Hello all,

Here are the results from the recent General Staff Meeting. The recording for public portion is available here.

Changes to City Rank Candidate Batches

After trying out monthly candidate batches, we are noticing that it has become increasingly difficult to gain sufficient votes from staff due to people being busy or lazy. This has resulted in the deadlines of the most recent batches being extended to the end of the month. Therefore, in order to mitigate these issues, we will be doing the following:

• Staff will be encouraged to keep their feedback detailed, but concise. Bullet-points are preferred, or the “Narnia format” where the reviewer states what they liked, what they disliked, and what can be improved upon in the candidate city.
• We will continue the monthly batch schedule for now. However, staff voting will instead take place during the whole month with promotions always done on the 1st day of the following month.
• Starting from the next month’s batch (#18), Premier candidates will be actively voted upon at GSMs, with any promotions announced after the GSM. Any Premier candidates should still submit their cities to the City Rank Promotion Request Form as normal.

A reminder that the current batch (#17) will conclude on Saturday, September 30th with promotions expected on Sunday, October 1st. Be sure to submit your city for consideration of the next batch (#18) by September 30th!

Wiki Announcements

We have a few of items and reminders to announce with regards to the MRT Wiki:

• We have noticed that there has been a recent spat of page-editing wars on the wiki, particularly on user pages. This is a stern reminder to everyone that such disagreements do not belong in a public venue such as the wiki or Discord, and that you should not escalate the situation by joining into the argument. Instead, notify a staff member immediately and they will deal with the situation. Any players engaging in further page-editing wars on the wiki will be served with warnings.
• We would also like to remind everyone that the intent of the wiki is for everyone to collaborate on pages and to ensure that the information on there is as accurate as possible. Players do not “own” wiki pages (except for a user’s own Talk page), and they should not be requesting other players to stay off their pages or denying others of edits.
• Thomasfyfe will be re-working the front page to make the Editor’s Hub more prominent there. The Editor’s Hub shows a list of pages that could use some additional attention from the community, by either being created in the first place, or with additional information and content. Please check out the hub and help improve the quality of the content on the wiki!

In-Game Changes

A couple of changes have been implemented on the Minecraft server:

• Players who have been AFK for longer than 1 hour will now be automatically kicked by the server. This kick will also apply to visible staff members.
• The /speed command has been enabled for [Trustees] and above. Note that the maximum speed for non-staff has been capped to 50%. This means non-staff doing /speed 10 will go at 50% of maximum. Staff members are granted permissions to bypass this limit, with /speed 10 for them going at 100% of maximum.

TPS Issues

After the main server was updated to Minecraft 1.12.1, we have noticed occasional occurrences where the TPS drops to severely low levels. These drops don’t affect normal activities like chatting or building, but does affect entities and redstone propagation. After some investigation, it was discovered that the drops were caused by certain items being placed into hoppers and chests. Two instances of these bad hoppers/chests have been found and have been since removed, one of the lab world, and one of the MRT Mail Centre. However, there may still be additional areas that could cause further TPS drops. If you notice any further severe TPS drops while on the server, please notify staff immediately. Thank you for your patience and understanding while we continue to investigate this issue.

New Moderators + Criteria on how we choose staff

We are pleased to announce that we will be offering two players the position of [Trial Mod]. One player has accepted the position, while we are waiting for the other to be online before we offer the job. Congratulations to the players below!

• mine_man_
• ???

Also, jphgolf4321 has been re-promoted to full moderator status after a 3 month probation period.

Finally, I have added a new section to the Ranks page that explains the process of how we choose new staff members, and lists qualities that we look for and avoid in staff candidates. Please read this if you have ever wondered why you or other players haven’t been chosen for staff.

Roads

• B752 (proposed by Seshpenguin) connecting A76 west to the town of Pixl has been approved.
• B4 (proposed by Just_robinho), a ring road encircling Marblegate has been partially approved. The western section and parts of the northern section have been approved.
• B52 (proposed by SubmergedSubway) connecting the towns of Sanctuary Hills and Belmill has been approved on the condition that the road be renamed, as there is already an existing B52 road.
• A80 (proposed by the UC Roads Committee) connecting Waterville with the A90 has been approved.
• A8 Extension (proposed by the UC Roads Committee) from Vegeta into the northwest has been approved.
• B1903 (proposed by CAMNMM) connecting A78 to the town of Oasis Sands has been approved.
• A50, A507, and A51 (proposed by chiefbozx) in the vicinity of Schillerton and Whiteley has been approved.
• An unnamed B-Road (proposed by LithiumMirnuriX) between the cities of Janghwa and Kolpino has been approved.

Projects

• A proposal from autobus22 to extend RaiLinQ into the city of Paixton has been approved.
• A proposal from Soso123 to build the Freedon Silverwood International Airport has been deferred, as we require more details on the exact location of the airport.
• A proposal from suppoe to repave the Central City roads with black concrete blocks has been denied, on the basis that this player lacks the WorldEdit powers needed to effectively change the roads, and that we do not want to change these roads at this time.
• A proposal from chiefbozx to build the Schillerton Cannon River (a canal) has been approved.
• A proposal from camelfantasy to widen natural rivers in the vicinity of the town of Kanto has been partially approved. The rivers immediately north and south of the town (marked in red in the proposal map) may be widened. Another proposal will need to be sent later after the town has expanded in order to widen other rivers in the area.

Auctions

• A request from 34lynx72 to own Downsview (ZS21) has been approved on the condition that time2makemymove is consulted beforehand and gives his approval.
• A request from mervynang to own C47 has been denied. We advise that mervynang contact tooturntjulia, the actual owner of the nearby town at V28, before resubmitting a request.
• A request from MIKE24DUDE to own F4/I4 has been approved on the condition that massive landscarring in the area of F3/I3 be fixed.

Next GSM Date

• The next General Staff Meeting now has a concrete date! It will be held on Saturday, October 28th at 7 PM UTC.
• Also, for the November GSM afterwards, we are planning to hold this meeting at a time that is most convenient for our members and staff who reside outside of the American and European timezones. More details will be announced as we get closer to that date.

That is all for now.

Thanks,
Frumple

Hi all,

Here are some assorted announcements for this month:

September GSM Date

The next General Staff Meeting will be held this Saturday, September 23rd at 7 PM UTC (12 PM PDT / 3 PM EDT). Current agenda topics include the following:

• Reviewing the voting process for City Rank Candidate Batches due to a recent lack of votes from staff
• Discussion about recent page edit wars on the wiki and what can be done to prevent them or enforce rules around them
• Adding miscellaneous commands and permissions.

Please be sure to e-mail staff before Friday, September 22nd at 7 PM UTC to submit any road and project proposals, or auction requests.

New World Dynmap Render

Due to many members being busy and heading back to school, there has been an recent overall decline of players on the server. This is a good opportunity to perform a full render on the New World, which was last fully rendered in January and has only been updated in small portions by staff members.

The next full render of the New World will begin after the server restart on Monday, September 25th at 4 AM UTC (9 PM PDT / 12 AM EDT) and is expected to last 2 to 3 whole days, depending on the number of players online and server performance. Please note the following during this period:

• An in-game message will be shown every 5 minutes stating the render’s progress.
• The server will lag during this time, so please avoid doing anything intensive while on there.
• Please do not complain about the lag, it is counterproductive.
• No WorldEdits will be allowed while the render is in progress.

City Rank Candidate Batch #17 Delayed

Due to lack of votes from staff, voting for the current City Rank Candidate Batch has been extended to September 30th, with promotions expected to be given by October 1st. Sorry for the inconvenience.

New Status Page

I have set up a new webpage that shows the current status of all MRT services including Minecraft servers, Mumble servers, and websites: https://status.minecartrapidtransit.net.

This page refreshes every minute, and also shows version information and online player counts. You can hover over the player count to get the list of online players, and you can hover over the status to get a more detailed description. Please note that the player count includes vanished staff members. Do not bother them in-game or you may be given a warning.

If you suspect a server or website has gone down, please consult this page first before notifying staff. Do note that this status page is hosted on the same machine with all the services it lists, so if there are any network issues, then those issues will either not show up on the status page, or you may not be able to access the status page at all.

That is all for now.

Thanks,
Frumple

Hi all,

There will be some maintenance performed on the server next Monday, September 11th from 4pm to 7pm UTC (9am to 12pm PDT). The following services will be affected:

• The Minecraft server will be down during this period and will be updated to Minecraft 1.12.1. Please note that you cannot connect a MC 1.12 client to a MC 1.12.1 server or vice versa, so please be sure to download the MC 1.12.1 client when reconnecting to the server.
• The wiki will be in readonly mode during a portion of this period for backup purposes.
• The Mumble server may be taken down and restarted several times during this period for configuration purposes.

Check our Twitter or Discord for the latest updates regarding this maintenance.

Thanks,
Frumple

Hi all,

Apologies for the delay regarding these GSM results. For the ease of writing this post, the results will be combined together. As always, the recordings for the public portions of these meetings are available here:

• July 2017 GSM Public Portion Recording
• August 2017 GSM Public Portion Recording

Community Events

MRT 5th Anniversary: Old World Tour and MRT Theme Park

The 5th birthday of the MRT Server has come and gone. Be sure to check out the following attractions from this year’s celebrations:

• Feeling nostalgic about the old world and the server’s ancient builds? Check out the Old World Tour by heading to Spawn Station on the Old World and going to any Emerald Warp Booth.
• MRT Land, a new community-built amusement park east of Central City, is now officially open! Check it out by flying east of F0 station or taking the new Central City Metro.

Moderators

At the August GSM, the staff considered several candidates for the trial moderator position. In the end, staff decided to offer the position to two members:

Congratulations to hvt2011 and unjinz for becoming our newest trial moderators! As with all trial moderators, they will be given a 3-month probation period to learn the ropes and become effective moderators. At the end of the probation, a decision will be made on whether the trial moderators will be promoted to full moderator or not.

Roads

Approved Roads

• An extension to B40 proposed by tomtomy8 has been approved.
• A proposal by jphgolf4321 to upgrade various roads (A270/A270-R/B12) in the vicinity of Ravenna has been approved.

Denied Roads

• An unnamed road proposed by I-90 into the western desert and mesa biomes has been denied due to being too long and not connecting to any significant towns in that region.

Projects and Proposals

Approved Projects and Proposals

• A proposal by mervynang to create a warp rail line as an alternative to a traditional minecart rail line has been approved on the condition that the warp signs only warp to the adjacent stations on the line. Specifically, the creation of a “warp hub” that connects to all stations on the line is not allowed in accordance with the rules.
• A proposal by SilverBubble for adding airbuses to the town of Coruscant has been approved.
• A proposal by autobus22 to allow stone and stone derivative blocks to be driven upon with uCars has been partially approved. Regular stone will not be allowed as it is naturally abundant in the world terrain, but other stone derivatives such as granite, diorite, andesite, and their polished forms are now drivable.
• A proposal by AP_Red to extend the Eastern Line to Verdantium has been approved.
• A proposal by mikefishr to expand the Ilirea Airport to match the city’s current size has been approved.

Denied Projects and Proposals

• A proposal by SoSo123 for adding airbuses to the town of Chalxior has been denied.
• A proposal by _HeavenAngel_ to construct a space research facility (not a spaceport) in the city of Quiris (at Senator rank) has been denied citing existing airfield/airport rules that are intended to prevent any such “ambiguous” builds from taking too much space on the server. However, the staff would like to clarify that large airport or spaceport facilities built at the Governor rank can be split up between multiple tracts of unconnected land. This means that you may have multiple airport, spaceport, or space research facilities in your Governor city, as long as the total size of all facilities is less than 50% the size of the city.
• A proposal by MikeRoma to construct a ski resort for the city of Copperport has been denied. The proposal called for the creation of an artificial mountain in the middle of the ocean, which is not conducive to respecting the landscape. The staff recommend that the ski resort be built in a nearby existing mountain biome instead.
• A proposal by autobus22 to construct the RaillinQ line over the Desert Line portion between Bexley to Paixton has been denied at this time due to heavy disagreements of how the line should interact with the MRT. Staff are also waiting for BaronThamesBank to return for clarification on how the original line was approved without sufficient notification to other staff.
• A proposal by autobus22 to construct a RaillinQ station in the west side of Central City has been denied. However, staff have designated and Worldguarded an area west of Central City for the purpose of building a shared rail junction for 3rd-party rail lines and companies in the future. More details about this project may come to light in future GSMs.
• A proposal by EliteNeon to allow the construction of Elytraports has been denied, as it presents itself as an exception to the existing airfield and airport rules, and would be difficult to enforce.
• A proposal by BernCow to allow the construction of helipads at the Mayor rank has been denied due to similar reasons as above.

Auctions

Approved Auctions

• A request by ryanfr to own C61/ZS18 has been approved.
• A request by TheSubway to own T40 has been approved on the condition that he works with XtremeF, a neighbouring town mayor, on planning the integration of T40.
• A request by SubmergedSubway to own F6 has been approved.
• A request by FredTheTimeLord to own the town of Numark as well as the company Met Rail (which has many assets and buildings in Numark) has been approved.
• A request by time2makemymove to own ZS19 has been approved.
• Two separate requests by mervynang and SubmergedSubway to own portions of ZS4 has been approved. mervynang will own and operate the rail lines in the town, while SubmergedSubway will be the new mayor of the town itself.
• A request by mine_man_ to own Kelvinside (I20/C51) has been approved.
• A request by tarheelscouse to own Pelham (M19) has been approved on the condition that MishkaMan, the nearby mayor of Kolpino, is consulted beforehand.
• A request by nicbrats to own C30 has been approved.

Denied Auctions

• A request by CyAmethyst to own P22/P23 has been denied as the town owner is still active.
• A request by Purrcat2010 to own the town of Wolf Peak has been denied as the town is too far away from Purrcat’s current town.

City Rank Candidate Batch #15 and #16 Results

Feedback documents for these batches are now available. Links are below:

• Candidate Batch #15 Feedback
• Candidate Batch #16 Feedback

Congratulations to FredTheTimeLord for his promotion to [Senator] for his city of Bakersville!

Voting for City Rank Candidate Batch #17 has begun and voting is scheduled to conclude by September 14th with promotions by September 15th, assuming that we have sufficient votes from staff. If there are not enough votes by this date, an announcement will be posted to Discord with the new voting end date. The following cities are in Batch #17:

[Senator] Candidates

• Waterville (PtldKnight)
• Welsbury (dragonbloon419)
• Chalxior (SoSo123)
• Coruscant (SilverBubble)

[Governor] Candidates

• Heampstead (MikeRoma)
• Dabecco (Sirots)
• Whiteley (AP_Red)

[Premier] Candidates

• City of Evella (LDShadowLord)
• Segville (godzilltrain)

City Rank Candidate Batch #18 is currently open for submissions and voting will begin October 1st. As always, submit your town for consideration using the City Rank Promotion Request Form.

Those are all the announcements for now.

Thanks,
Frumple

Hi all,

No results from the July GSM are available yet, but they will be coming soon. Until then, here are some server events that are happening this week:

MRT Land Community Build

MRT Land is a community-built theme park project hosted by thomasfyfe and officially endorsed by the server. The event will run from July 22nd to August 5th, and all members are encouraged to contribute rides, franchises, and other details to this project. Please be sure to read the rules on the wiki page before you jump in. You can visit MRT Land by using the special warp sign available at spawn.

Evella Expo

The Evella Expo is one of the first major exhibition events on the server, organized and run by LDShadowLord. The expo will run from July 26th to July 30th, and features many creations, businesses, and franchises from various members of the server. You can visit the Evella Expo by using another special warp sign available at spawn.

Big Brother 2

The second installment of Big Brother 2 is now underway, Organized by notorious gamemaster MinecraftYoshi26, this server-run reality series will feature competitions, collusion, backstabbing, and drama (hopefully the good kind, not the bad kind).

That’s all for now.

Thanks,
Frumple