So I was bored one day long, long ago and decided I would say "Everyone go to MrsMeganCraft for the ultimate Minecraft experience" (obviously a fake server), I was banned etc... etc....
LOL, don't even try that. You got banned on purpose. :p You said MrsMeganCraft.COM, or something similar that had a "." in it (which you knew full well would trigger the advertising filter, which you also knew full well that staff could not see through at the time). Also, immediately before that, you apparently asked about an easy way to get banned. And if I remember correctly, you didn't appeal until now. I understand why you weren't happy with the server and its staff, and why some people aren't happy now, but please don't rewrite history to fit your narrative.
Moving on... I don't know why voting hasn't been fixed by now. :( It's not because it hasn't been brought up (repeatedly). The only thing I can guess is that it's not a big priority. fuzzlr and Onis both said over the summer that they weren't interested in advertising until the server is fixed and improved, and attracting players through voting/list websites still doesn't seem to be of great importance to them now. New Spawn took a lot longer than it was supposed to, and the release of 1.8 screwed a lot of things up (and caused a host of bugs right after a host of other bugs had been fixed).
/jobs is gone, please don't rant but noobs have no way of making money in a mindless drone way. Little kids want to go on a server and dig for money, this might sound stupid but its what they want, give it to them. What kid is going to join a server only to find out it is hard to make money without thinking for more than 60 seconds, yup, not many... People are lazy and stupid, give them stupid and easy ways to make money.
You're right that there should be ways for people to make modest amounts of money easily (which will make them more enthusiastic about participating in the economy in a bigger way). I'm thinking a modified version of /jobs could be possible in the future - something that fixes the problems that it had in the past. Onis doesn't want it, but other higher-ups may be open to it and could possibly change that. I know there are other things related to the economy in the works, though, which could be why this still isn't being considered. Staff members have shared the community's concerns (and their own) that it is hard right now for new players to make money. The addition of some sell signs in the admin shop was a response to that, but I'm hoping that more will be done soon. By the time I got Supermod, it was a lot harder to answer when a new player asked, "How do I make Meebles?"
A lot of the reason I was recently demoted was for "bashing" the server in skype chats. I would continually complain about the fact that nothing was visibly getting done.
~ @abbythrowsstuff
Hmm. If it were possible to get demoted for complaining about nothing getting done, I would never have gotten the chance to resign and Deinen would've been out the door a while ago. ;)
During my demotion rant that Cooleys gave me on skype, he said that there are test servers for these things. Apparently there are test servers were stuff is supposedly getting done however, no one on staff or the community knows about it. (Until you read my comment, surprise. Also this isn't leaking staff chat since this was communicated to me in a private conversation)
I knew that these exist. :) Not because I was given any special info, but I've heard references to testing things on other servers a few times. But we never knew much about what was going on there - or sometimes what was going on in MeepCraft itself - and I'm not sure why that information would be hidden from staff. It helps staff to do their jobs better, and keeps up morale among staff and the other players, when they're kept "in the loop" and know what's going on. Even if it's best not to share everything with players (in order to avoid giving false expectations, encouraging an exploit, etc.), a better informed staff can better respond to player concerns. Some of my attempts to open up these information channels were met with resistance... maybe that has something to do with the fact that staff keep leaking things.
The shops are all coincidentally owned by staff because staff knows what's going to happen before it happens...well sometimes they know. Certain people are privy to economical choices that could be extremely beneficial to players however, the players don't know its happening. This really irked me, especially since I was privy to the information of the chest shops and the community wasn't 100% in the know.
You have a point here, generally. I think staff should give more information to players when possible, and if it's not possible, shouldn't personally benefit from the knowledge that they have as staff. Admins (and those privy to admin information) tend to know the most about what's going to happen and when, and staff members in general are the ones with the most successful shops right now (but not the only ones having success).
But Onis announced this change in the economy several months ago, and he had publicly confirmed it repeatedly since then. Of course, that doesn't give players an indication of when it will happen. But we kept saying MeepShop would likely be removed with the new spawn (including denying suggestions and bug reports with the reasoning that MeepShop was going to be removed soon), and finally were able to give indications that new spawn was right around the corner (including photos). Admins made a few premature announcements of the new spawn's arrival, but if anything, that gave players more time to prepare for what they knew was coming. In the weeks leading up to it, I remember people talking in TeamSpeak and in shout about what they should invest in and what they should sell before MeepCraft becomes a chestshop economy. People began reserving pwarp names and building malls in anticipation. It wasn't really a secret, it just didn't happen on a specific date.
From the transition from Vshop->Meepshop there was announcements every goddamn minute but staff couldn't be bothered to put a similar announcement saying, "Hey, maybe you should invest in a chest shop!"
I've often wondered why that announcement feature/plugin isn't used more often. You're right that it should be, and it could have been for the removal of MeepShop. It's annoying in the moment, but as long as it's temporary it's a great feature to notify players of changes that will affect them.
In my time as staff, I can count the amount of times I had seen fuzzlr communicate with staff on one hand. It was twice, both of them last year. Its truly disgusting.
fuzzlr is almost never around, to be sure. I wish he would show more interest in the server that he owns and the staff that help keep it going. But what you said isn't really true. I have only been staff this year and I have seen him communicate with staff before.
But the fact is that staff has pretty much put gag orders on certain suggestions like factions, jobs and bringing back vshop because a higher up said no.
There is no "gag order." But until anyone other than fuzzlr, Onis, or Cooleysworld can add Factions (for example), and when all three of those people PLUS the majority of staff and many player have repeatedly said it's not a good idea and shouldn't happen, it's highly misleading the community to say it's "Accepted." It's not accepted and it never was (edit: in "new Meep," I mean), and most likely never will be (though I don't know that last one for sure). If a discussion is needed to revisit the idea, then that should happen - whether it's among all staff, or just a couple interested people trying to persuade an admin. But I prefer that staff be open and up-front with players, when possible, about what is likely to happen and what is not. Doing otherwise erodes the community's already-wavering trust. (You could also reword those last two sentences with "admins," "other staff," and "staff team"... instead of "staff," "players," and "community." Like I said above, there is definitely an issue at times with communication between the levels of staff, though I think it has improved from where it was when I first joined the team.)
I do think there is a good point in here, too, though. :) Staff should welcome any and all suggestions that are put forward reasonably, respectfully, and for the good of the server (not just for a personal preference or out of boredom). That should include being willing to revisit (once in a while, not every time) topics like /jobs and others that have been auto-denied in the past. I specifically asked Mods+ not to auto-deny a suggestion about bringing back V-shop, so that we could let players discuss the pros and cons and see where the conversation went. When people kept talking about it in /shout, I encouraged players to post their complaints in that thread, where they are more likely to be read and responded to and possibly taken seriously. Instead, the thread devolved into posts saying #bringbackvshop and spawned a useless duplicate thread, before it died off after a while and was finally denied. :( In order to make real change, staff (of all levels) and non-staff players will have to meet each other halfway.
