered. Staff will respond with a ✅ emoji when your requested render is complete.
    • Moderators are not permitted to use a radius over 300 when rendering. Admins can use a higher radius if necessary.
    • Regardless of whether you use proxy or in-game requests, please be patient. It may take a few days for us to find a time when the TPS is acceptable enough to run your render.
    • Do not request multiple renders in quick succession, or immediately after building something. Renders are only “urgent” if they are in relation to a GSM or airport proposal.
  • Trustee endorsements now expire 180 days after they are submitted. Trustee endorsements need to be valid at the time that staff open the veto period, but it’s okay if they expire before staff run the promotion. If a Trustee endorsement expires, the person who filed the endorsement will need to submit a new endorsement form in order for it to count towards the three required for promotion. Of course, once you reach Trustee, the validity of the endorsements that got you there no longer matters.
  • The “Bunker” chat channel has been removed, as it no longer serves its original purpose. Players are reminded to be mindful of the visibility of their chat messages, as this varies between channels.
  • The moratorium on multiple claims in Zeta is now lifted. Players are now permitted to have more than one claim in the Zeta region, provided the standard claim rules are observed.
  • We are maintaining the rank minimum for MRT station renames at Mayor. We can approve exceptions to this (for large community builds or other areas that don’t fit neatly within the town and rank system) on a case-by-case basis at a GSM.
  • A discussion on conditional event funding has been deferred to the next GSM.
  • Lake 52 has been named Quindici Sea. We have no idea why this name was chosen as opposed to “Cinquantadue Sea”, but since RacCort has approved of the name, so have we.

Transport Projects

A new section was introduced at this GSM, combining together two old sections. We approved all of the items in this section, which are as follows:

  • The MRT Jungle Line South, Extension 1 (“JSX-1”) from JS14 to Sunshine Coast is now open, and all stations along the line are open for claiming.
  • The A1 extension towards New Mackinaw has been approved with an adjustment in routing. The A1 will terminate in the middle of nowhere, with the B1 spurring off towards New Mackinaw and the future Republic of Epsilon capital city.
  • The B65 from Sansvikk (SW34) to New Southport (SW29) has been approved, with a bridge crossing the river between SW30 and SW31.
  • A canal from Lake 31 to the Northern Ocean will be built south of Biwabik.
  • A second canal between Lakes 52 and 53 has been approved.
  • A canal in the northwestern Zeta region between Lake 5 and Lake 42 has been approved, provided it’s built in a way that looks reasonably natural and doesn’t use extremely sharp curves.

Events and Other Projects

  • A bus terminal for services operated by the Republic of Epsilon has been approved west of Central City.
  • Funding has been conditionally approved for the following events (amounts may be adjusted depending on how the events are run):
    • An American football tournament, proposed by Skyjumper_Talon
    • The MRT FA Football League
    • A Mafia game, proposed by SansNotLuigi
  • Funding has been approved in full for:
    • The MGA Season Opener, proposed by CodyHM and London150
    • The Mole 10, proposed by MinecraftYoshi26

Miscellaneous

  • We only had one IAT this time around: the town of Benion, which has been transferred to EliteNeon. We believe MC_Dunc came online a few months ago only to reset the inactivity clock and has not done any further development of Benion, and so we have waived the inactivity period and awarded the transfer to Elite.
  • We may be adjusting the timing for our monthly reminders to vote up our server listing. Links to the official listings are in the #information channel in Discord.
  • World files for Airport World have been released to #announcements on Discord. Just like MRT world files, they are restricted to members and above, and you can’t put them on a multiplayer server without permission from chiefbozx, RacCort, and _Kastle.

That should be all. Stay safe, and we hope to see you around!

<3, Chief