Happy new year, MRT!
Hope you had a fun end to the eventful year that was 2020. I know I did, haha. Anyway, it’s time for the stuff that happened at the January GSM!
MRT’s Neighborhood
Starting out on Community Issues, we discussed current feeling/thoughts on the warning system. Staff wanted to gauge opinion on whether we should overhaul the system. Many members and staff wanted to see a proposal so Mega will be working on a draft for a future GSM so stay tuned.
Mega put forth a proposal to add a cooldown to candidates that are repeatedly nominated for staff.
If a candidate’s nomination is rejected 2 times in a row, then a 2 GSM cooldown will come into effect.
Godz proposed adding the debug stick to the server. Beta server activated it and showed there is a possible abuse of setting walls to be invisible. Unlike barriers where you can see outlines, you can’t see an outline with an invisible wall. The permission has been enabled for staff so if you want to use the debug stick, ask a staff member.
EliteNeon proposed increasing the AFK time limit to 60 minutes. This was denied as the server has enough performance troubles as it is (thanks Minecraft devs) and the AFK limit serves to kick inactive players and reduce loaded chunks. Staff asked members if we should lower it and was vehemently opposed by members.
Mega and Frumple will be doing some testing on their computers to see if they can possibly run the dynmap render of the New World locally and transfer it to Zeta, avoiding a maintenance day to do a render. If this doesn’t work, we will make an announcement and update when we plan to do the render on Zeta.
Keeping on, keeping on
Starting out the GSM, Frumple had a few comments on the year and addressed concerns about whether he would shut down the server following the events of October 4th and other minor arguments that have flared.
The server lease has been renewed for 1 more year. There are strings attached, however:
- As many may know, the staff haven’t been running as many events recently. This is mainly due to IRL commitments such as work, university, etc. We still make time to help run the server but our time is much smaller. That isn’t to say events are fundamentally dead. Many members have stepped up to the plate with different events. We love to see that and would encourage more of that.
- Expect better server accountability. Given all the changes that we have tried to make as staff, we hope this has made it easier for you to bring any concerns to us.
- For the sake of his well-being, Frumple has decided to shrink his presence on the server. That isn’t to say he’s going away. He still runs essential tasks for the server, guiding staff, and helping with disputes.
- Try to learn skills to get along with others
- If a player is clearly not reasonable and not willing to listen or understand, don’t be surprised if Frumple indefinitely bans them.
I would recommend to read the full statement linked below to read Frumple’s exact words and for more details.
Updates! Get your Updates!
On Monday, January 11th, all MRT services will be down at 5PM UTC (9AM PST). Expect it to be a few hours as we will be doing the following updates:
- Servers
- Main Server will be switching from AMP to Pterodactyl.
- Paper and plugins will be updated on Beta after successful Beta testing.
- Wiki
- Mediawiki update to 1.35
- UploadWizard extension will be added.
- Some updates for mobile viewing will be done.
New Mod!
We considered two nominees for moderator, Echohue and MC_Protocol. Out of the two, Echohue was promoted to moderator, following a successful majority For votes. Congrats, Echo!
Now that we’ve had the moderator nominations underway for a while, we’ve wanted to give some feedback on the quality of the nominations that we’ve seen. There have been long nominations (such as 10 pages for one candidate) and short ones (like 1 page). We don’t have a length requirement however we encourage you to take a good look at your nomination and make sure it gets your points across in a clear and concise manner. In addition, make sure your evidence backs up your points for why that person should be a staff member.
Skele proposed adding a general rule around sharing private messages in public. This was accepted. The website will be updated soon with this text:
Do not share private conversations to a third party without the consent of the person(s) in the conversation. The unauthorized sharing of private conversations is illegal in some jurisdictions in addition to being an unethical violation of privacy. Because of this, it is not okay to leak private conversations without permission even if it is done outside of MRT services. If something that happens in a private conversation requires the attention of Staff, do not draw attention to it in public; instead, discreetly email the details of the incident to the Staff.
From Here to There
Aurora International Airport (AIX) & Shared Airport Discussion by CaptainObi/Johngi/JavaIsBetter/DintyB/Needn_NL/ModernArt (Aurora Team) was denied. There was a very healthy discussion over the proposal to build a large shared airport in the NW near Carnousie, Kaloro City, Skogheim, Lakeborough, and Norwest. Staff thought it was novel idea to build one large airport for the area vs multiple tiny airfields however the main concern was over the spacing/intergration of the towns in the region. For Aurora, they agreed to build up more infrastructure and found another town in between Carnoustie and Kaloro to help bridge the gap between Carnoustie and the rest of the region. Also, staff split out the A84 (and approved it) from their plans to help their integration plans as seen below. JavaIsBetter will be heading up the road construction of this A road. Aurora posted their discord in #auxillary-discords so any member can view/give feedback on the AIX progress. Given that this is the first of a kind, this GSM served to help discuss expectations/standards of how to judge these projects. In the future, we hope that AIX becomes a standard of how we will judge similar regional proposals.
Delvin Street Pedestrianization by EliteNeon was denied. The proposal that was sent in didn’t give a compelling argument to change the current design of the street in the area. Staff also asked Elite to remove the 2020 US Election Board from his plot since the 2020 elections have concluded in the States.
A15 + B287 by mibu1223 has been approved. Here’s a map of the roads for context.
B417 by Avaneesh2008 has been conditionally approved with staff guiding construction. There were some concerns over the proposal to stick to 1 elevation versus going with the terrain so we will keep a close eye and help Avaneesh as he builds it.
Auchendale Inactive Town Bypass by i____7d was approved. [Obligatory insert “newrail flr go brrr” joke here]
Make it Rain
We had a lot of events that requested event funding. Can’t wait to see them in action!
The Great MRT Riddle by sasha9076 was approved. This will start end of January/early February.
Get to X Tournament (Name Change Pending) by Avaneesh2008 was approved. We did ask Avaneesh to update the name as the description of the events taking place aren’t in the spirit of Get to X. This event will take place during January and February so stay peeled.
SuperTuxKart Rapid Racing by underscorepie was approved. Last session went well and pie decided to return with another session. This one is set for January 23rd at 7PM UTC.
London’s Pub Quiz: January 2021 by LondonThameslink was approved based off the success of his past sessions. We did suggest to London to shrink the amount of questions due to concerns over the length. If you have any feedback from past sessions, make sure to share it with him too!
The Great MRT Build-Off by daltdisneyland was approved. Dalt’s planning to air in February so keep alert for a ping in Discord.
Can I have this?
The GSM saw a lot of Inactive Asset Transfer requests:
- Sweet Sand Dunes (requested by Noahrebl_) has been denied due to concerns over wanting to redo his current town. Staff encourage him to focus on that town for the time being.
- Orel Airways (requested by time2makemymove) has been denied due to concerns over trying to just get a gate at the airport and that he didn’t try to contact the original owner, MishkaMan. The only asset of the airline was a gate at Kolpino City. If Mishka doesn’t reply by next ISM, time can resubmit.
- Insula Montes Lanark-Laclede Express Station (requested by HarborRandom) has been approved.
- Voltorb Kinetics (requested by Hightech_TR) has been approved on the condition that he doesn’t charge for the designs as he didn’t create the designs originally.
- Villedyn (requested by decorminecraft) has been denied as the town was already given to Camelicano in August 2020.
Next staff meeting will be the ISM on January 30th at 7PM UTC. Can’t wait to see ya then!
– Sese