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Road Road Road Road

The A62 was re-aligned with a new proposal from crimsonf0x. This project was started by Yellowitcher but stalled due to inactivity. Instead of going west at Savannah, it will continue further south to Tinimia. This will allow for a future extension to Lumeva.

B287, proposed by OriginRailway, was denied for not having a route selected and concerns over terraforming. These can be fixed by Origin selecting a route from his proposed alignments and submitting a sample of his road for the next staff meeting.

B844, proposed by RadiantRanger26, was approved between Radiant’s town and Kaloro City (Needn_NL).

Proposed by HarborRandom852, staff approved a plan for a sightseeing bus terminal and network based out of Central City – Ravenswood Avenue (F0) station. Harbor was given free reign to pick the location of the terminal around the station. Staff request that they try to integrate their terminal into the Forest station. For more info, contact HarborRandom852.

M R T

Skelezomperman has finished their extension of the Plains Line from Hannibal to Caravaca. We had two applications for stations and were given to the following:

• P57: STthecat
• P64: HarborRandom852

P60 and P61 are open to claiming as of now! Other stations not mentioned have been given to respective towns that have claims over the area.

Yours truly proposed the long awaited Northern Eastern extension from Titsensaki to Dwarka. This alignment was approved and Missa_Solemnis will be assisting with the construction.

Lake Rename

Staff accepted a proposal from chimata to rename Lake 5 to Misty Lake.

This was a long GSM. With a duration of a little over 2 hours, we had a lot of healthy discussion over rules and other projects that I’ll get into with this post.

Mods?

Unfortunately, no new mods this GSM. We did have 3 nominations but were for 3 different people so no one got the necessary 2 nominations to be eligible. However, this process did change a little due to this GSM.

Frumple proposed allowing witness testimony (yes, like court cases) to be allowed as evidence for moderator nominations. This was approved by staff and goes into effect for August GSM. This does not open the door for vague statements like “Candidate X is very friendly, polite, and helpful”. We are looking for specific statements such as “I witnessed that Candidate X helped resolve a conflict between these two people, but I don’t remember when it happened/ can’t look it up through Discord.” or “I’ve seen Candidate Y always try to help other players numerous times, like giving building advice or placing water.” to give a few examples.

Clarifying Da Rules

autobus22 proposed removing the reasons question from the Trustee Endorsement Form (as in “Why are you endorsing this member for Trustee?”). Frumple expressed interest in revamping the entire system but said that by removing the question, it doesn’t help. Other staff expressed similar intent to keep the current system in place and so, the proposal was denied.

Also, autobus22 proposed a clarification on Franchise Rule 1. This clarification was to exempt railway stations from this rule. This was approved.

Franchisees have the authority to relocate a franchise within the building or town over which they hold jurisdiction without notifying the franchise owner. This rule does not apply to railway stations.

New writing of Franchise Rule 1

LondonThameslink proposed adding “Heritage Sites” designation on the server. Staff denied making this an official thing for the time being but do encourage members to do this unofficially. That isn’t to say we might consider it later but many questions remained unanswered such as “how do we determine these?” and “what would we consider heritage sites right now?”. Vulpicula started a wiki page here, where members can collaborate on a list of what they would deem culturally significant builds/towns on the server.

Frumple proposed changing the 300/500 block rule in regards to how it applies to 3rd party rail lines. When this was settled, we did have a few things come out of our discussion. The following changes are now in effect:

• Rail lines do not have a 300/500 claim rule around them. As in, towns can spring up along the rail line if they choose.
• 300/500 block rule apply to “registered” towns. Registered means anything on our town list. This is a big change since members can now request to add significant structures that aren’t towns to our town list. Staff would then treat that build as if it were a “town”, by all professional means. Unranked towns can also be added to the town list if they desire as well.
• Players can waive their 300/500 claim rule on towns regardless of town rank if they desire. If you don’t intend to expand a town that we have on the town list, you can let us know and will update our records.

To add anything to the town list, you have to give staff the following:

• Name of who owns it (should be who is requesting it)
• Name of the build/town/structure
• Coordinates

This can be done on discord through #requests-to-staff or over email.

Life is a Highway

Staff approved two road proposals this GSM!

B84 (CaptainObi): between the Aurora Region‘s community town of Augusta and Mojito1014‘s town of Grassbush.

A746 (LithiumMinuriX): reproposed as this is a two year old project and staff asked Lithium to re-acquire permissions. Sese is overseeing the project to ensure completion of the road.

New Lights

Staff approved two event funding grants!

Melecie proposed a franchise building contest (Astere 2021 Expo) in addition to the ones above. However, this was denied as there wasn’t sufficient info that staff needed to approve it. Staff wanted to know more details around the judging criteria and other things such as originality for bulids and timeline for the whole event.

Changing Hands

Staff approved 1 IAT (Inactive Asset Transfer) and I IAB (Inactive Asset Bypass).

IAT: hvt2011 was given Dulwich (Jian_Zen)

IAB: 3 in 1 proposal by autobus22 to bypass 3 inactive developments around the Larkspur area.

My Name is..

Staff approved a lake rename too!

Lake 39 (in the NW of the MRT) was renamed to Eilean Sea.

Oh, would you look at that? Only three topics! Clocking in at 9 and a half minutes, we had a pretty quick ISM. Here’s the results.

• hvt2011 was approved for his IAT of Southern Plains Rail (formerly owned by Jian_Zen)
• LondonThameslink was approved for his IAT of Moonlight Bay (formerly owned by Psychotic_Elite)
• __7d was denied their proposal to rename Lake 43 to Stroopwafelmeer (Stroopwafel Lake in Dutch) as their town of Autunno was considered too far from the lake. In addition, a separate town/suburb, Autunno Highlands, was on the lake but deemed not significantly developed enough to have the right to name the lake.

Aaaand that’s all, folks! Until the next one, make sure to send in your topics and Moderator nominations for the next General Staff Meeting on July 10th!

-Sese

New Mods!

We’ve promoted both candidates from this GSM. Congrats to Needn_NL and Missa_Solemnis. The votes were as follows:

Rule Changes

We had a discussion over items with enchantments. We considered different proposals from Frumple and Chief on setting an official policy over enchanted items. Staff settled on a proposal from Frumple that modifies General Rule #6 to change “malicious” with “harmful”. The intent was to keep it simple and enforceable.

6. Do not use harmful client mods, hacks, or items.

“Harmful” is defined as anything that is detrimental to the experience of other players. This can include:

* Causing lag or crashes to other players or the server.

* Gaining an unfair advantage over other players.

* Causing damage to the worlds or server.

Schematica, Optifine, and Minimaps are allowed on the server.

New Rule proposal from Frumple

We’ve scheduled the rest of our meetings for the rest of the year. We are having a GSM in July this year to try to give more opportunities for moderator nominations and allow more chances for event fundings for anniversary events.

Road road road road

B989, proposed by HarborRandom852, was approved. The yellow line below on the map is the proposed route.

Given VickTori‘s resignation from staff, the responsibility of finishing the A8 was brought up at the GSM. AP_Red volunteered to lead the effort.

Coming to the Airwaves

We had a few events proposed this GSM and we approved all of them. We can’t wait to see all the fun that’s coming up!

Changing Hands

We had two IAT’s this GSM and we approved both of them!

• A Ski Resort near Miu Wan (owner unknown) was transferred to HarborRandom852.
• Comet and Ariadne Ships in MRT Marina were transferred to AirplaneNiner.

That’s all folks! I’ll see ya at the next one.

-Sese

In addition to the May 2021 ISM, the administrators also held an Administrative Staff Meeting, which produced a few results of its own that we would like to share. The admins accepted one ban appeal, and made the following decisions on other items:

Inactivity proceedings initiated

Admins periodically review the activity levels of staff members, and we have recently noticed that a few moderators have either already crossed or are near our thresholds of “inactivity”. Because of this, we are initiating inactivity review proceedings with two moderators, and will monitor a few others over the coming month to determine if we need to expand our review.

For those who are fairly new, “initiating inactivity review proceedings” is a fancy way to say that the admins will be discussing activity status with the involved moderators one-on-one and determining what the likelihood is of that moderator to return to active status. Just because we have initiated proceedings does not mean that a specific moderator will be suspended for inactivity.

However, we are letting everyone know now so that if our conversations lead us to issue a suspension or for a moderator to step down for inactivity, that no one is caught off guard. We certainly don’t like to reduce our numbers (especially leading up to the busy summer season), but we do need to ensure that the players with access to staff tools are continuing to serve the community first and foremost, and active status is a critical component of that.

Speaking of moderators…

Reviewing the nomination process again

Ever since we first used the new moderator promotion process six months ago, we’ve been continuously making changes to have a better experience for everyone involved. We have regularly heard feedback from members that the requirements to submit a nomination are fairly high, and while we don’t want to lower our standards when it comes to the voting phase, we do want to make it easier for nominations to be considered.

We don’t have any specifics at this time, and any changes we make would take effect for the July GSM. However, we do recognize that this is a burdensome process (especially with regards to the collection of supporting evidence), and we are open to any suggestions or feedback that anyone is willing to share. If you have any recommendations, please let an admin know.

If you have a nomination you’ve been working on, the deadline to submit it for consideration at the next GSM is 7:00 pm UTC on Sunday, June 6 (a little over a week from now). We are in fairly high need of new moderators, especially for individuals outside of the Americas, so please send in nominations if you have them.

Yoshi has stepped down

Yesterday (unrelated to the ASM), MinecraftYoshi26 announced, and the remainder of the admins accepted, his resignation from the staff team effective immediately. Yoshi has stepped down so that he can spend time preparing to enter the workforce and pursuing other endeavors. Yoshi’s in-game rank has been set to Governor for his towns of Hummingbird Islands and Itokani. His resignation announcement is available in #announcements in Discord.

Yoshi has been with the server since the beginning and has instituted some of our most popular community events. From The Amazing Race to the MRTvision Screenshot Contests to spontaneous games of Bootleg Telephone, Yoshi has made some truly incredible contributions to the community, something that we are incredibly grateful for. While we certainly hope that other members and staff will bring similar large events to the server in the future, there is something special about the events that Yoshi has conducted that we don’t think anyone will be able to replicate to the same style, degree, and scale that Yoshi has while he has been on staff. We can’t thank Yoshi enough for everything that he has done for us, and we wish him the best in his future endeavors.

As a result of Yoshi’s departure (and the recent departures of godzilltrain and megascatterbomb), the admins are considering retiring the concept of “titled” positions, with the exception of Head Administrator. The Special Events Coordinator title will not be assigned to anyone at this time, partially because we hope that special events are run by a diverse group of members in the future.

Upcoming meeting schedule

We are making two adjustments to the meeting schedule:

• The July GSM will be happening this year, and will occur on July 10.
• The July ISM has been moved forward one week to Saturday, July 24.

Staff meetings in June and August are not affected and will occur on their usual dates.

Thanks everyone!

<3,
Chief
Head Administrator